Here are a series of animations I’ve created on behalf of Jersey Telecom for Jersey Live 2010 – jersey’s biggest music festival. They will be running on the big screens either side of the main stage on a loop (along with other sponsors adverts) and in the Jersey Telecom Re-charge arena when the live video from the stage isn’t being played.

You can view the other three after the jump.

Work was created in Photoshop and After Effects Cs4.

Props to Jersey Telecom for allowing me free reign on the projects, Ben from The Observatory for the layout work and Third Person for the original design concepts.

Jim and I were asked last minute to document the 2010 Grassroots Festival for the organisers so they would have something to show to potential sponsors next year, and seeing as Matt was already the official festival photographer, it made sense for us to jump on board. It was actually after they saw this video that Jim did on one of Matt’s photoshoot’s that they really wanted our take on things.

It was a great day in the end and the vibe of the festival could really be felt by all the audience and artists alike. The whole basis is that of an eco-festival so you didn’t really get the usual festival “trash everywhere” ground at the end of the day. We shot on a Sony Z5 and on a GOPRO HD for those great in-the-crowd fisheye shots. As soon as it’s finished i’ll post a link here, but until then, Video is now above instead of the old image, also please check out Matt’s pictures from the day here.

www.arts.je

We at The Observatory recently went live with the rebranded Jersey Arts Trust, and I built their new website (as with most of mine, built on wordpress!). We recommended that they change from www.jerseyartstrust.com to the easier to remember ‘arts.je’ – which so far has been well received.

Based upon wanting have a website that can be easily updated for in and out of the office, and incorporating social media channels, the new site draws focus to the varied disciplines, project and events they fund and get behind. For local artists in any medium, having the Jersey Arts Trust available to us offers amazing possibilities and I’d recommend any Jersey-person interested to have a look at the grants pages, and for anyone else just to have a peek at the different arts coming out of the island.

Let me know what you think…

www.anightof.je/opulence

This website was developed for a one-off night to be held at Jersey Potteries (Jersey, Channel Islands) that features Vula (the voice of Basement Jaxx) and is sponsored by Veuve Cliquot and supported by Mark Howe and Gallery Magazine.

It was designed & developed pretty quickly and relies heavily on the awesome 3D renders created by my buddy at The Observatory, Ollie Harris.

I’ve recently been involved in a website/presentation/video project for the great folks over at Le Masurier Ltd (Jersey) for a proposed development at the north end of St.Helier, Jersey. The site is now live and along with a full press release and social media strategy, this should draw a lot of attention so fingers crossed that it’s well received! Please go to lmbathstreet.je to check it out for yourself, and if you’re a Jersey resident, search for lmbathstreet on facebook to join the group.

View the article here

This is my effort for Nick Campbell’s 5 second project “Countdown”.

The basic premise for 5 second projects are that you create an animated piece lasting 5 seconds around a central theme and upload them to let everyone else see your work. It drives you to quickly create something that’s throw-away but still requires you to think about a concept and finish it through to the end result – I highly recommend if you’re working the field of animation, or just looking to start, get involved in this.

Took about an hour from start to end, working in Photoshop to deal with the elements (old screenshots and sprites) and animated in After Effects. Audio was boshed together in Premiere from some old 8bit game samples I had. Finally rendered in H264 QT using Adobe Media Encoder.

If you like the clip, please click “Like” on the video!

Here’s a quick look at my latest work – it’s a render in C4D using an illustration by Paul at The Observatory.

The idea was to copy the old art of quilling which is when you create an image by cutting and curling paper, something which has had a bit of a resurgence in recent times with people such as Yulia Brodskaya creating amazing images. It’s going to be used by the Jersey Arts Trust for the Artist Directory which will be a booklet showcasing Jersey’s artists of all mediums.

Here’s a closeup of the detail.

More detail.

Let me know what you think.

Here’s a quite effects and equipment test I did alongside Andy and the crew from Fortress Island Films.

Muzzle flashes/cartridges and comped-in explosion were my responsibilities but not colouration I hasten to add – this definately needs some work but for a few days playing around, it looks alight. Oh and the ident was quickly made for FIF as well…

Stay posted for the final piece when it comes up online.

When it comes to Web Startups in this day and age, it seems we’ve all been approached by someone who ‘has this amazing idea that’s going to revolutionize the internet’ but turns out to just want to rip off youtube, facebook, twitter, etc.

A lot of the time someone will want to develop an idea that has had all the large details mapped out but none of the small details. Take a leaf out of 37signals book (literally) – it’s better to make half a product than a half-assed product. Especially now when you realistically only have one chance to capture someone on your site and keep them coming back. If they’re confused and don’t know exactly what your product/site offers, chances are they will forget about it and move on.

Taglines

When someone approaches me with an idea (or rarely, if i come up with one myself) I like to think of it as a film. In the movies, films are sold purely on a tagline/strapline. This is a signal sentence that quickly explains roughly what you should expect. If someone asked you what ‘Alien‘ was like, you’d quickly be able to get across the idea by replying “think of it like Jaws in space”. This is known in business circles as a “high concept pitch“.

If you can grab someone’s attention in one sentence, you have a chance that they’ll be interested and therefore remember it. If you need a massive page of text and diagrams to get across a concept, then chances are that you’ll fail to get the public’s attention and therefore views/sales.

So next time someone comes to you with a great idea ask them to come up with a tagline for it – it doesn’t have to explain in great detail what your idea does, just get someone to ask another question about it.