http://provideocoalition.com/index.php en chris@cybmotion.com Copyright 2008 2008-10-02T15:29:01-08:00 http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/interview_over_on_motiontv/ http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/interview_over_on_motiontv/#When:15:29:01Z One of our plans for this blog is to also talk about the business of being a motion graphics artist - how to work with clients, as well as how to keep your own ship in order. Unfortunately, we haven’t had time to do much of that so far (among other things, we’ve moved). However, Lilian Dregalla interviewed us for the motion08 conference, where we had a chance to muse about subjects such as understanding the purpose behind each motion graphics task you take on, as well as some of the philosophy behind our books. You can read it here. Meanwhile, we’re about to hit the road, speaking at VidXpo in Denver next week, and then speaking at motion08 in Albuquerque the week after. Hope to see some of you there! Afterward, we’re hunkering down to finish a new edition of After Effects Apprentice (for CS4), and then hopefully this winter we can get back to some of the topics we want to blog about up here. Business, Motion Graphics 2008-10-02T15:29:01-08:00 http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/after_effects_cs4/ http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/after_effects_cs4/#When:05:01:00Z Adobe has announced their Creative Suite 4, in which they have aligned the schedules of virtually all of their products to be updated at the same time. One of these programs is, of course, After Effects, which we have based our business around since its release in 1992. As a result, we obviously go over each new release with a fine-tooth comb, looking for which new features will make our lives easier, will give us new looks, and which may open up new avenues of business for us. That last point has become particularly interesting in light of Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia, plus their focus on integrating functionality across the various programs in the Creative Suite. In this article, we will give a brief overview of many of those new features. Then in the coming weeks and months, we’ll focus on some of these features individually, relating what we found interesting about each one, with tips on how to use them (and what might trip you up). These additional articles will be posted on our CMG Keyframes channel on PVC. In addition to articles up here on ProVideoCoalition, there are several other places where you can glean additional information: Later Tuesday afternoon (the 23rd), Adobe will be placing the"live help” file for After Effects CS4 online. When it is up, you can access the entire Help file by clicking here, and search for features of specific interest. Click here to jump straight to … *VIDEO*, CS4, Motion Graphics, Visual Effects 2008-09-23T05:01:00-08:00 http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/ted_levin1/ http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/ted_levin1/#When:16:59:00Z The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. I’ve been going through their online archive of talks for my own amusement and education, and sharing with you ones I found to be particularly interesting. Back in June, I highlighted Jakob Trollback’s talk on Rethinking the Music Video. This time around, I want to highlight a “music video” that’s considerably in the more abstract domain. In this presentation, Golan Levin discusses the custom performance software he writes which allows him to improvise music with accompanying visuals. We’re strictly in the experimental realm here (the soundtrack is 60s-era avant-garde electronic music - listen with your speakers on to annoy your cubemates), but sometimes, great inspiration comes from the very fringes of an art. Note: The visuals are initially very simplistic (the piece is titled “Scribble"), but become much more complex about 4:40 into the video. Aside from Levin’s TED Talk, I strongly recommend you check out the Flong Interactive Art site (pictured above) which contains a number of interesting audiovisual works by Levin and his friends - there’s lots of cool interactive visual pieces on there. Audio, Interactive, Motion Graphics 2008-09-19T16:59:00-08:00 http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/ted_talk_hirshberg/ http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/ted_talk_hirshberg/#When:17:37:00Z A parallel conference to TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) is the EG (Entertainment Gathering) conference, whose goal is “making information entertaining & entertainment informative.” This talk from last year’s EG gives a history lesson on the development of both television and computers, which are of roughly the same age. Although it gets bogged down at times (you could skip ahead from the 5 minute mark to 11 minutes, unless early computers gets your geek up), it does contain numerous interesting nuggets, such as the interview with tweeners where they explain why thing think television is “optional” in their lives, parallels between the tech and messianic movements, how TV was supposed to kill radio, how crayons were used to create a proprietary media platform, Microsoft’s initial pooh-poohing of the information superhighway, and other amusing anecdotes as well as important lessons in the different business models between the web and television. (While blogging on a web site about media creation, I can’t help but note technically that they failed to removed the interlacing from the video reference materials, and that the audio equalization is fatiguing to listen to. Plus not all technologists understand pacing in entertainment. Fortunately, the medium isn’t the entire message.) Business, Distribution 2008-09-07T17:37:00-08:00 http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/the_art_of_the_opening_title/ http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/the_art_of_the_opening_title/#When:19:26:00Z One of our favorite motion graphics design jobs is creating the opening title sequence for movies and television shows (a few of the projects we’ve worked on can be seen here). Title design is a place where typography and animation meet to both convey a story and set a mood. I’ve recently stumbled across a lovely web site called Art of the Title. Every week, the writers dissect an opening title sequence with still frames and a large (typically 800x336) QuickTime movie of the title, plus the ability for visitors to leave comments and carry on the discussion. It does not contain just recent titles; they will often reach back a few years or even decades to show off a design that particularly resonated with them in either a good or bad way. There is also a well-organized index down the left side of the dozens of titles they reviewed in the past. By the way, in the next couple of weeks we’ll be adding an article to our CMG Keyframes blog on type resources (including links to numerous type foundries), plus writing an article for Artbeats.com with common typesetting tips and errors - so stay tuned!  2008-09-05T19:26:00-08:00 http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/09_23_08_cs4/ http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/09_23_08_cs4/#When:20:30:00Z Users on Adobe mailing lists have been getting a tease: “September 23, 2008, is a big day at Adobe. Join us at 9 A.M. Eastern and Pacific time for a special online event. Register today.” If you follow the link, you’re taken to a form that invites you to “Be one of the first to see Adobe Creative Suite 4 in a special web broadcast on 23rd of September, 2008” with choices for time slots aimed at Europe, North America, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and India. It should be noted that at least the email I received had Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Illustrator icons as part of the header, so I’m not ready to say that every Adobe app is going to be part of that webcast (and why are they restricting a virtual event to pre-registration? I guess not to crash the servers...and for marketing tracking, of course), but it’s nice to see more information on CS4 finally starting to seep out. Also note that Adobe Labs already has public betas for Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth, in case you missed them. Rest assured that this is something that is of extreme interest to those of us on PVC, and we’ll certainly be writing about what we know as soon as we can (speaking of teases)… 2008-09-03T20:30:00-08:00 http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/ted_lovegrove/ http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/ted_lovegrove/#When:18:49:01Z The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. I’ve been going through their online archive of talks for my own amusement and education, and sharing with you ones I found to be particularly interesting and relevant. This week I’d like to share a talk by “Captain Organic” Ross Lovegrove of Studio X in Notting Hill, England. He is the celebrated designer of objects such as the iMac, Ty Nant water bottle, and Go chair. Ross is a proponent of what he calls “fat free” design that draws inspiration from natural forms - not just organic blobs in the name of nature, but shapes, processes, and sensibilities derived from the inner logic of natural objects. Although this talk is focused primarily on industrial design, those who are designing logos, 3D objects, or who just want to be inspired about someone deeply passionate about his field should enjoy it. This talk is part of TED’s series Design Like You Give A Damn. Some who commented on the talk found Ross to be impractical at best and arrogant at worst; I found his laser-like focus on his ideals to be energizing. Motion Graphics 2008-08-31T18:49:01-08:00 http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/migrating_after_effects_between_macs/ http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/migrating_after_effects_between_macs/#When:15:59:00Z With the recent announcement by Adobe that After Effects CS4 will not run on PowerPC-based Macs, some users are thinking about upgrading their hardware. With new hardware comes the question about how to get all of your software moved over. In the old days, you might consider just dragging folders from one drive to another. Sadly, that often doesn’t work anymore. Hardware 2008-08-29T15:59:00-08:00 http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/spotlight_fox_sports_hd/ http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/spotlight_fox_sports_hd/#When:15:36:00Z For our next project spotlight, we’re going to look at a Fox Sports HD promo animated by Joost Korngold of Renascent. This spot fuses organic movement with the high-impact 3D Fox Sports is known for. Joost, as well as Fox Sports Creative Directors Josh Nichols and Mark Denyer-Simmons plus Senior Vice President and Creative Director Robert Gottlieb, were kind enough to spend some time answering questions and revealing how this spot unfolded. 3D, Motion Graphics 2008-08-27T15:36:00-08:00 http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/ted_talk_reil/ http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/ted_talk_reil/#When:17:37:00Z The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. I’ve been going through their online archive of talks for my own amusement and education, and sharing with you ones I found to be particularly interesting. This week I’d like to share a talk by Torsten Reil, originally of Oxford University and now of NaturalMotion. He and his team started from the point of view that most animation in computer games that were based on motion capture or manual keyframing were too simplistic, repetitive, and predictable. So rather than try to guess ahead of time what actions would be needed, and creating or capturing those actions, they went about simulating a human nervous system, wired it up to control a skeleton and muscles, and then gave it artificial intelligence. They used a form of simulated genetic evolution and mutation to teach it how to at first walk, and then react to external forces (such as being tripped or shoved). This system is now being used not only in computer games such as Grand Theft Auto IV, but also in movies for virtual stuntmen - or perhaps most famously, in battle sequences in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. This movie from TED - originally recorded five years ago … 3D, Visual Effects 2008-08-24T17:37:00-08:00