Motion

Every film on the General Translation motion roster, with its length and its status. Each rendered film plays here from the copy the site publishes.

A film is rendered when its final render exists, in production when its folder or research package exists, and planned otherwise. A final render without a web copy stays in the motion folder, and its row gives the path.

Section 1Films 01 to 11

Films

The brand film, the mark sting, the blog films, the Lottie film, the release board and the showreel, in the order of the roster.

Every product in every language

The company in one breath.

45 to 50 s · Planned

The bar monogram sting

A logo sting for the start and end of any video.

0:06 · Rendered · motion/out/mark-sting.mp4

Designing docs for humans

The post takes a docs page apart (zones, layers, the reading path, the redline pass, type, alignment, icons, the hit list).

Read the post

Contact sheet: 107 frames · PNG, 6.0 MB
Script: 11 lines · v4 cut

Contact sheet and script

Two frames a second across the v4 cut, each from the middle of its half second, eight to a row: 107 frames. It is the cut that plays above.

The contact sheet of the v4 cut of Designing docs for humans: 107 frames, two a second, eight to a row — the WebP at full size, 1.4 MB · download the PNG, 6.0 MB

Most docs readers are now AI agents, but humans still read docs to evaluate a product, so General Translation redesigned its docs from scratch around its writing: it deleted the clutter, made the sidebar one accordion, gave the writing open space, kept translated pages aligned and pointed each page at what its reader wants, and it still treats docs design as an open problem.

53.5 s · v4 · Narrator: Frederick Surrey

Time	Voice	Line	On screen
0:01.00	Narrator	Most docs readers are now AI agents.	GT’s old docs page is wired to a column of 28 readers. Pulses run to the 24 AI agents, and 4 are people.
0:03.98	Narrator	Humans still read docs to evaluate a product.	“Humans still read docs” builds word by word, with “Humans” in blue. The agents leave and the four people stay, then the page tilts up into the isometric view and lifts apart into plates.
0:07.74	Narrator	General Translation redesigned its docs from scratch so people would read its writing.	The heading becomes “General Translation redesigned its docs.” The GT mark lights white, the page’s extra pieces lift highest, and a thumb runs the contents rail as the writing prints white. Then the stack centres and comes down flat.
0:14.04	Narrator	Interfaces keep getting more cluttered, which creates mental clutter.	With no heading, the clutter arrives in three waves: extra lines, links and buttons, a toast over the demo button, then cards spilling into the margin.
0:18.66	Narrator	The redesign started by deleting extra lines, links, and buttons.	White boxes outline every piece. A band sweeps the general junk away, then the lines, the links and the buttons each leave on their own word, and the header closes into one row.
0:24.94	Narrator	The sidebar is now one accordion, which is rare among docs sites.	The camera pushes into the sidebar. Three old navigation bars connect into it one after another, and the accordion’s rail draws under “One accordion.” Then the camera pulls back until the page is one lit page in a wall of docs sites.
0:31.34	Narrator	The writing now has more open space around it.	The camera flies into GT’s page. The furniture falls away, and the writing prints line by line with wide margins while a thumb runs down its rail.
0:36.30	Narrator	Translated pages keep the same spacing and alignment.	The camera pulls out to the whole page, and a planet of letters lights under it under “Translated pages.” On “same” every letter switches to another writing system, and three dashed guides show the alignment holds.
0:40.66	Narrator	Each page guides its reader toward the action they want.	With no heading, one reader’s path draws through the page’s five stops to the demo button, which lights white, and a pulse runs along it.
0:44.72	Narrator	Docs design is an open problem, and the team keeps working on it.	“Docs design is an open problem” builds as the page shrinks back among the readers. The path runs on out of the page into one of the people, so the last frame mirrors the first.
0:48.64	No voice	End card, no voice.	The shared end card: the GT mark, the post’s title and its link.

Times are where each line starts in the final, read from the film's own audio.

the script as Markdown

0:54 · Rendered

Rewriting docs for humans and agents

Two readers of one page.

Read the post

0:24 · Rendered · motion/out/blog-rewriting-docs.mp4

Fuma Nama, the philosophy of an open-sourcerer

A portrait of Fumadocs' creator and his credo.

Read the post

Contact sheet: 119 frames · PNG, 5.3 MB
Script: 10 lines · v4 cut

Contact sheet and script

Two frames a second across the v4 cut, each from the middle of its half second, eight to a row: 119 frames. It is the cut that plays above.

The contact sheet of the v4 cut of Fuma Nama, the philosophy of an open-sourcerer: 119 frames, two a second, eight to a row — the WebP at full size, 1.2 MB · download the PNG, 5.3 MB

One developer, Fuma Nama, created Fumadocs, a docs framework with over 13,000 GitHub stars that Vercel Turborepo, shadcn/ui, Better Auth, Unkey and many others use, and he has built it for three years on top of his schoolwork. He learned to code by modding games and reading code, and he did not read documentation. He designed Fumadocs in four layers that developers can take apart, down to copying only the table of contents into their own code. He thinks he would build it the same shape again, and General Translation has made it its first open-source grantee.

59.5 s · v4 · Narrator: Frederick Surrey

Time	Voice	Line	On screen
0:01.04	Narrator	One developer created Fumadocs, a docs framework with over 13,000 stars on GitHub.	“One developer” rises word by word over the fire smoke, with “One” in fire. The words break into cells that become the Fumadocs moon, its 13.3k star count tallies, and two shelves draw out under it.
0:07.98	Narrator	Vercel Turborepo, shadcn/ui, Better Auth, Unkey and many others use it.	Each team’s logo lights in its slot as its name is said, with its GitHub stars: Turborepo, shadcn/ui, Better Auth and Unkey, then Orama and the GT mark together. A fire pulse runs along the shelf into the moon, which turns to glass.
0:16.42	Narrator	Fuma Nama has built it for three years, on top of his schoolwork.	“Fuma Nama” rises above the shelf. Then everything else recedes, and the name stands alone over the smoke.
0:21.02	Narrator	He learned to code by modding games and reading piles of JavaScript.	The name breaks into cells that fall and become code characters. They rain down and pile into a mound, and the last ones land on “JavaScript.”
0:26.34	Narrator	He did not look at any documentation while he was learning.	A small docs page builds above the heap, its table of contents steps once, and it fades on “documentation.” The heap’s top glyphs travel into a code file of 25 lines.
0:31.02	Narrator	He designed Fumadocs in four layers that developers can take apart and reshape.	The file fades as the large Fumadocs moon glows up in its place, with “Fumadocs” beside it. The moon turns to print, seams cut it into four layers that part, and one layer slides out and squares off into a block.
0:37.66	Narrator	The CLI can copy just the table of contents into your codebase.	A match cut on the middle seam turns the moon into a full docs page. Its parts move apart, “Into your codebase” rises, and the table of contents lifts out and travels into a code panel.
0:44.68	Narrator	If he started again from scratch, he thinks Fumadocs would probably have the same shape.	A match cut back to the parted moon. Its pieces return to the circle, and the circle fills row by row with letters from 16 writing systems, the last row landing on “shape.”
0:50.96	Narrator	Fumadocs is General Translation’s first open-source grantee.	The glyph moon turns to glass, moves down and shrinks. The GT mark forms in fire smoke in the corner, and a pulse runs along a connector into the moon on “grantee.”
0:54.66	No voice	End card, no voice.	The shared end card: the GT mark, the post’s title and its link.

Times are where each line starts in the final, read from the film's own audio.

the script as Markdown

1:00 · Rendered

Supporting open-source software

The grants announcement.

14 to 18 s · Planned

Translated Lottie animations

For the upcoming post about translating Lottie animations.

0:19 · Rendered · motion/out/lottie-translation.mp4

The release board

The changelog as a split-flap departure board (a reference the brand names).

0:15 · Rendered · motion/out/release-board.mp4

Supporting Slash companies

The announcement of General Translation's partnership with Slash.

Contact sheet: 73 frames · PNG, 3.2 MB
Script: 6 lines · v8 cut

Contact sheet and script

Two frames a second across the v8 cut, each from the middle of its half second, eight to a row: 73 frames. It is the cut that plays above.

The contact sheet of the v8 cut of Supporting Slash companies: 73 frames, two a second, eight to a row — the WebP at full size, 0.6 MB · download the PNG, 3.2 MB

Slash is building the financial command center for businesses and supports sending and receiving global payments to 180+ countries. General Translation is partnering with Slash, and eligible Slash customers can receive up to $2,000 in translation credits for their app, website, documentation, slides and design files.

36.3 s · v8 · Narrator: Frederick Surrey

Time	Voice	Line	On screen
0:00.38	Narrator	Slash is building the financial command center for businesses. They support sending and receiving global payments to over 180 countries.	Slash's gold Visa card, from Slash's own photo, floats up into place on a warm gold ground and turns slightly in perspective. On "Slash" the Slash wordmark, in white, rises into place centred above the card, and from "building" to "center" a soft highlight slides across the card's brushed metal. On "for" the wordmark fades out and the dithered globe grows from a point to its full size at the card's right, in front of the card; the card slides right and passes behind the globe, getting a little smaller as it goes, and is hidden by the globe's edge, while from "businesses" the gold photo around them dissolves through the screen into the olive light. A white cross prints on the globe's lit upper left by "They". From "sending" 24 white routes, each edged with a thin dark line so it reads on the bright land, draw out of that cross one after another, each ending in a small white cross, while "N / countries" counts up to 180 on "eighty". On "countries" the "+" is set and a gold pulse runs out along every route. The routes pull back and every square of the globe turns into a letter from one of twenty writing systems, then every letter changes once to another script.
0:09.78	Narrator	We're excited to partner with Slash to help ambitious companies reach customers in every language.	Over the globe of scripts for the first words. On "partner" the globe and the figure fade out through the screen while the gold light returns and the Slash x GT lockup prints in reading order: the Slash wordmark, a white x, the GT mark. From there to the end of the line the lockup stands alone on the drifting gold light and slowly grows at an even rate, about nine percent, until the next line begins.
0:15.52	Narrator	So if you bank with Slash, we're giving you up to two thousand dollars in translation credits to localize any product surface.	On "So" the gold light gives way to the olive offer setting through the screen, while across "So if you bank with Slash" the lockup glides and shrinks to half its size into the top right corner. The lockup stays in its corner. On "up" the figure "Up to $2,000 / in translation credits" rises at the top left and counts from $10 to $2,000 by "thousand". A bar of the gold light rises on "credits". Just before "localize" five lines drop from it, and on "localize" five outlined plates draw under them, each with a small drawing of its surface, and on "surface" each plate's own interface string prints along its foot: Sign in, Pricing, Quickstart, Sales deck, Hero banner.
0:22.58	Narrator	That covers your app, website, documentation, slides, design files, and more.	Each plate lights on its word, takes its label (App, Website, Docs, Slides, Design files) and turns its string into its language: ログイン (Japanese), الأسعار (Arabic), त्वरित शुरुआत (Hindi), 세일즈 덱 (Korean), 首页横幅 (Chinese). On "more" a gold pulse runs down the five lines from left to right, and each plate's outline redraws in white as the pulse reaches it.
0:29.60	Narrator	Your product should exist in every language.	On "product" the picture cuts to an app page with a language selector, "Welcome back", three cards and a "Get started" button, in English, and the lockup fades out of its corner through the screen. It switches to Spanish on "exist", French on "every" and Japanese on "language".
0:32.75	No voice		On the music's held chord the app page fades out through the screen as the light changes, and the end card prints: the Slash x GT lockup in the top right corner on the light, larger than it stood through the offer, then "Up to $2,000 / in translation credits" and generaltranslation.com/slash.

Times are where each line starts in the final, read from the film's own audio.

the script as Markdown

0:36 · Rendered

How General Translation works

A looping product GIF of how General Translation localizes an app, made for OpenAI for Startups: the app's text is wrapped in the T component, one command (npx gt translate) writes the translation files, a reviewer edits a translation in the Dashboard, and the app switches between English, Spanish, French and Japanese.

Contact sheet: 35 frames · PNG, 0.4 MB

Contact sheet and script

Two frames a second across the cut, each from the middle of its half second, eight to a row: 35 frames. It is the cut that plays above.

The contact sheet of the cut of How General Translation works: 35 frames, two a second, eight to a row — the WebP at full size, 0.2 MB · download the PNG, 0.4 MB

0:17 · Rendered

Showreel

After every film is final, a 40 to 50 s showreel cut from them: the mark sting opens, the strongest four to six seconds of each film follow on hard cuts on the beat grid, the sting's end card closes.

40 to 50 s · assembled last · Planned

Section 2Films 12 to 14

Translation series

Three films about how a translation made the words a language uses. Each one has a research package with a script, a post, a vocabulary table, sources and a fact-check list.