Monday, October 29, 2012

Mr. Frosty Man

It's never too early to get into the holiday spirit. Check out this claymation for Sufjan Stevens' new song Mr. Frosty Man

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Cadillac ATS versus the world

We do lots of serial work. It's interesting to consider a series based on challenges, like "we're on a mission to create great customer service" or "we're traveling across the country to find the best performers..." Etc.
It might be a cool device to increase the pull-through for our next serial.


Dr. Seuss titles revised according to their subtexts

Dr. Seuss' work is a study in subtlety. Subtlety enhances the quality of conversation and critique (people want to solve their own puzzles). These revised titles are interesting to me because they decode the subtexts, thus weakening the impact of the story. How can we introduce more subtlety into our films to enhance the viewers' journey to understanding and alignment?

Thursday, October 25, 2012

People Who Live vs. Robots

To answer Dave's post about People Who Live: They will live until these robots kill us all.

Future Catwalk


26 iterations on one walk into infinity.

People Who Live - Terry Richardson

There must be something pretty magnetic about Terry Richardson. Not only did his disposable point and shoot style inspire the American Apparel brand photography and countless others, but his portraits are a debaucherous whose who of Hollywood. His style is simple but iconic, mischievous, trashy, and deeply personal - all at the same time.

This dude also parties. A lot.

There for he is the first in a new post series I call: People Who Live


Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Emmanuelle Walker

In a recent blog post I stumbled upon illustrator/animator Emmanuelle Walker. What I found shortly after visiting his website is that he has a plethora of wonderful work. I describe his style as vintage quirkiness with an influence of fashion. I particularly love his unofficial music video, 'ON and OFF', for Royksöpp — So Easy. It began as a simple experiment in animation and turned out to be one hypnotic masterpiece.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Premiere Pro Advocacy

You can upload video straight to MediaSilo from the Premiere Pro export box. 


Screen shot 2012 10 22 at 3 31 02 PM

Friday, October 19, 2012

Andrew Stubbs Johnston for Durex - Possibly NSFW

There is some great character design, animation and sound design to this piece. And it made me laugh.

Durex - Get It On from Stubbzilla on Vimeo.

Funny... there's a nice little hill that leads into our parking lot. Hm.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Kid Jokes

Finally finished my submission for Full Secs. I really loved only having 24 frames to worry about.

Skeptical Pesci is Skeptical.

Moscars: Film Awards 2012

Image and video hosting by TinyPic
There is an actual video submission contest for Movember.com. This is a promo video for personal use composed by a contestant from last year.

Here is the video submitted by the Movember contestant that got second place. Should have gotten the gold but that's just me.

I LIKE TO MAKE THINGS

Chad and I were discussing how the video team needs to actually finish a reel, but not in the traditional sense of just flashing clips of our work. We need something that teaches as well as it shows. The talk reminded me of a very different reel I had seen before from Nathan Boey. The reel doesn't show any of his actual work, instead everything in the piece was made to represent what he can do. Check it out for yourself if you don't believe me.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Star Wars Uncut: Scene 321

Here is my scene. I was inspired by the various shapes and character of the beer bottles in the aisle at the Anderson's. Particularly Leia.

My set was fairy simple.

I had fun doing this and I'm glad I did. I might take a crack at another one.




Friday, October 12, 2012

Full Secs - LATE


LATE from Joshua Lightle on Vimeo.

Adobe: Premiere Pro and Audition

CS5.5 but it is the same for CS6

How to Stop Saying UM

In editing, pause fillers such as "um", "uh", "again", "you know", and "like" are the difference between easily cutting an interview and a nightmarish decent into razor tool madness.

This article was interesting. I realize I could stand to speak more clearly in meetings - and also set a good example for those I might interview by asking clear and concise questions.

Toyota Fantasy Enhancer II

TOYOTA FANTASY ENHANCER II from B-Reel on Vimeo.






Thursday, October 11, 2012

Pockets


Pockets from DANIELS on Vimeo.

One more reason why we need to get back to game.

This guy has a pretty solid argument about how D&D can actually make you a more well rounded and successful person.



NERD!

House of Wine / Morandé

I'm very fond of this animation from Fluor Films on the process of making wine, from start to finish. Where to start? I love the ink like quality of the graphics paired with the texture throughout. I also enjoyed that they only stuck to about 6 colors. The pacing is great, I never felt overwhelmed but I also never felt confused or bored. Lastly, the compositions and transitions really make this a solid piece. The conveyor belt scene is one of my favorites. If you like what you see I suggest checking out Flour Film's site for more work.

One More Beer

One More Beer! from pedro conti on Vimeo.

Light Painting

I was getting inspiration for my TD project that is Sprint Cellular inspired and I came across their light painting commercial here. I went a little further and found that you can pretty much do whatever you imagine with this technique. Pretty friggin' cool.

Metal Dave

Last night Josh and I were working on my Star Wars Uncut animation and I was listening to the latest Converge album. I was getting all into it and Air Guitaring, getting synched about little things and in general being really really happy. Josh starting laughing and I believe his exact words were "Metal Dave cracks me up!". It struck me because I really never stopped to think about how there was a separate part of me that is "Metal Dave". I started as reluctant front man for a rock band, and grew confidence through that experience for 7 wonderful years. It remains my single biggest and most consistent influence.

I have always edited video in the same manor that I approach music, my biggest early influences are music videos and live performances that helped me realize the power of music, the sense of community it brings (particularly metal and hardcore), and the endless quest to create and own that perfect moment of pure live energy.

If you care to listen to me scream my head off my old stuff is on Spotify and iTunes.

Without further ado, the last song I sung with OnceOver in 2006. I did not know this video even existed until last night!
OnceOver - Love of Your Lie (Daves Last Song)

Moshing World Order | Myspace Music Videos

La Poste - Pliages

Style + Finesse

La Poste - Pliages from edouard salier on Vimeo.

Welcome to Coal World

The feeling from this one I can only best describe as old timey circus/Tom Wait's ultimate dream. The animation is pretty good, the metaphors and creative are even better.

Welcome to Coal World (Greenpeace) from DTan on Vimeo.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Chinese Bluegrass

As someone so eloquently stated in the comment section of Youtube, "When East and West meet, there will be hoedowns!" And Geling Jiang plays one mean sanxian.

Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain


The other night on "On Point" I was introduced to, actor, Hal Holbrook's rendition of Mark Twain. The delivery is awesome. This part one of ten.

Partysaurus Rex

Latest and greatest from my friends at Pixar.
Partysaurus Rex on Disney Video

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Red Bull Stratos

Supported by a team of experts Felix Baumgartner plans to ascend to 120,000 feet in a stratospheric balloon and make a freefall jump rushing toward earth at supersonic speeds before parachuting to the ground. This is happening at some point today. You can follow on Twitter for updates or watch live here.

Monday, October 8, 2012

"Hilton Time"

I watched this about a year ago to get inspiration for our hotel's commercial my GM wanted me to make. It's an older campaign but still an effective video. I am just now starting to really appreciate sound design so after watching this video again, I can see why it is so important. I like the beginning where Mr. Goldblum switches from the "real world" to "Hilton time". There are a couple of cool editing techniques in there too. Very cool how they interpreted "Hilton time" into video. I think it works. Thank you Jeff Goldblum.

OLO for iOS


Super fun game and a super fun animation. It's free too...

OLO for iOS from Sennep on Vimeo.

If any of us become famous ... please don't take it out on your pants.

Modern day Leonardo Da Vinci?

Apart from the fact that this dude appears to be a master artist, I especially like his pervy fixation on nude sculptures, he also made a totally badass near-perpetual motion device. I also may start rocking the white jump-suit-open-to-show-the-chest-hair look.

Wheelchair Swimming

Sue Austin is a performance artist whose ambition is to transform perceptions around wheelchair users. After many years of being bedbound, the wheelchair gives her freedom. For many, a wheelchair signifies the end of something; for her, it’s just a start.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Animade Full Secs

Yet another thing to submit to. This one comes from the guys at Animade. They've made this system of animations consisting of a 2 second intro, 1 full second of animation, and a 2 second outro. Some are pretty brilliant, some are ok. Below is one of my favorites, but you can check them all out at Animade's channel here.

How to Post to the Awesome Stew

How to post to the Awesome Stew from David Ayling on Vimeo.

The Wiki Man - Film 1

Quirky little animation illustrating an excerpt from Rory Sutherland's book, "The Wiki Man." Created by Moth Collective and Animade, this animation's personality is as charming and engaging as Rory when he speaks. I find them to be a perfect pairing. To find out more about the book go here.

Human-Powered Freerunning Machine - with Jason Paul


Free running Rube Goldberg machine

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Star Wars Uncut - Something Is Wrong

Star Wars Uncut scene 2 complete, and with only hours to spare. I honestly believe the only reason I completed this was because I had so much energy behind it after creating the first background. This was actually the original scene I was going to choose, and now after completing both I know I should have followed my gut. However, I'm still glad I got to do both because they were good experiences for different reasons. As I said in my Landing At Bespin post, I appreciated the attention to detail that went into these shots, and I also had fun playing with color. For my 'Something Is Wrong' scene I got to play around more with character animations which was a lot of fun. Yet the attention to detail was still there in this scene as well (I love the ship that flies by right as Han kisses Leia.)

Here is the original clip:

One of the challenges of replicating this scene was that there are a lot of human movements that are difficult to recreate using 2D characters. For example, right at the cut Leia spins around to look at the door. This movement is almost impossible to achieve the way I typically animate, so I had to do some "frame by frame" animation to achieve the look. If I had had more time I would have liked to add a few more tweens in this sequence.


I got lucky with Han, I could pretty much fake all his motion with only one 2D character.
Here you can take a closer look at the backgrounds. I had the most fun making these environments simply because they are so visually perfect that when you replicate them they are bound to look good. I put the frame around it because I wanted my final video to remain compositionally close to what the original was, and 16:9 simply wasn't cutting it.  Once again it's all in the details, I especially love the light that comes in from the ceiling and splashes on the wall.


Lastly, my final challenge was to make Han talk. I have never really done lip syncing in any of my Mean Mug & Slim work, but I had recently seen a tutorial and wanted to give it a try.
Below is the tutorial and an image I was working from to help create the different mouths.  I am pretty happy with how it came out, the only thing I would do differently next time is add a few more mouth variations.  There were a few occasions where I felt like none of the mouth shapes worked.


Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Root? Epipheo? Whaa?

This company is called Epipheo. They're like Root and share some of the same values (that I picked up on thus far). Except New York, NY instead of Sylvania, OH and external services instead of internal. On the video, I like the sound design..car honks, the bird, etc. I liked the beginning...not exposing the main subject all the way and the use of rule of thirds. About the only part I didn't like is the music climaxes but the VO doesn't follow suit, it dies off. Check out their website too, it's different. Epipheo's Website.

Shedding

ASICS - "Shedding" from David Alan Reyes on Vimeo.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

On an outdated medium...still relavent?


Side by Side Official Trailer (2012) from Company Films on Vimeo.

Cartoon Network turns 20

Well, she's not old enough to drink yet, but she's more than legal. Seeing as how this one channel had a great role in molding me into the person I am today, I felt obligated to post this awesome music video Cartoon Network has created to honor their 20 years of existence.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Cellphone's Dead - Beck

T-Rux on drums!

The Past Re-imagined As The Future

Came upon a wonderful little video contest today that involves two of my favorite things: audio tracks from Free Music Archive and video from the Prelinger Archives. Maybe it's like Dave said and I am a glutton for punishment, but I think this will be far less stressful than Star Wars. I don't see the point in explaining much further when someone has taken the time to create an awesome video that does so.  However, for more information check out their site here. Deadline is November 4th.