My new and improved show reel of my better second year work (and the advert for the iFridge from my first year because it rocks).
Includes;
Early kinetic typography tests
'Designing Joe' stop motion title sequence
'First Chapters' 3D After Effects title sequence
M.I. New York Demographic pres that I work on with some of the other M.I. students
'Where Will You Draw The Line' sting
'World of Film' Sky Premiere I Dent
'Saul Goode' Feel Good Drinks Flash advert
'Kinetic Do' Do Lectures I Dent...and the 'iFridge' ad
I will be posting all of my works individually at some point but I thought it would be best to put this up first.
Enjoy
Sunday 29 August 2010
Thursday 26 August 2010
Kyle Cooper lecture
At the beginning of the second year I researched some of the work of Kyle Cooper for an essay for critical studies.
I chose Cooper because I had looked into his work on movie titles before and became interested in his work.
This is his D&AD president's lecture. It was an invaluable tool for the essay but I think it is a good lecture to watch as it gives an insight into how his mind works and how he goes about creating his work. He also talks about his time learning under Saul Bass, his idea behind creating his own company and the main ideas that influence each piece of his work.
His work has influenced mine as through looking through his work I have discovered a fondness for working with typography in my work.
A number of the pieces I created in my second year have been made using animated text of some kind.
I also like the the augmented reality special effects work his company did in the Iron Man film. This is something I have looked into in more detail since.
After looking at his work and the work of others in the same field I think that title design and special effects is something I would be interested in working on in the future.
Video will be put on soon as the link to the video on the web no longer works
I chose Cooper because I had looked into his work on movie titles before and became interested in his work.
This is his D&AD president's lecture. It was an invaluable tool for the essay but I think it is a good lecture to watch as it gives an insight into how his mind works and how he goes about creating his work. He also talks about his time learning under Saul Bass, his idea behind creating his own company and the main ideas that influence each piece of his work.
His work has influenced mine as through looking through his work I have discovered a fondness for working with typography in my work.
A number of the pieces I created in my second year have been made using animated text of some kind.
I also like the the augmented reality special effects work his company did in the Iron Man film. This is something I have looked into in more detail since.
After looking at his work and the work of others in the same field I think that title design and special effects is something I would be interested in working on in the future.
Video will be put on soon as the link to the video on the web no longer works
Wordle
This is something I came across when I was working on my Do Lectures I Dent.
Wordle creates 'Word Clouds' from any piece of text that you enter into the dialog box. It takes the most commonly used words from that text and lays them out in various ways. Its a neat little toy. What I like about it is that the user has a lot of control over the way the word cloud is presented. You can change the font, colours and direction of the words so you can get the right kind of vibe from your word cloud.
I found one which was made up of tiles of the lectures from TED and thought it would be fun to use it in a similar way for the Do Lectures. I also thought it would be a good way to visually represent the 'meaning' of the Do Lectures in different ways.
This first one I made using the text from the 'About Do' section of the Do Lectures website.
Its basically what the lectures are all about from the view of the people who run and host them.
For this one I copy and pasted all the descriptions of each lecture from 2009 to make one long paragraph. This gives you a bit of an idea of what the lecturers set out to talk about at the Do Lectures. Common themes can be established from this word cloud I think.
Part of the Do Lectures website is dedicated to the comments of the people attending the next Do Lectures and the reasons they are looking forward to it, what they hope to gain from the experience etc. This cloud is made up of all these comments from those people. Similar to the last one but from the point of view of the audience. Reveals the common themes in the expectations and aspirations for the people in attendance.
At first I thought this would be a helpful tool for research but I did consider using one of them as the basis of my final piece. I thought it would be fun to animate the words and create something similar to a kinetic typography animation. I wanted to make the link between the words that make up the Do Lectures and the words making up the logo in someway while at the same time demonstrating the whole essence of the Do Lectures in just a few seconds.
Although I didn't use a Word Cloud in my final piece, as I didn't feel like it would be entirely my own idea, it did have a lot of influence on what ended up being my final piece.
Thanks Wordle
Make your own Word Cloud
Wordle creates 'Word Clouds' from any piece of text that you enter into the dialog box. It takes the most commonly used words from that text and lays them out in various ways. Its a neat little toy. What I like about it is that the user has a lot of control over the way the word cloud is presented. You can change the font, colours and direction of the words so you can get the right kind of vibe from your word cloud.
I found one which was made up of tiles of the lectures from TED and thought it would be fun to use it in a similar way for the Do Lectures. I also thought it would be a good way to visually represent the 'meaning' of the Do Lectures in different ways.
This first one I made using the text from the 'About Do' section of the Do Lectures website.Its basically what the lectures are all about from the view of the people who run and host them.
For this one I copy and pasted all the descriptions of each lecture from 2009 to make one long paragraph. This gives you a bit of an idea of what the lecturers set out to talk about at the Do Lectures. Common themes can be established from this word cloud I think.
Part of the Do Lectures website is dedicated to the comments of the people attending the next Do Lectures and the reasons they are looking forward to it, what they hope to gain from the experience etc. This cloud is made up of all these comments from those people. Similar to the last one but from the point of view of the audience. Reveals the common themes in the expectations and aspirations for the people in attendance.At first I thought this would be a helpful tool for research but I did consider using one of them as the basis of my final piece. I thought it would be fun to animate the words and create something similar to a kinetic typography animation. I wanted to make the link between the words that make up the Do Lectures and the words making up the logo in someway while at the same time demonstrating the whole essence of the Do Lectures in just a few seconds.
Although I didn't use a Word Cloud in my final piece, as I didn't feel like it would be entirely my own idea, it did have a lot of influence on what ended up being my final piece.
Thanks Wordle
Make your own Word Cloud
Tuesday 24 August 2010
Do Lectures
I have been working on a new idea for the Do Lectures I Dent all summer and the website has been an invaluable tool in gaining the right sense of what the Do Lectures are about. I found myself engaging it more than I normally would during research. Watching a few of the talks, reading the comments made by people who have been to them in the past and people who are going this year. I even found myself reading the things people have written on the blog part of the site as well as the links provided by people on twitter.
http://blog.thedolectures.co.uk/2010/08/hello-is-a-four-letter-word/
this is an entry to the blog where somebody is encouraging people to step away from the isolation of walking through the streets with our headphones in, purposely or subconsciously blocking out the world around us and instead, saying hello to the people we pass in street in an effort to mend the 'fractured' societies we live in.
This has actually made me consider conducting a social experiment whereby I walk around saying 'hello' to complete strangers, gauging their reactions, perhaps indulging in some conversation. Can it be done? Part of me thinks that it would be a disaster. I would look like a lunatic who says hello to the wrong person or offends someone in someway. Then there is the other part of me that thinks if I went about this in a less scientific way and just did it everyday, I could be pleasantly surprised at how friendly some people actually are. That would be my 'little do'.
This was something that caught my attention on the twitter feeds on the Do Lectures website. I think it is a really good concept that merges contemporary communication and technology in a traditional way.
http://blog.thedolectures.co.uk/2010/08/hello-is-a-four-letter-word/
this is an entry to the blog where somebody is encouraging people to step away from the isolation of walking through the streets with our headphones in, purposely or subconsciously blocking out the world around us and instead, saying hello to the people we pass in street in an effort to mend the 'fractured' societies we live in.
This has actually made me consider conducting a social experiment whereby I walk around saying 'hello' to complete strangers, gauging their reactions, perhaps indulging in some conversation. Can it be done? Part of me thinks that it would be a disaster. I would look like a lunatic who says hello to the wrong person or offends someone in someway. Then there is the other part of me that thinks if I went about this in a less scientific way and just did it everyday, I could be pleasantly surprised at how friendly some people actually are. That would be my 'little do'.
This was something that caught my attention on the twitter feeds on the Do Lectures website. I think it is a really good concept that merges contemporary communication and technology in a traditional way.
BLAB
A little while back I had the opportunity to a BLAB session. After doing so much research into the Do Lectures for a project I was working on, I thought it would be a great thing to do as it seemed to have a similar theme to the Do Lectures which I enjoyed watching online.
http://vimeo.com/blab
http://www.meetup.com/northerndigitals/
It was a brilliant experience. I was blown away by the amazing photographic art created by Andrew Brooks. Not just at the level of detail that makes up his work but also when he explained how he goes about doing it, taking so many pictures at once, the amount of time he puts in composting each piece of work and discussing the issues that come about when creating the piece and roughly demonstrating how he does his work as hes talking.
http://www.andrewbrooksphotography.com/
On the same night two installation designers, Pete and Joel from Hellicar & Lewis shared their history and backgrounds and how they came to work together. They talked in detail about how they approach their work and the use of Open Frameworks and how they use it to create the massive installation in New Zealand on the side of a building which reacted to the actions of the people stood in front it. This was amazing and has made me want to do something massive like this in my 3rd year. I don't know what yet but I'm working on it.
http://www.hellicarandlewis.com/
You can even see my head in the audience for this talk (second row back, checked shirt)
This was a really interesting night for me and one that I think has made me think about creating bigger, better and more challenging ideas, making the most of my work and it has made want to create something that will stick in peoples minds.
http://vimeo.com/blab
http://www.meetup.com/northerndigitals/
It was a brilliant experience. I was blown away by the amazing photographic art created by Andrew Brooks. Not just at the level of detail that makes up his work but also when he explained how he goes about doing it, taking so many pictures at once, the amount of time he puts in composting each piece of work and discussing the issues that come about when creating the piece and roughly demonstrating how he does his work as hes talking.
http://www.andrewbrooksphotography.com/
On the same night two installation designers, Pete and Joel from Hellicar & Lewis shared their history and backgrounds and how they came to work together. They talked in detail about how they approach their work and the use of Open Frameworks and how they use it to create the massive installation in New Zealand on the side of a building which reacted to the actions of the people stood in front it. This was amazing and has made me want to do something massive like this in my 3rd year. I don't know what yet but I'm working on it.
http://www.hellicarandlewis.com/
You can even see my head in the audience for this talk (second row back, checked shirt)
This was a really interesting night for me and one that I think has made me think about creating bigger, better and more challenging ideas, making the most of my work and it has made want to create something that will stick in peoples minds.
Short and Sweet 3D
Short and Sweet is the name of the weekly short film festival in London. Short and Sweet 3D is 'the UK's first stereoscopic 3D short film festival'. Its been and gone but its is how I came across the 'Augmented City' video (see previous post). I was fascinated by the 3D part of the website. The idea of 3D internet has given me something to to think about while researching my dissertation.
This may be much more straight forward than what 3D internet could look like, I'm sure. 3D internet as augmented reality will more likely be what people will look forward to in many years to come. However I think this is a stepping stone to that and an interesting way to harness the way 3D is used today.
http://www.shortandsweet.tv/3D.html
Augmented City
I came across this video while putting in some research time for my dissertation. I really like this for so many reasons; not just because it has amazing visual effects, but also because it is a really good idea with a strong message. It takes something that is normally at home in something like an Iron Man film and shows how it could look in everyday life. Its like having your laptop spew its contents into thin air and having a cockpit for your everyday life right in front of you. Where anything and everything can be controlled. Even down to spam, that would be discarded and would eventually litter the streets.
The creator of this video (Keiichi Matsuda) puts it better than I could;
The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply about the physical space of buildings and landscape, more and more it is about the synthetic spaces created by the digital information that we collect, consume and organise; an immersive interface may become as much part of the world we inhabit as the buildings around us.
Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology defined by its ability to overlay physical space with information. It is part of a paradigm shift that succeeds Virtual Reality; instead of disembodied occupation of virtual worlds, the physical and virtual are seen together as a contiguous, layered and dynamic whole. It may lead to a world where media is indistinguishable from 'reality'. The spatial organisation of data has important implications for architecture, as we re-evaluate the city as an immersive human-computer interface.
The creator of this video (Keiichi Matsuda) puts it better than I could;
The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply about the physical space of buildings and landscape, more and more it is about the synthetic spaces created by the digital information that we collect, consume and organise; an immersive interface may become as much part of the world we inhabit as the buildings around us.
Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology defined by its ability to overlay physical space with information. It is part of a paradigm shift that succeeds Virtual Reality; instead of disembodied occupation of virtual worlds, the physical and virtual are seen together as a contiguous, layered and dynamic whole. It may lead to a world where media is indistinguishable from 'reality'. The spatial organisation of data has important implications for architecture, as we re-evaluate the city as an immersive human-computer interface.
Saturday 21 August 2010
CSL Advertising Campaign
There is something that bothers me about the current CSL adverts. For those who don't know, they follow a certain kind of narrative, the story of of a happy couple that is almost from the sofa's point of view. Everything seems to happen around the sofa. Only it starts out well for this couple but things seem to go a bit pair shaped. Its quite bizarre.
This is just one of the adverts. There about 3 or 4 that I have seen and they all seem to follow a similar kind of theme. There are strange parts to each of them that don't seem right for a sofa advert...or any advert for that matter.
It makes me think, did the people making the adverts know what they were doing? Because to me it doesn't seem like a very good idea. It makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable watching these adverts. Its as though they are saying "Our sofas will last longer than your marriage.". It puts me off buying a sofa from this company.
This is just one of the adverts. There about 3 or 4 that I have seen and they all seem to follow a similar kind of theme. There are strange parts to each of them that don't seem right for a sofa advert...or any advert for that matter.
It makes me think, did the people making the adverts know what they were doing? Because to me it doesn't seem like a very good idea. It makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable watching these adverts. Its as though they are saying "Our sofas will last longer than your marriage.". It puts me off buying a sofa from this company.
Catch-Up Time
I haven't made any posts for a while.
Sorry.
I have plenty of things I want to comment on so I'm going to get quite a few things on here in the next couple of days.
Sorry.
I have plenty of things I want to comment on so I'm going to get quite a few things on here in the next couple of days.
Sunday 14 February 2010
Devostated
In developing my initial ideas for my viral for the Subculture website I wanted to run with this idea of a group of people filming the journey to a secret underground gig. using handheld camera or phone camera. following them through a serries of backstreets and alleyways etc until they reach the gig. The gig would look very much thrown together with a makeshift stage and bar with the band playing the new and exciting music found on the website. There would also be suble use of the Fred Perry logo within. The idea being that only the Fred Perry people would be in the know and know where to findd the gig. I knew it was ambitious but I was excited to give it a go. I asked for one or two opinions at college. Only to be shot down and told that it reminded someone of an advert from a short time ago. Then I was shown this video...
This was basically what I had in mind...GUTTED!!!
This was basically what I had in mind...GUTTED!!!
More Virals
I have identified a certain kind of viral campaign that I can emulate for the Subculture viral. These are examples of the style and tone of what would like to acheieve for my concept. they are not as light-hearted as most of the virals I have looked into recently. They are the kind of virals that sort of make you think about how they have been made and seem to have an underpinning idea being represented by the film.
The first is BMW films. Instead of producing a set of adverts that focus solely on their cars, BMW colaborated with influencial film directors to produce a series of short films which featured the cars in a variety of film style scenarios.
The viral I found to have the same kind of tone that I am aiming for is this ad from Marc Ecko. He is the frontman to the Ecko Unltd, a popular streetware brand with its roots in the skating and tagging culture. Here he is filmed tagging a very important plane.
The first is BMW films. Instead of producing a set of adverts that focus solely on their cars, BMW colaborated with influencial film directors to produce a series of short films which featured the cars in a variety of film style scenarios.
The viral I found to have the same kind of tone that I am aiming for is this ad from Marc Ecko. He is the frontman to the Ecko Unltd, a popular streetware brand with its roots in the skating and tagging culture. Here he is filmed tagging a very important plane.
Worst Advert EVER!!!
I'm not going to dwell on this too much. I'l only get carried away and lose focus on what I was trying to say like the Go Compare thing. All I'll say is this is a master class in how not to make an advert. I can just imagine how the meeting to dicuss this advert went..."Okay everyone we need to make an advert for our company and the services we offer. How much cash do we have spend on a really good advertising campaign? Nothing eh? Shit!"... ... ..."Earyar boss! I've just got given a video camera for me birthday. I'll make us an advert and I'll get me kids involved. Everyone loves kids."
Three hours later...
EDIT...it no longer exists...it was that bad. But check out the link to the website and their reasons behind such a shoddy advert. It must exist somewhere on the web.
Three hours later...
EDIT...it no longer exists...it was that bad. But check out the link to the website and their reasons behind such a shoddy advert. It must exist somewhere on the web.
Viral Ad Campaigns
looking into the various competition briefs from the D&AD website, I have decided to give some viral marketing a go. De Facto (a company I will be looking into later) have asked for a viral marketing campaign for the Fred Perry Subculture music website. I am looking forward to this as I like the concept of viral marketing and I think it is an interesting style of advertising that suits the modern world we live in. The first thing I decided to do when opting for this breif was to find some really good examples of viral advertising that would help me get in the mood to create my own.
The first ad I remeber seeing from back during my research on my "water" project with Rory. The rough and tumble, handheld camera technique used in this ad almost makes this seem real. apparently, that is what Qucksilver were going for when they made it. You can see how this could be passed around from person to person via e-mail.
This next video is an advert for Volkswagen cars. The idea behind it being to change peoples behaviours for the better. Some point being made about climate change. But illustrating it in a fun and interesting way.
The last is a viral I remember being sent a link to a little while back. A company promoting their guitar tutorials made a simple video of a bloke playing a guitar in an amazing way. The company push the idea that he learnt to do this through their website and hope that others are inspired to do so.
The first ad I remeber seeing from back during my research on my "water" project with Rory. The rough and tumble, handheld camera technique used in this ad almost makes this seem real. apparently, that is what Qucksilver were going for when they made it. You can see how this could be passed around from person to person via e-mail.
This next video is an advert for Volkswagen cars. The idea behind it being to change peoples behaviours for the better. Some point being made about climate change. But illustrating it in a fun and interesting way.
The last is a viral I remember being sent a link to a little while back. A company promoting their guitar tutorials made a simple video of a bloke playing a guitar in an amazing way. The company push the idea that he learnt to do this through their website and hope that others are inspired to do so.
I hate the "Go Compare" Tennor Adverts
I just want to use this blog as a platform to vent my frustrations over the new Go Compare adverts. I simply hate them. For anyone fortunate enough not to have seen them, the basis of all of the adverts is as follows...two people are discussing insurance in any everyday environment "but how do you get the best deal...blah blah???" Then on cue, from out of nowhere and properly randomly, a fat bloke in a tuxedo and a stupid mustache pops up and starts to sing in an opera style some blah blah about the services available on gocompare.com and how amazing it is...i think that is how it goes anyway. By this point i have reached for the remote and hit the mute button with reflexes that would make a ninja cry (this aversion was fine until they started sing-along lyrics on the screen with the adverts) At first I thought they were a bit annoying. But they keep coming on the telly when i least expect it. To me it represents the worst in advertising. Annoying character sings annoying jingle which gets stuck in your head if you lose the remote. I know what some people might say "if you talk about it and the song gets stuck in your head then that must mean the adverts work blah blah" and all that noise...WRONG!!! I hate the adverts so much I never intend on using the website until they ditch the crap adverts. Much like I did with Iceland before they binned Kerry Katona. I don't claim to be an advertising genius by any means. My idea of a good advert is anything with Mr. T in at the moment. I just think that it is a poor attempt to capture the magic that the Compare the Market.com adverts have made with Aleksandr the meerkat. Not a fantastic advert campaign because I imagine that more people compare meerkats than compare the market when they get some down time. But at least the meerkat makes me laugh. I don't even mind the idea of legends of rock and roll trying to sell me insurance...or butter. All I want is a warning that one of those Go Compare adverts is coming on so I know when to leave the room.
I'm not going to put an example video on here right now because I hate the adverts so much. If you have to see it though, hop on YouTube and satisfy your curiosity...I bet you'll only do it the once.
I'm not going to put an example video on here right now because I hate the adverts so much. If you have to see it though, hop on YouTube and satisfy your curiosity...I bet you'll only do it the once.
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