Art of the Title: Quantum of Solace

The good folks at The Art of the Title Sequence have recently posted a wonderful exposé on the titles for the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, including an in-depth, wide-ranging interview with Ben Radatz, Creative Director of the much-admired design house MK12 (“a full-service lateral hyperthreaded tactical design and research bureau”). Ben shares quite a bit about both the creative process and actual steps of creation, with loads of visual examples. I high recommend the read.

The Art of the Title Sequence have explored nearly 200 television and motion picture titles over the years, with dozens of interviews - it’s a great site in general for any motion graphic artist or student looking for inspiration (or even just the TV & movie überfan looking for more behind-the-scenes knowledge!).

2+ Hours of Free Video Training on Shatter

Many After Effects users are familiar with Brian Maffitt, founder of Total Training. Brian also ran a plug-in company called Atomic Power for a couple of years. His Evolution plug-in set was distinguished by 1) deep controls, and 2) hours of video training that came free in the box. Adobe bought Atomic Power and integrated most of the plug-ins into After Effects, including Shatter, Card Dance, Card Wipe, Caustics, Wave World, and Colorama. Most of the controls in those plug-ins haven’t changed since AE version 4 (not CS4, but the 4 before there was CS).

What does that history lesson have to do with today? Brian has started diving into his archive of video training, with the intention of making available for free still-useful material that doesn’t fit into the current Total Training library anymore. He started by posting the 2+hours of training he originally created for the Shatter effect on Total Training’s YouTube channel. Below are all 6 parts:

“Why 3D Doesn’t Work and Never Will”

While a large portion of both the media creation and consumption industries gear up to produce and support 3D films and video, others are digging in their heels and asking about the fit and fabric of the emperor’s clothes. Much loved sound designer and film editor Walter Murch - as well as film curmudgeon critic Roger Ebert - are two of those questioners. This blog post by Ebert reprints a detailed letter from Murch about the inherent technical issues of stereoscopic films that detract from the esthetic appreciation of them as well. It’s quite meaty - I suggest you go read it all - but the central issue Murch brings up is what he refers to as the ‘convergence/focus’ issue: “3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before.”

Your Daily After Effects Fix

I’ve mentioned previously that Todd Kopriva’s Region of Interest blog is one of the best sources of essential After Effects information. And it still is. But a few additional sources have really blossomed as constant fountains of After Effects goodness:

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2010 Motion Graphics Design Census

The unofficial, web-based Motion Graphics Design Census for 2010 is now available from their web site. It compiles over 5500 responses - distributed roughly evenly between the US and non-US - into a series of responses about age, software, and - primarily - income. Of course, it’s only a survey of those who responded rather than the industry as a whole. Also, not everyone responded to every question - for example, only 219 self-employed artists offered how much they charged per hour, and most of the charts are based just on US respondents. With those caveats, here’s what stuck out for us:

Classic Visual Effects Knowledge

Chris Zwar - After Effects power user and occasional PVC contributor - shared on the media-motion.tv After Effects list that Peter Sciretta of /Film had recently compiled the first 12 episodes of Discovery Channel’s Movie Magic documentary series. As it was recorded in the mid-90s, a substantial portion of the effects are “practical” rather than done in the computer. Nonetheless, it’s a good background on matte paintings, miniatures, stop motion, pyrotechics, and similar techniques, plus a reminder of how easy we have it to day compared to the early days of computer graphics.

BG Renderer 2.0

Lloyd Alvarez is a top-notch After Effects user who has also developed a handful of very useful scripts for the program. One of his most popular is BG Renderer, which launches instances of After Effects in the background to render compositions while you continue to work in the foreground. Lloyd just announced BG Renderer 2.0 with After Effects CS5 compatibility, plus a whole host of new features.

4 Ways Video Is Fundamentally Changing

If you’re interested in the business of video beyond just shooting and editing it, you might enjoy reading Shishir Mehrotra of Google’s recent article over on ClickZ. He notes “In my position at YouTube, I’ve observed this market over the last few years, and have taken note of the ways in which it is fundamentally changing.” His four main macro-changes are:

• Hyper-Fragmentation
• Great Content Can Come From Anywhere
• Advertisers Can Create Content That Users Love
• There Is No Online Video, Just Video

For many of you, the first two may fit into the “well, DUH” category; Shishir even notes the first one is “not a new story.” The last one is something we’ve been personally preaching for years: The sooner you blur the lines between broadcast and web video from the production side, the better, because the viewer already expects them to be of the same quality - just as they expected “local market” or cable TV to look as good as the major networks. That third one may come as a bit of a surprise to the cynical, but anyone who has seen videos like the Evian Roller Babies (and not to mention, its view counter) realize it’s becoming true. Regardless, it’s a good read, as well as something to pass onto your clients.

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