Thursday, January 31, 2013

Revelation, a Visual Poem

I am a sucker for the visual poem. Can't wait for the next Deloitte.

Revelation, a Visual Poem. from sebastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.

BGSU 48 Hour Film Festival - Faster Than the Speed of Love


This is my sister's boyfriend and his friend's submission to the BGSU 48 Hour Film Festival. My thoughts, in retrospective, are that it turned out pretty good. It had the best cinematography and sound by a wide margin. However, there are some places I felt like it could have used a little work.

They ended up taking a close 2nd from the judges and 1st in audience favorite. Not too shabby.

I feel like I could give a lot of commentary but I'll wait to hear what you guys think. Critique the shit out of it; they'll appreciate it for sure.

Beard Watching in Brooklyn

Nothing new hear, just good ole' fashion inspirational messaging. This comes nicely wrapped in a mini doc on small-batch, hand-made, all-natural, organic, and artisanal men's (and women’s) grooming line.

STORYBOARD: Beardwatching in Brooklyn from Tumblr on Vimeo.

Paperman - Full Animated Short

This will give you diabetes.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Painted Photos by Alexandra Valenti


Pool Party

I like this as an art installation that could be easily implemented for a conference (Hilton, Hampton, HGI)



Pool Party from Red Paper Heart on Vimeo.

Saudi Aramco

Well it's happening. These icon driven infographic animations are becoming more and more commonplace in the work environment. Clients are asking for them at a higher frequency and more animators are creating them. This trend has lead to Sebas & Clim creating over 100 animated icons to illustrate more than 50 interviews they were given. That leads me to believe that in a short matter of time websites like iStock will be chock full of these things. Now I want to be clear that I not only think these icons are well designed and animated, but are a great source of inspiration. However, it scares me a little to think that something I do so often in my professional work could be replaced by stock art. This means in the future I have to do a better job of taking these fact heavy scripts I get from clients and transforming them into a story that flows seamlessly from beginning to end, while taking the viewer on the same journey. A journey that is less about stating the facts and more about the viewer coming to their own conclusions.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Client Feedback into art

Here is a website where designers turn client feedback quotes into posters.

Pep Talk by Kid President

Gina sent this our way. It's interesting and fun.

Child of the 90s - Internet Explorer


Ever get that feeling like millions of little tiny sales people are pulling at your heart strings? Yeah, me too.

McDonalds 'McBites' - Little World

If we're seriously going to do a lot more of this RSA animate style for Hampton then I think we need to up the ante a little bit. I think this video does a awesome job of taking a similar idea and just making it a little better. I love the addition of interaction with real life objects. I definitely think something like this is possible too. If you look closely at their animation it's actually pretty rudimentary and they even copy a few characters.

Adobe's "NAB"

Click for website.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Battle at F-Stop Ridge

The Mark III, C300 and Red Scarlet in a Nightime Bike Race


In lieu of our recent conversations around what's going to be our next camera, I found this video comparing the low light capabilities of the 5D Mark III, the C300 and the Red Scarlet. Keep in mind that this is far from a perfect test. It seems like giant spot lights were scattered across the track and I can't seem to find any information on the aperture or ISO for the different angles; I assume that it was pretty balanced. I think the best pieces of evidence are toward the end where they are interviewing the biker. What does everyone else think?

The Canon 5D Mark III, Canon C300, and Red Scarlet at a Nighttime Bike Race from Hello World Communications on Vimeo.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

An Entire Film Made From Digitized Photos

After watching this indie film trailer I had to do some research. I wanted to know how they got their stylized look. I found out that they shot everything on green screen and used old Civil War photographs and digitized them to high definition.

Director's Preview Film Trailer

Friday, January 18, 2013

Why the Moon Landing Wasn't Faked

Stuck In The Sound - Let's Go

So very awesome.....stew.

Attitude = 100%

This video was used by the GM of my HGI for our all company meeting. I only started it last night and the meeting was this morning so it is not good at all. BUT I had a lot of fun learning and I am proud that I could make something like this on such a short timescale. Thanks to Big Dave for the VO!

Pac Man revisited by Chris Weller

Goodnight, Sweet PakMan from Chris Weller on Vimeo.

Desk Stationery from Daniel Emma Studio

Not only do I think these new desk stationary photos from Daniel Emma Studio make for some interesting photography, but I love the fact that they also have a legitimate practical use.  Simple and clean in design with a colorful quirkiness.





Thursday, January 17, 2013

Audi - Painting Coconuts

The mix of hand-built and digital here is pretty cool. I have always wanted to make some sort of giant model like this. I still think if we start now we could make one for our 2013 holiday card.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

I have been listening to Cave In all day with no plans to stop

Forgive the crappy VEVO that will precede

Speed Booster


What if I told you that we could take our Canon 24-70mm f2.8 lens, reduce the crop factor and even make it sharper and faster (like f2.0). Well, Metabones has done it. It's aptly named the Speed Booster. I don't fully understand it's wizardry yet but here's the full article.

Metabones Speed Booster lens test from James Miller on Vimeo.

Impactist - Yeah

Do you know why I love Impactist? Aside from having some amazing design talent and an ability to animate with the best of them, Impactist also makes their own music. They currently have a new album out called, Undercast Is Overrated. And how do they promote said music you ask? By using their amazing design talent and ability to animate! So much talent here it's sickening really.



A Bad Lip Reading

These are the things that make me happy to be alive.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Lifted

Back in November I helped a friend out w/ a video he funded on Kickstarter. It's pretty sci-fi-y and horror-like, which you all know I love :) but it was pretty cool to see how the whole thing came together.

Here's his synopsis:
A young woman awakes in a strange environment. Realizing she is on an extra-terrestrial ship, she doesn't panic, she seeks revenge.

My goal is to produce imaginative and eccentric pieces to parallel and visually represent my favorite music and sound. Inspired by the unpublished music of Brian Kantorski, LIFTED's mission is simple: unique aesthetic and edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Brian and I both enjoy exploring audiovisual and cinematic forms. Our past works, Hamburgz and Kneejerk, have individually won awards for their quality and creativity, and have been screened at several film festivals. We’re hoping Lifted will be received the same way.

 Shot with a RED Scarlet and Canon L series lenses (8-15mm and 24-105mm)
 

And here's a photo slideshow of the behind the scenes:


Winter Vacation In Vermont

Lets be honest, most of the time I was enjoying my vacation drinking copious amounts of booze and eating cheese.

What English sounds like to Italians

I love this song.

Soul Summit II

In celebration of the upcoming 30th Soul Summit Chicago, here is the latest Soul Summit promo

Soul Summit II from David Ayling on Vimeo.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Where the Hell is Matt?

This one comes from Gina Valenti. It's that latest in the "Where the Hell is Matt" series. I'm posting it here so that we all see it since it is a creative reference point for GV.


Friday, January 11, 2013

Mountain Equipment Co-op - The MEC Story


Whilst looking for script writing inspiration, I was reminded of this piece and how it's closely related to the kind of work we've been doing lately...

Mountain Equipment Co-op // The MEC Story from Giant Ant on Vimeo.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Won't You Be...My Neighbor

The next time you're feeling down, think about even Mr. Rogers get's mad.

Premiere Pro Tip: Importing a Sequence From Another Project

While editing in Premiere Pro (no surprise) I have come across the issue of accessing another Premiere Pro project while in my current project. As you know, Final Cut Pro already does this; you can have multiple projects open at once. Here is the step by step of adding another PR project into the current project that's open.

File > Import. Or right click in the Project Panel.

Select the PR Project which you'd like to import.

You have an option of importing the entire PR project with all of its files. Or you can just import individual sequences.

If you chose to import individual sequences then you would find it in the project.
Your sequence is added as a Folder containing your selected sequence and all of the assets associated with it.



Lois Vuitton Dream/Word

Oscar Nominated Shorts

I am sure we are all familier with the heavy hitters of the year Lincon, Flight, Les Miserable. But the shorts are often forgotten. Here are trailers (or in some cases the full piece) for the shorts up for nomination.

HEAD OVER HEELS - Trailer from Timothy Reckart on Vimeo.

7 Photojournalism Tips by Reuters Photographer Damir Sagolj

Target Fresh Machine Rube Goldberg

Interactive website for target featuring exclusively Target carried products.

Target Fresh Machine Rube Goldberg from 2D House on Vimeo.

Reptile Youth 'My Yoko Ono'

37 motion graphics students from Hyper Island in 2.5 days

REPTILE YOUTH 'MY YOKO ONO' Music Video from Lucy McRae on Vimeo.

Faenger

Note the sound design

Disco Italo

I love Italian disco from the 80s - its hilarious and fun much like Air Guitar. Here is a song about 2 Italian dudes having no money, and another about one Italian dude who loves Arizona. Enjoy and let your spirits be lifted!

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Adobe Dynamic Link Trouble!

I've been running into issues using the Adobe Dynamic Link feature. I used the native video file to chroma key the footage in After Effects and that's all I did in that program. I linked the comp to Premiere Pro and inserted in into the Timeline. I get these digitized/pixelated errors running across the person. It is only for 1 frame and these are the only 2 in this 30 second clip. I've encountered this problem before but the error happened in a section that needed to be cropped anyway. There is no error in the After Effects project comp. Any suggestions?? I'm just going to export a 422 .mov from After Effects then edit in Premiere Pro :/

The top of her head is slightly cropped in this frame.


The top of her head is slightly cropped and the middle of her body is sliced in half by an error.

Dr. Pepper: /1 Campaign

Check out the latest Dr. Pepper commercial. Any of these folks/iconic shots looks familiar?

Sunday, January 6, 2013