Update: Project Bob

Spending the night laying out the chorus for the project before I go in and animate it tomorrow morning. I've decided to repeat the chorus for this typography which would take a bulk out of what I have to work on.

The chorus/hook gets repeated about 4 times in this song with 2 verses (one of them being a rap verse) and 1 bridge. The chorus runs for about 30 seconds so that should take around half the song (3:36) when I complete that section, which should be around this weekend.


Here's a screenshot of the chorus. I'm messing around with lines and perspective. Had a little trouble with the text but after fiddling around with the mystery that is the "collapse transformations" switch, I was able to fix a small issue I had with the text moving in 3D space with precomps.

Title Sequence

A title sequence I made for a short film titled "Just Desserts" towards the end of last year.

Project Bob

Just got signed on to do a kinetic typography for an unreleased single by Bobby V. featuring Wale.

My due date is 2 weeks, so check back to see some updates. I have a couple of other projects to work on on top of this, so I'm excited to see how well I've gotten at balancing workloads.



Thank God I got a coffee maker from Jess' mom.

Double Post: Joe's Classics/Inspirational

This song doesn't need much introduction. Pitchfork.com sums it up best "Pure unfiltered nostalgia".




Here's a graphic that caught my eye from my friend Jeff's Tumblr.

I definitely feel this way right now, and I'm willing to hold up for as long as it takes.

Unproductive Day

Basically spent the whole day playing Starcraft 2, so I'll post up some stuff I was doodling with on After Effects yesterday.

Yesterday I wanted to practice another animated title sequence but ended up losing interest in the idea. I wanted to mess with that "3D" analglyph style that's pretty popular right now but felt uninspired to finish the project the whole way through. Here's a screen shot though of the progress I had so far.

Unofficial Title Sequence "The Adventures of Tintin"

This is the unofficial title sequence by James Curran, who created this title sequence in homage of the Tintin series.

I was reading up that Curran got attention for creating the title sequence and Steven Spielberg even took notice and invited him to the premiere in London. On top of that he received tons of job offers and now sits on a Art Director position at Partizan, a production company.

Hmm.. note to self: practice unofficial title sequences..

P.S. - I've noticed I've been much more apparent to updating this blog. I got to keep my mind thinking about this stuff constantly. Y'know, like the rules of attraction.

Joe's Classics

Everlong is probably the Foo Fighter's definitive song coming from their number one selling album "The Colours and the Shape". Michel Gondry signs on to direct this single and it's apparent with some of his reoccurring themes of dreams, oversized objects, stop motion, creative transitions, and its surreal and fantastic feeling.

This music video will be forever branded into my brain from my childhood when my older cousins used to watch MTV and The Box after coming to my house after school. As a child, I of course never tuned to those channels regularly, but I'm glad I got exposed to such great imagery.

Gondry is a master of the film medium. His interpretation of dreams are bizarre and surreal. He captures the oddity of dreams and his use of transitions almost describe perfectly the dream world. If there's anyone that has gotten close to translating dreams into a medium, it is Michel Gondry with celluloid.

X-Men: First Class Title Sequence

Stumbled across this on YouTube. An extra from the Xmen: First Class Blu-ray DVD with interviews from the creators of the title sequence and their preproduction process.



I seriously need to watch this movie again. I'm sure when I first saw it in theaters I was blown away by the intro, but damn I forgot how good this title sequence was.

Title Practice.

Yesterday I was practicing an abstract logo for myself. Our final project in our editing class is to create a logo for ourselves on Avid Media Composer. The people who know how to use After Effects can use it but must explain how they did it to the class.



I decided to spend some time using the "Beam" effect in AE. I animated a group of 5 beams streaking across the circle and duplicated it to form the animation. I had it stutter between 2 to 6 frames to the plucking of the guitar with a simple glow effect. The 3 "beam squares" are actually all on the same "Z" space (meaning they're all just as far away from each other in distance) but I've added the "Lens Blur" effect to simulate depth of field.

My circle was created using the "Ellipse" Tool and keyframed to slow down at a certain point and drag on out slowly before fading/blurring away to give that organic feel of water droplets. I also added a mask to half the circles when going beyond the main circle.

The "Gaussian Blur" Effect was added to unsharpen the logo to blend better with the grain and light leak overlay. Not to long ago, I had a client who supplied me with a pack of film grain, scratches, and light leaks. I simply set their blending mode to "Hard Light", set a base grain, and 3 light leaks for beginning, middle, and end. I think I over did it on the grain and leaks, but hey, I'm just having fun with it.

I also added a solid on top of the final comp with a radial "Ramp" effect on top with a yellow in the center to black on the edges. It's not so apparent with the grain on, but it adds some slight detail to the texture of the logo. Finally, I added the Video Copilot preset for "AfterShake" to simulate the juttering of the gate of an old camera. I need to work on that since I just slapped on the preset and did minor tweaks to its controllers.




This is the first time I've ever messed with something like this on my leisure. Hopefully, I can make one of these every 2 weeks or so just to keep experimenting with new ideas. I believe having this passion to create something and aspiration to keep learning new things about the trade and medium are essential to becoming an amazing artist. Plus lots of coffee, and getting frustrated for 2 hours on what colors to choose.


P.S. Vimeo redesigned their web page lay out and I must say, for once, I'm actually much more pleased with this design than their previous one. This doesn't happen too often for me (Facebook) when pages I visit a lot change their layout and I initially enjoy it.

Some Rest

Finally, I can rest for a little bit before my next big project. I just finished editing some title and credits work and just delivered my NYPD Blue Daft Punk mix to the editing bay.

I've basically just cut the project to match the music, but I wanted to do more with it in After Effects and I just don't have the time. I'm planning to work on it when I have free time and turn it from an academic to a personal project. My professor is also cautious of us using the copyrighted material he provides so I'm going to lay low for awhile and post it later.

Currently brainstorming more ideas for my next motion personal project. I think at the rate school is going, I'd have to start during break.

Stumbling Around

Stumbled across this website called 9-eyes which is a collection of interesting photos caught by the Google team when capturing images on the road for Google Maps.

I love seeing how they caught such interesting moments while on the road and how the Google Maps system is spreading worldwide.

Also, I'm currently stuck on this song by Japanese band Toe called "Two Moons". Gotta love when that acoustic guitar kicks in.

Trying to get back into the groove of working on my NYPD Blue Project. Another cup of coffee should get be back into a creative flurry.

Motion

I can't wait to get some free time. I've been plotting on doing some motion graphic works that doesn't include any fonts. I don't feel like becoming a one trick pony.

I want to do an abstract interpretation to the song "Just a Few Minutes" by Akira Kosemura off his "Grasslands" album. The song is minimalistic but contains elements of both organic and non organic sound in which I wanted to interpret in motion through natural (curves) and unnatural shapes (angles, sharp edges).

I stumbled across this video "London Falling" by Fulgeance, and I love how it flows and uses basic shapes that are choreographed perfectly to the music.

NYPD Remix

Just had a long stride working on Avid Media Composer for the creative half of my advanced editing class project. So far, so good. I thought it would tak me a lot longer, but I've managed to cover 1/3rd of what I wanted to do in one session.

Started to customize my interface and keyboard shortcuts of Media Composer. I'm surprised the "Edit In" command doesn't have its own shortcut. It's basically the same function as the "Blade Tool" in Final Cut Pro in which it splits a piece of media in your timeline where your scrubber stands. That sort of function has been part of my workflow in editing since forever and ever since I've remapped and customized my keys/shortcuts I've been editing faster.


Here's a music video I've enjoyed because of it's sci fi feel. Hooray for the Earth's "True Loves" music video stands out to me with its nicely done visual effects and some good cinematography. What I probably loved the most about it was the "Planet of the Apes" type of style and vintagey space suit which seems to pay homage to those of the 60's.



Also, the "jumping" from place to place reminds me of when you're dreaming and you're suddenly transported somewhere else in an almost unnoticeable and seamless fashion.

Avid Media Composer

Just finished my first project ever on Avid Media Composer 5. Interesting transition from using Final Cut Pro to Media Composer. I still feel I work faster on Final Cut, but maybe I just need to warm up to the workflow of Media Composer.

Our first project in our Advanced Editing class was to cut several consecutive scenes from the 90's ABC TV show" N.Y.P.D. Blue". We have to do 2 cuts. The first is a more Hollywood style type of edit where we would cut the scenes as if we were cutting them for the actual show. The second cut is a creative, no limits (besides hard drive space),  cut using any external footage we want.

I've finished the first cut, and I've been getting footage for the second part. I should be done within the next couple of weeks because I plan to spend some quality time working on the creative cut. How often do I get a class project that has essentially no real guidelines or boundaries besides my imagination?

By the way, speaking of N.Y., I'll be heading to New York this Spring Break with Jess. I can't wait to visit what people call today the modern day Rome!

VFX Breakdown

Here's some VFX breakdowns from one of the most expensive blockbusters in history from AE+Tuts. I love seeing scenes get torn down like this because it's amazing to see the creativity it requires build such an illusion. Also, it's great to see what top notch compositors and modelers do underneath it all.

Harry Potter

Pirates of the Caribbean

King Kong


X Men First Class


I love seeing how bare a scene originally is and how it becomes transformed into a totally different world. People complain about VFX ruining films nowadays. It seems more people are inclined to look at the negative rather than to praise. Let's not forget those moments when you've seen a good movie that's transported you to another world and not for one moment did you see the wireframes and green screen, but instead you were fooled into believing that what was on screen was real.

Movies are basically one big illusion anyways.

This is one of the reasons I love film is because that clash of technology and art that makes it such a unique medium.