Star Wander

Well as you probably guessed i’m a bit of a nut when it comes to papercraft things, just found this  little stop motion animation via paperforest (full of really quirky paper enchantments that you can ogle for  hours on end.) This quirky little animation you see here were created by Eric Power a animator and film maker you can check out his blog via his quirky url: www.ericpowerup.net (made me giggle) or for his more professional site visit Clear Productions. He is a self taught animator and film-maker from Austin in Texas, his philopsy is:

everything can be learned simply through hard work and passion.  I also believe one of the best ways to learn how to make a film is to just go out and do it.

Power interests like many of the male gender lies in video games, therefore he combined his skill and love for animation and virtual entertainment to produce quirky paper treatments of gamer nerds golden oldies. Other recreations he created were Zelda and Mortal Kombat, these were just plain imitations of the game play with a paper treatment. However i think the Star Wars emulation was the best as it had alot more detail, i’m not really a Star Wars fan or anything and i haven’t watched the triology or anything (yes i know i should, it’s on my list to do one of these days just haven’t got around to it) but i did enjoy watching this motion piece but that might be also down to the score of the piece, quite liked it,  was very relaxing.  Well if your interested the soundtrack was by Jeremy Messersmith and entitled Tatooine. If you liked it you should check out Messersmith’s latest track Organ Donor (animation was also created by Power) and his album “The Reluctant Graveyard”.

I really liked Power’s quirky use of paper and his attention to detail with the use of layers and hand crafted die cuts to create shadows and form, he could’ve just had one colour in the background of the sunset but he chose to have four wavy layers instead which creates a fuller and vibrant image. Each individual element of characters, spaceships looked like it take alot of time to create, for example look at the Death Star and how many squares needed slicing and then cutting more from another colour and attaching it, very time consuming indeed. The only negative thing i can think of (for the geeks) is that princess Leia is definitely not hot and kinda looks like a guy lol (i remember Ross from Friends little fantasy) Tehehe However Luke Skywalker makes up for it with his very stylish and full hair. All in all it was a amazing intricate piece of work that lasted 2 min and 40 secs which mean there were alot of frames and took alot of time to animate aswell in other words its was alot of work but i think it was well worth it and the outcome turned out really well.

Sorry is just a word

Why, hello there, long time no speak, well as you can see i haven’t really been posting anything and i’ve quite fallen under the radar not unless you follow me on twitter, but anyway getting back to the point, there’s no excuses and i’m not going to make any so the only thing i can think of to do is actually tell you all that i’ve been up to which has kept me so busy from posting anything here. So get ready to do some reading we got alot to catch up on.

First, the most currently is that i’ve just finished a steps program, sounds like i’m recovering from alcohol or something doesn’t it? lol Well nope this was a pilot art program called Steps to Creativity, that lasted a total of eight weeks, which consisted of a triangular relationship between a student, a traditional business and a creative mentor. Oh did i mention i was selected as “THE MOST CREATIVE STUDENT IN NI” yes that’s me, i dunno how much of that’s true but you don’t say no to what’s been given (it’s only manners) ^_^ along with a very nice glass plaque trophyesq thing i also received a bottle of pink bubbly and £500 cash prize. So that’s going into the travel pot. (I’ll explain that on a later date.)

My project was with Ricky Martin, no he’s the singer your thinking of, but still fabulous this Ricky is the owner of Alive Surf School, established Portrush for eight year (the longest running surf school in the area). Along with Ricky i was also working with John Bustard from Awakin Ltd also formerly known as Creative Tourism. He was the creative mentor throughout this assignment who advised and provided feedback when necessary to assist in planning the project and at times, to obtain the desired quality of the project objectives.

So what was i doing during those eight weeks? Well with any business the overall goal is to increase revenue, so my challenge was to utilize social media tools to do this, alongside i was assigned the task to increase brand awarness through other mediums. The hope was that both of these will compliment each other and create a profit in sales and awareness.

The objectives and deliverables were:

Implement Facebook and Twitter tools

Increase awareness by creating 100 new fans in Facebook.

Drive sales by converting fans for trade or referrals.

Deliver a weekly content broadcast to promote brand (8 in total)

Suite of tools left as turnkey solution for Alive

We regconised our constraints of having no budget, limited time scale and limited access to Ricky, as Summer was his peak season. So moving onto the outcomes. The social media that we selected to use was Facebook and Twitter, Alive already had a Facebook account, although it was pretty inactive and users didn’t really show much interest in it. With Twitter we were starting from scratch. However in the early stages of the project we regconised that we wanted to make the accounts as dynamic and interactive as possible.

One method of this was the upload of photographs so that users can view and access them. This was done by myself standing chest deep in freezing cold waters, with no wet suit might i add.  I think some people thought i was a little bit crazy, but hey crazy’s good. These little adventures lasted for over a hour at a time and was definitely an interesting experience to say the least. The good news…i did get some pretty good shots. Along with uploading the photos in facebook we also gave regular surf and weather reports, but the highlight in the Social Media content were the Alive on Coast Broadcasts.

within the first 3 days of the project we had the first of eight surfisode released. A surfisode is, basically it’s a 2/3 minute (usually 3) you tube broadcast published every week, these included updates in the surf school, and things to do in the area. It also provided an opportunity to advertise some of the offers and competitions that we ran. Along with the designated deliverables, without any budget i also increase Alive’s brand awareness through products such as ambient media.

Sand drawing or Sand doodles as i like to call them were created once a fortnight. This was one example and stretches over a third of the West Strand Beach it took over a couple of hours to complete and was created  by using a single screw driver and me on my hands and knees. People took videos and photographs as i was doing it generating alot of interest for Alive. It even inspired some to have a little go themseleves. Little tip if you decide to do your own always remember to stretch, i didn’t and i definitaly regretted it. (So much pain!! -_-)

To get the most of the sand drawing i reformatted and created a stop motion animation. The concept was that it was like a little treasure trail and allows you to interact with it by jumping over the lines. Similar to when you were a kid hopping over cracks in the pavement. Along with this and the Alive logo that you saw previously that was used for the intro of the broadcasts, i also created this animation. It features BBC personality Alan Simpson, and Awakin’s character Sandy Surfer, script was by John Bustard.

Well i’m happy to say all objectives were not only met but exceeded everyone’s expectation in both quantity and quality. There are a total of 9 broadcast with 958 hits no including the two extra animations. Twitter has 48 followers from nothing and still rising. Facebook fans are presently up to 352, a 70% increase which exceed the requested amount. This positive result is also reflected in sales there was a immediate increase in profit effective as of week one from £350 to £2660 in the 8th week.

All of this increase in brand awareness of Alive has resulted in extra media coverage. As previously mentioned Alive had a interview with Alan Simpson on BBC Radio Ulster. This came about as Simpson became a fan of Alive and the Surfisodes as we featured his show in one of our broadcasts which led to an invitation to Ricky to go on his show.

Along with the radio interview, Alive also recieved press coverage, We were featured on the front page of the Weekender supplement for the Newsletter.

Since handing in the report, Ricky has also been filmed for the next series of Ultimate Ulster. All of these three outcomes was very unexpected but amazing opportunities for publicity. It demonstrates the power of social media as without these, some of these events may not have happened.

I have enable Ricky to continue this project by providing him with the necessary tools, such as a manual which contains my recommendations, how to guides in creating the broadcast, and analytic tools for market research. Along with this document, there will also be one on one tutorial. So now finally i’ll be passing the torch.

All in all i had a great experience with Steps, it was a great opportunity to gain new skills and meet new people. The program was very enlightening in the education of students, traditional businesses and even the creative mentors in digital creativity and entrepreneurship. I would like to thank everyone involved especially Clare McGee who basically organised everything and chased after us for weekly reports and what not. She also planned a lovely residential at Lusty Beg (Sounds dirty doesn’t it, hehehe,) but it was a really lovely place on a little island, very tranquil check out their site by clicking here. Would totally recommend it for a lovely weekend away. So big thanks to Clare!! YOU ROCK!! (P.S. she has one good singing voice, a lady with many talents.) ^_^

Well that’s it for today i think i’ve written enough for one day. Come back again for another catch up post.

Logorama

Was going through my rss reader and checking out blogs (which i’ve neglected a bit) and found this awesome short film directed by H5 a French animation collective, presented at the Cannes film festival 2009 and opened the 2010 Sandance film festival and won a 2010 academy award. Well those were the technical aspects (copied from vimeo hehehe).

The animation is 16 minutes long but definitely worth a watch. Basically it’s a mini world made of logos, yes the buildings and characters, everything just as the name suggests. The sarcastic humor is what attracted me the most to the piece, this is one the main elements of the success along with the innovation of the concept and fine detail of the film.

The concept itself is very original, we may have all thought about doing the same thing but i don’t think we would have executed it as well as H5 (well for me anyway). I like how the piece makes you think and about all the different brands and logos we have in today’s society and how much we place focus and emphasis on brand royalty. Well i’ll stop blabbing and actually show you the video, it’s on vimeo so you’ll have to click here.

Matchbox heaven

Whilst conducting research for my animation module i found this awesome music video for the song “My place” by Navigators. The video itself basically is lyrics from the song portrayed in a visually interesting way, a very simple idea that’s been done many times however the execution via using fake vintage style matchboxes is what gives this piece an edge. Altogether there was 178 boxes altogether each uniquely designed by Pavel Fuksa a prague based designer. The imagery on the matchboxes uses block color in a way which creates a stylized retro quality that’s very reflective of the music. I love the simplicity and the randomness of the visuals, and how it links to the word that they’re portraying. All in all a very good find and one that i will definitely remember. Hope you liked it too. P.S. the song’s not too bad either, very catchy.

Signs of love

Saw this short film a while ago, it’s the sweetest thing. Starts off a bit slow but stick with it, gets good. The film reminds me of a modern silent movie with little tidbits of diegetic sounds. The background i thought was a nice touch and keeps the narrative moving constantly. The piece just goes to show how you can meet people anywhere so next time why don’t you pass a little note! You never know who you might meet.

One of the 2009 Cannes Lions winners!
More info: http://work.canneslions.com/cyber/ent…

Titled: Signs
A simple short film about communication.
Created by Publicis Mojo and @RadicalMedia
Director: Patrick Hughes
http://www.patrickhughes.com.au

Did you notice the bottle of Schweppes? At least it didn’t focus on that entirely right? Well what are you waiting for? Common click play!!

Hyde Tube

Hey all, found this really great site for animation video, very inspirational and arty. Credited to Leah Bachelor who help me find this little gem to show all of you. Now here’s a little background info on the site. Sourced from the user guide of the site. (Note. Click on the image for the link)

The Hyde Tube, What is it?

The Hyde Tube is an online film festival, an international data bank, a small selective Youtube or Daily motion for audiovisual professionals. The Hyde Tube lauds creative excellence, diversity, and choice.

What is the purpose?

The Hyde Tube shows your films to audiovisual professionals: Advertising agencies, record companies, and production companies that always are looking for talent to create and direct commercials, music videos, virals, trailers, title sequences, and idents. The Hyde Tube allows professionals all over the world to see your work on a single website.

Human Tetris

Who wudda thought that someone would come up with this idea! Found this video from one of the blogs that i have subscribed to which is Design is Kinky (and it totally is lol) Created by Jackson Karinja and the official title is 8-Bit, it’s a freeboard of 36 skaters. I loved the neon lights, although the video’s production could be a little bit better a bit too cinema verite for my liking compared to some of his other work, but still loved the concept thought it was very quirky and original, which got me thinking has anyone else done something similar? And behold i found this guy’s work Guillaume Reymond. He’s also done a video on space invaders just so you know. ^_^

Well both of the videos are based on the same concept but the execution were different and contrasted each person’s style. Which proves the old saying that “nothing is original.” Quoted by Jim Jarmusch an American fim-maker although the rest of the quote is quite inspiring.

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”

Jim Jarmusch

Lego (What does it mean?)

Yaho!! Well was in the middle of doing some late night blogging as you do and came across some awesome lego photos/video. However before i show this to you, have you ever actually considered what lego means or where it came from? We all know what it is (at least i hope so)! ^_^ Well i decided to look it up in a dictionary (apple dictionary to be precise!) Anyway below is what i found:

Lego |ˈlegō|noun trademarka construction toy consisting of interlocking plastic building blocks.ORIGIN 1950s: from Danish leg godt ‘play well,’ from lege ‘to play.’

How famous is lego? It’s even in the dictionary! Hehehe. Well that was a bit of a random fact! Anyho back to what i wanted to show you! Sourced from Creative Review:

The above images are from the “first Lego calendar to be issued in the UK, with all profits going to the National Autistic Society.” (Very charitable ain’t it?)

The calendar features a variety of Lego characters, many of them imperilled by everyday objects in scenarios relating to each month. All the LEGO elements used have been in production at some point – even the terrified expressions come from genuine Lego figures. (My favorite’s the tennis one, it’s so cute)

The calendar is the work of freelance designer/photographer Ben Watts who works in-house at Lego HQ in Slough. It will be available to buy from UK Lego Stores or at shop.lego.com from this week. (Guess what i’ll be buying people for christmas)

Oh yeah also found this in the post (Should’ve just pasted a link instead, the post is near enough the same as the creative review blog (has a few more pics) which can be found if you click here and say “Abra Kadabra” Hehehe! Oh before i get check out the stop motion video!

Film Riot

Interested in film-making? Well this video is a definitely must watch for you! Hosted by Ryan Connolly, who graduated from “Full Sail’s” film programme. Over the years he’s refined his skills and has worked with Dell and Alienware. Connolly is also the Founder and President of Triune Films which produces Film Riot (Totally awesome).

Anyway enough about Ryan Connolly and back to Film Riot. It’s basically a DIY show for film-making with little snippets of comedic moments. Another awesome thing about it is the adverts (i know what your’re thinking they’re normally the most annoying things) but Film Riot makes it so that it’s part of the show. It’s so much better that other videos who just gives a little shout out! Definitely worth the sponsorship! A new video gets updated every Thursday.

I just wanted to post this up for all you guys interested in film-making, it’s such a awesome how to show that’s so entertaining and oh so very educational at the same time. Even if you’re not into film-making it’s still worth a watch. Two thumbs up and if i had a third that would be up too. So it’ll just have to make do with my big toes! lol But seriously check it out! Click here!