If you ever need to supply a video file in a .ts/.mts/.m2t wrapper, commonly used on Blu-ray and AVCHD but can’t find out how to using any of the Adobe Creative Suite, please read on and find out how…. Continue reading “.ts .mts .m2t exporting in Adobe Media Encoder” »
Head on over to Legacy of Defeat to get some free fonts by the talented Hydro74. Also highly recommend that you check out the rest of his work at his site.
I’ve been preoccupied with some big projects recently (which, of course, will appear here in some time) but in between renders and downtime, I’ve been reading a bit more. Which made a change considering that easily 90% of everything my eyes consume is via RGB goodness through a screen of sort. So back to basic paper and ink, and the pieces I’m working through at the moment is “Getting Real – The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application” by 37signals. Continue reading “Getting Real : The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application” »
I’ve just had an Honourable mention from Nick Campbell over at GreyScaleGorilla.com for my Countdown vid (displayed on the previous post). Thanks to all of your comments via Vimeo and cheers to Nick for starting the 5 second project idea, as well as to Jim for egging me on to enter!
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 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. Continue reading “Freelancers: Startups, Ideas and Taglines” »
Here’s a quick tip that James from JimAndTonic (who’s renting a hotdesk in The Observatory at the moment) let me know today after we were scratching our heads for a while. If you use the Stroke effect (or similar) to trace a line around a mask/path that joined up, but the start point needs to be changing to another point, this is how you make that happen.
As per the picture above first use the Arrow tool to click on the point that you wish to make the first point. Then goto the Menu and click on Layers -> Mask and Shape Path -> Set First Vertex. This sets the active point as the first point. Voila!
A simple thing that’s has confused me on more than one occasion, so hopefully this will be useful for you fellow AE monkeys.
The ‘mascot’ of The Observatory (the creative communications group I’m part of) in all it’s 3D goodness. Visuals were done by my good buddy Ollie H and audio was provided by myself using Soundbooth CS4 and Premiere CS4. Our website will be up and running soon but please check out it so far using the link above.
This old boxing phrase would be used to describe someone who either could fight a opponent in a heavier weight class. You would try and be a lightweight and fight as a heavyweight – this is the way that a lot of Freelance Creatives believe is the best way to be. Operate as a physically small business but compete as a large business.
But the problem is if many, if not all, modern creative freelancers are acting in this way, then they are all competing on the same level i.e. the same weight class. This can be especially true considering the steep decline of the ‘traditional’ agency model which we are all seeing almost worldwide. Continue reading “Freelancers: Punching above your weight?” »
I saw this recently on a product website I read from time to time, and it’s simplicity blew me away. For an iPhone user, nearly every app or use comes from holding it in your hands. And why wouldn’t you want to hold it all the time – it’s a very lovely thing to hold. But when it’s sitting on my desk I tend to lean it up against my screen to I can quickly check when an alarm goes off or who’s calling, and when I’m traveling and want to watch a video I have to hold it which can get boring over 10mins.
A hunk of rubberized plastic with a notch out of it which your iphone fits. Thats it. A single piece of material. No chips or buttons or extra features. And that’s a big refreshing change from all other iPhone accessories as usually they try to fit everything into one product, but as with most things it’s much better to pick one problem and solve it than try to solve many and fail in all. Continue reading “Moviepeg” »
It’s been a manic few weeks of work (which is always better than having no work!) hence why I haven’t really had time to update this site much. I’ve updated the Static part of my work with a couple of logo renders, and will update the Online and Motion parts in the next few days as I’ve got 2 sites about to go live and animations about to be signed off.
In the meantime if you follow me on Twitter you can see what I’m up to on a day-to-day basis, and see me share gems I’ve discovered online, such as this great advert for Pedegree dog food (shot on a 1000fps Phantom camera)!
Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. I’m not sure this is true. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if you watch the dollars, you don’t have to worry so much about pennies.
An unusual take on this old saying, but if you read the rest of his post he makes a good point that sometimes it pays to take a big risk if the rewards are worth it. Of course the example he gives of not worrying about slighty more cash for a distracting ad for your blog, is more about keeping your good image rather than money issues. Check it out – most of his blog could be stated as tips that are only useful when you’ve got hundreds of thousands of subscribers and the renevue that brings, but the odd gem does provoke thought.
Just finished filming at the first States of Jersey International Conference on Financial Crime Information and Asset Recovery (bit of a long title but then I suppose they’re not looking for something quick and snappy…). The speakers were from all over the world and from both Governments and NGO’s (including United Nations, the World Bank and Christian Aid) and for the most part were quite interesting to listen to.
A few issues with the camera due to the rubbish lighting in the room and on the first day there was no audio feed from the board so I had to use a shotgun mic, but in the end you’re always going to be fighting issue like this when working a big conference.
The videos will be cut up and made available via the Jersey Finance TV website.
I’ve got a massive amount of work on at the moment so I’m being a bit slack with updates here, but here’s a quick photo from when I was filming yesterday for a corporate video for a software firm (will upload once it’s been signed off). For those who are interested in my gear, you can find the list of it at Normal Vibes Productions along with my previous short films and our one and only feature (still available on DVD!).
A funny thing happened yesterday.
As with anytime a prospective client contacts me about a project, I wonder how they got my details and whether a previous client recommended me (to thank them next time & for a bit of self gratification). So when I received an email out of the blue from a local company looking for a motion piece to replace an older Power Point presentation, I started wondering. Continue reading “Freelancers: Client’s route to your site” »
People choose to hire you based on many things (skills, price, location, etc) but lot of the time the deciding factor is who you are. If you’re whether you are friendly and chat a lot, or more of a ‘straight-down-to-business’ kinda person, these qualities are usually what make your clients decide to hire you over the next guy/girl.
The problem is that these days the more efficient of you will have systems in place to automate a lot of your business which is fine until everyone else in your industry starts using the same systems. When this happens, all that precious personality of yours goes out the window. Continue reading “Freelancers: To automate or to not automate?” »
So you’ve inherited a project and you’re trying to work out where a certain expression is or an effect is being applied, but you can’t see it on any of the layers. This caught me out the other day until someone reminded me to check for Shy Layers which of course was the answer. Layers can be made shy (icon looks like a face peering over a wall) which hides them from the timeline when the ‘Hide Shy Layers’ button is clicked – this is usually used for when you’ve got hundreds of layers in one timeline and you want to only see a few.
More info on Shy Layers can be found here (courtesy of Cassidy Bisher).
If you have a logo that’s been rasterised and you’re scaling it up or panning in with a camera you’ll realise that the edges will loose the crispness and it’ll look a bit rubbish, which clients don’t tend to be fond of. The easiest way to sort this issue is to open the vector version of the logo and import each mask into a seperate solid layer depending on the colour. As long as the ‘Continually Rasterise’ icon is click on, your masked solids will remain crisp and clean. Continue reading “5 Easy mistakes to make in After Effects” »
After months of not really ‘getting’ Twitter, I’ve finally given in and signed up. This was mainly due to reading many article stating that Twitter was yet another way to reach the masses/spread the word of your business and also down to Matt Porteous (my fellow Observatory member and Photographer Extraordinaire) having a go at me for not being ‘on Twitter’.
When the Twitter craze started it was described to me in a similar fashion to this:-
You on twitter?
Nope, I don’t really see the point.
Think of it like Facebook status updates…
Ok….?
Well. That’s kinda it. But you can update from anywhere. With pictures.
I still don’t see the point.
And so that’s what my view of twitter remained until I started seeing how other freelancers were using it to network and exchange information, mainly due to various articles on other sites about how to use it to increase awareness of a product/website/company. So I’ve joined (link for those that are interested) and here are a few links to things you might find useful if like me, you’ve just made the leap. Continue reading “Beginners Guide to Twitter” »
Uncrate marks itself as ‘The Buyer’s guide for Men’ and is a blog that does one thing very well – it displays a product with one picture and small description, and although they’ve added to the site over the last few years I’ve been following it (see below) this remains the reason why the site works so very well. Continue reading “Uncrate.com” »
One of the most important decisions that you will make when entering into the Freelancer way of working is one that people tend not to think to much about – Where should I work? Continue reading “Freelancers: Where should I work?” »
I’ve decided to create a series of articles that hopefully will be helpful to either other freelance creatives or people looking to make the leap into this wonderful way of working. So look forward to subjects on how to effectively run yourself as a business that should be applicable to all disciplines of creative freelancing, from photographers to writers to professional bloggers.
The first article is already up (Freelancers: How to Invoice) so please go have a look. If you can suggest any topics you’d like me to discuss or cover, get in touch and let me know!
The guys of The Observatory nearing the end of the Movember challenge this year – raised a fair amount of money for a worthy cause.
Check it out here to track our progress and donate!
I’ve been a big follower of Nick from GreyscaleGorilla for a long time now (go check out his stuff as well as his productivity based site – MakeCoolShit), and he posted a wallpaper the other day that said this – so very very true! So i decided to 3D it and it now sits on my workstation as a reminder to myself (and my clients who visit) that as soon as you work cheaply for some job, you become that guy who ‘does it cheaply’ and it devalues your work.
Here is the wallpaper in a variety of sizes (1024×768, 1440×900, 1920×1200).
As a freelancing creative, one of the weakest parts of my business has always been invoicing which seems stupid seeing as it’s the way I get paid for what i do. But (like others i suspect) I find the task a long winded and annoying one (especially by the time I’ve tracked down how long I spent on a project, typed up a description of each part of the job, filled in the client’s details, and printed/outputted to PDF and mailed). The purpose of this article is to show you guys/girls what my invoicing methods have been and what they are now.
Continue reading “Freelancers: How to invoice?” »