Friday, May 10, 2013

Friday, May 3, 2013


DRAW MY LIFE - Zach King



I really enjoyed this video.  I have seen many other videos from this user, but I though this one was cool for a few reasons.  To start, he talks about his life an how he got into making all of his videos and his inspiration.  The other part that makes this really cool, is the animation that he does.  The theme is that of a pop-up book with all the animations drawn.  He brings this into a whole other realm by having them interact in 3D space.  When you look closely, you can see points that he made on both the horizontal and vertical planes for tracking purposes.  On the horizontal paper, there are “x”s and on the chairs, there are pieces of blue tape.  I assume these are tracking points because they are out of place and I have seen him use this type of method before.  Over all, the video is quite inspirational and well done.  I would also like to thank you Arturo for a great semester.  I learned a Lot in this class, so thank you!


Game Grumps


First of all, let me explain about Game Grumps. Game Grumps is a channel on YouTube with two well-known internet celebrities, Egoraptor and JonTron. These two play video games and talk about random stuff that happens during their day. Egoraptor and JonTron are fans of many video games and decided to play them together to their combined fanbase.
These two play without a camera to show their faces, so all their fans hears them playing, but not see what they're doing. That is where this video comes in. This video is one of many that drew or animated spoofs of the Game Grumps, using various voice clips from their videos. This one is one of my favorites, since it's a dramatic movie trailer spoof, while in reality, they're just playing video games.

TItle Sequence: Catch Me If You Can


A few weeks ago, I watched the Steven Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can.  I really enjoyed the film, but the thing that grabbed me right at the start was the title sequence.  It is a very minimalistic animation that draws the viewer in and tells a story of its own.  Just through silhouettes, it is able to capture the essence of the characters and tell their story.  Even more impressive is the fact that the characters were not animated digitally.  Rather, the creators made stamps of the characters and animated with those.  There's  a lot more detail on the process and other aspects of creating the titles in an interview on the Art of the Title page.  Unfortunately I can't get the video to embed, but it is also available on the same page.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

My last blog post

I decided to end my blog posts with 5 things a Motion Graphics Designer should never do. The first thing on this list includes to never use anything from Video Copilot, as I guess the industry hates this guy. Poor Andrew and his silly jokes. There goes a majority of the classes demo reels, sorry guys.
Here's the link to the website with the guy keeping it real. Sorry for ruining everyone's hopes and dreams of copying Andrew and his tutorials.

More Set Design!

During this year's Ultra Music Festival, attendees were treated to much more than a full schedule of DJs. They also had outstanding visual aesthetics to complement the music, synchronized to every beat. The amazing results you see in this video are the successful result of collaborations between SJ Lighting (stage/laser lighting design) and Dierson Design (programming). Lightwave International, the production company responsible for piecing it all together, is a professional production company that specializes in concert design (lighting, lasers, LED visuals) and special effects for movies and corporate/touring/civic events. Some of their other credits include Coachella 2013, Pretty Lights, Jay-Z, and The Killers. Customized water screens, fog screens and CO2 shows are some of the unique special effects they also use to create an amazing and captivating show. Here is their Reel:

How far we've come


So I saw this commercial the other day and it made me think how far we've come this semester in Motion Graphics. Before this semester I wouldn't have had the slightest idea about the ins and outs of producing a commercial with graphics like this, but now I can saw with confidence that with time and effort I can probably do everything in this advert. Other than maybe the squirrels talking and the witches at the end, everything in this ad can be recreated in AE. There is definitely a lot of particle use and they for sure used green screens and keying. I think it's pretty sweet how I can see ads on TV now and say I can do that.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Bjork Music Video


One of the first posts I did was about a video called Solipsist by Andrew Huang. Well here's another great video by him but this time it's a music video for the very talented singer Bjork. A lot of Andrew's work from Solipsist is similar in this video. This video also incorporates animation of sand, moving creatures and vibrant colors. The animation is mind-blowing and very unique. This video was nominated for the Webby Awards, and it's pretty obvious why. Andrew makes these creatures come alive with it's juxtaposition of faces and these odd contraptions. Awesome video just check it out I don't really do it justice.