Back to School
I have been enjoying this semester greatly. I have just finished doing the titles for Spring Show for the Academy of Art University. Many of my students have produced professional quality work, and I am awed by the time all of them put in.
I have switched departments - from New Media to VFX/Animation, and I have to say it has been a good transition, the two departments function as compare and contrast exercises in what's going on in computer graphics - style versus technical skill. New Media is all about style, multi-discipline, and perception, but I usually struggled through instructing even basic concepts in After Effects. VFX students are gearheads and like to read computer manuals for fun, do fluid simulations in their spare time, etc- however, typography and the world of design isn't much on their radars. So it's been a challenge, an interesting and exciting one, and my students put up with me using them as guinea pigs for Curricullum changes/evil experiments/ untold amounts of homework.
I will post links to a few of the students who have produced some really exceptional work- The highlight of the class had to be the final projects of two groups who had some connections to some martial artists who they filmed with a Red One (!) in the green screen studio here in the Academy. I remember filming my final project in studio for my Senior Project- to be the instructor on hand during this shoot made me excited for my students, and made me feel young and old at the same time. (Student work c/o Artur, Roger, Yasemin, Carlos, Christian, and Louis. You know who you are.)
Other Stuff
I also have been cranking away on projects at Cobra. Two new projects since YouTube- one for Suzuki (a basic dealer type spot) and one for a prominent tech brand that is re-branding and re-positioning itself to be competitive in this desert fiscal landscape of 2009. Also a few secret projects of self promotional value, and some co-lab work for Mekanism here in SF.
Final project- Getting VeloBrew launched, sold, and drank by the masses. This homebrew was sold as a fundraiser for my Aids Life Cycle ride which is happening in... oh... 2 weeks! Months of training and focusing is coming up to the ride here. I have done a lot of prepping, had an art auction with all of my friends (which... of course, I did not document with this amazing medium known as photography) and produced these nice homemade booklets and posters. I am proud of how this project turned out - the first time in a while I have been maybe 50% satisfied with something, rather then focusing on the flaws of the piece or comparing it to what else is out there. The blessing and the curse of seeing amazing work all day, every day, is that it can paralyze you into not doing anything. Well, to hell with that. I am getting as much done as I can in 2009 with the finite amount of energy and life available to me.
Coming up
More work at Cobra, including selling our broadcast motion graphics harder, a project with Alexander Tarrant for a short web film festival thingy, and trying to start composing nicer pics with my DSLR. I also have been learning some serious c4d this year, with a lot of Mograph module, Expresso, and Thinking Particles finally making sense to me, although the world of creating nice models with clean geometry, real character rigging with IK, and bodypaint is still out of my grasp a bit. I still don't understand every switch and dial in the program, but have started to become comfortable answering questions on forums and analyzing the work I see. Justin and I have been doing visuals as an excuse to learn the technicalities of the various modules, including a bang up show for Flying Lotus.
Finally
I developed a bunch of Holga shots from last year, and mixed in with the rolls was one roll from winter of 2005, in Colorado. A lot of light had leaked in and exposed the roll, resulting in haunting, washed out, wintery surreal images, with a young dude staring back at me through the print. I can see why some folks go Holga and never look back- the shock of not having unlimited control which in turn creates happy accidents is something I have lost in going so digital. My next project might just be a group of songs played on prepared piano with typewritten pages.
John Cage - o - vison.
The work I did for Youtube through Cobra Creative has gone live... This is a promotional campaign showcasing YouTube’s dominance of the eyeballs of the peoples of the internets and how it can be utilized for ad campaigns. I worked on most all of the c4d on these projects- The design was all done at Cobra and motion designer Jake Hawley also worked on 3d + composite.
I’m particularly happy with the way the “Media Ball” section came out on the Audience targeting section - basically a bunch of clones being pushed around by effectors in Cinema. I feel as though the communication is particularly visual and clear here; the customer can physically see how their concept or campaign gets filtered and specified in a pretty visual way. I think a lot of internet concepts are hard to distill to some sort of visual, we usually end up designing a globe for “international and global”, usually with lines crisscrossing the face to show “IT”, and a giant “icon cloud” to show a breadth of skill, products, and services or divisions. Are there better ways to visualize these common themes?
Notice this announcement is a bit dated already... In the style of the old site. Ah well. Where was I?
Now that I’m staff at Cobra, I realized my site didn’t exactly have to be a professional advertisement for me anymore. This is kind of nice. I can Blog, post personal links if I feel it, and generally relax with movecraft.com. I also have switched over entirely to Rapidweaver for my development. This means, I will never have to hand code anymore. All my knowledge was painfully outdated anyway, and this way I hopefully will be encouraged to frequently update with such an easy to use platform. Anyone can build a website with this here new-fangled software.
Other new stuff... You’ll notice I am still building the Boards section out slowly. I haven’t decided if it should just be motion boards or other graphic design. Also, dang, I don’t have much of either. I have been focusing for so long on learning C4D and AE that I kept getting paid to be a technical guy instead of an artist. This is rough because I don’t know if I will ever compete with the truly technical guys. I think that personally, I would love to focus once again on what brought me here in the first place – you know. Art. Pretty pictures. Maybe the Boards section will have photography too. Maybe I just renamed that section right here in this blog post.
I also have a Source Files section. I keep posting files to message boards and the like. It occurred to me that they might be useful actually posted somewhere. I also have been instructing at the Academy of Art University, and this semester have been putting together a Special Topics: Motion Graphics class for compositors. I keep referencing files, and, bandwidth permitting, could post some source file from that course. It’s turning into a monster- I have some dedicated and awesome students. I might require all of us to use Vimeo. I have set up a profile there. Working at an interactive firm is already making me realize how behind the curve I am in general web knowledge.
Finally, I am riding in AIDS Life Cycle this year. I have set up a page for everyone to donate, buy beer, and check out the cause.
Colin
Waiting to go into a production meeting that never came, instead I sat and observed dailies from a current production. Through a run down office (chipping paint, faded posters on the wall) with a 50 year old brass sign that says "Mixing" we walk through a door and into a state of the art, air conditioned, 5.1 dolby sound mixing studio as large and current as anything I saw at Skywalker.
Sitting on the couch and being brought strong coffee, I watched them review the sound of the latest marginally taboo sex farce/music video/ beautiful people/escapist fantasy/Bollywood Epic.
Back to the hotel. sleep.
Two updates from two of my good friends and fellow art collective/ compadres/ artists extrodinairez: Carl Nolting (aka AM Overtone) and Justin Metros. Carl has a distinct and soulful style that mixes well with his music background, and Justin is just a plain crazy smart and talented guy (custom video application coding and compiling using jitter at 3am after drinking a bottle of whiskey kinda smart). The three of us have been loosely performing as veejays around the Bay Area, with diverse shows, locals, and associated fame of the djs. Justin and I played a killer show with The Orb a few months ago and it was very cool to make some art with such a legend! As a result of all this activity, Justin is building us out a space on the web for us to share all of the video goodness. So, the insta-action video collective is still in its infancy, but check out insta-action.com soon.
AM Overtone Update
Justin Metros Update
So we just finished some graphic/post production spot for this PSA. I worked with Buddy Giguerre (Maya Generalist), Bill Philbin (director), and Zachary Greenbaum (producer), to help bring this story to life. One nice thing about creating video game type graphics is that you can have your render times relatively low with no anti-aliasing or GI and such and stock models from turbosquid are actually preferrable!
I like doing this kind of effects work. It's a lot less about graphics and more about the puzzle of achieving believable composites. It's wierd though. I feel like the whole motion graphics industry is moving towards the effects pipeline model with specialists doing individual jobs. I mean, Psyop is basically a VFX house. The problem with the FX model though for us lowly mographers or freelancers is that it's freaking expensive, so your clients have to be paying big bucks!
Check out the final project on William's Page (top video)