Last week I was working on a retail spot where we needed a product that wasn’t shot on-figure. But we did have a shot of a similar product. It just needed a little work. This is what I mean by “a little:”
I’m pretty pleased with the end result. It was a fun task to work on, though I hope I don’t have to do it too often…
With so many newspapers seeing decline in their physical circulation, it’s nice to see a paper like the New York Times embracing the flexibility of content that the Internet can offer.
Recently, their After Effects workflow was posted on digitalartwork.net. It’s a little rough and they fully admit they’re new to the mograph game, but it’s always interesting to see how someone else works.
Now if only other papers would realize Internet distribution offers more than digital copies of their print.
Here’s the New Your Times’ demo reel:
UPDATE: Humble pie. I already had to fix a pretty critical bug. Post Haste 1.0.1 has just been released.
One of the more tedious tasks in post, with the exception of rotoscoping, is just setting up a project. A while back, we discovered the usefulness using a template folder to keep everything consistent. Thomas Tomchak at Suite Take goes into great detail about project templates. But we were still duplicating folders, copying and pasting, and renaming multiple files before we could get started. I decided to make the write my own software to make things easier. The result is Post Haste.
Post Haste really just does one thing, but does it well: automatically generates a project folder for you. All you have to do is enter information such as project number, client, etc. and Post Haste will create a project folder with files in place and renamed. It’s customizable to allow up to five fields of information and auto-fills certain fields such as date, editor, or suite. Take a look.
Post Haste is completely free. There are no nag dialogues about how you should give me money. Really, I wrote the program for myself to make things easier. But to make things interesting, I’m releasing Post Haste as “luchware.” If you find it useful, consider buying me lunch.
A simple, but beautifully done motion graphics piece by Jonathan Jarvis illustrating the credit crisis. I highly recommend viewing it over on Vimeo in HD.
So, it’s 11 months late, but I’ve finally started to get some pieces up on the portfolio section of the site.
I’ve got one issue with it though (aside from it not being complete). Shadowbox, the media viewer I’m using, seems to have an issue with Firefox 3 and Adblock. It prevents any plugin media (including flash & quicktime) from loading in the viewer. If anyone has any ideas, I’m open to them. Right now, though, I think my best bet is to just provide a different view option for those users who may be affected. Are there any special firefox-only functions that can be used to detect plugins? I’d want this to be as automated as possible.
Motionographer currently has a poll simply asking “Motion Graphics” or “Motion Design”?
I’ve often toyed with the idea of referring to myself as a Motion Designer, though this post is mainly referring to the actual product or service itself.
(At the time of the posting, Motion Design is winning with 54% of the vote, Motion Graphics at 33%, and Neither at 11%.)