TwentyFortyOne Blog

I know this is really short and simple, but 3 seconds in I was staring an awe and continued to the whole way through it. What’s it like to be so talented? …I’ll tell you some day..

WOW, Long time since I’ve blogged! I would usually try and find something to blame it on like being attacked by a super mean griz, or like the netz was down for a few months…. But honestly this is all on me! So from this point forward I’m going to make an oath to blog at least twice a week till christmas. Not saying that I’m not going to throw up some laaaaame-dizzle posts to fill my quota, but I promise (all 7 of my readers) that it won’t be a waste of time to check back.

Ok, enough of the bureaucratic filler. I like to go to Borders on my lunch break and check out industry magz like Wired and Videographer just to keep the creativity flowing. Every now and again I’ll come across those random art mags (usually from the UK) that are about $15 a piece and chalk full of the coolest art you’ll never see in person. I used to have about 16 or so of them in San Francisco and would run through them every time I needed a quick hit of inspirado. Anywho, last week I browsed an issue of Whatever U Want and ended up reading an article on a 23 year old brit named James Sutton. Truth be told I’m not that into his style, but at 23 he’s KILLING right now. Check out the new Steve Aoki video he just directed.

Going back to my roots, I thought I’d post some work of a somewhat local artist. I’m always surprised to see all the great work that comes out of Portland, and from rather unsuspecting fellows too. Take the two guys I used to work with at Nike for example (Marshall and Russell you know who you are). Meet them on the street: what’s up, regular ass dudes with no tats and who wear normal fitting jeans and t-shirts. Meet them in the lab and they’re turning out some of the sickest motion graphics and 3D work I’ve ever seen. Anyway, back to this guy…

This piece was just too good to pass up. I personally have never used Lightwave, but this is about as good as I’ve even seen. And forget the tech mumbo jumbo, this is a pretty bad ass Porsche commercial too! It’s ads like this that I watch and think, “This is real sick, probably cost a fortune, but where does it end up?..”

I’ve kinda been all over the place with this post, so I’ll go ahead and shut it down. Check out Stephen Fitzgerald’s Vimeo page and keep checking back for more blogs on motion graphics, video production and editing.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a fellow motion graphic designers work on my blog, so consider this my comeback…



This dude, Max, has some pretty tuned in mo graph skittles. Most of his pieces are pretty short, but still really well done. I love the mix of live action and animation, so it seemed fitting to post this video.

I know I post a lot of 3D and motion graphics videos that I find to be visually compelling, but this trailer takes the cake! Combine Japanese warrior rabbits (I don’t know a lick of the language but no matter who or what is speaking Japanese, they always sound raw!) with top notch 3D animation and you’ve got the Cat Shit One movie trailer. From what I’ve read there will be 12 episodes that are each 23 minutes log. The US release is called “Apocalypse Meow”, so be looking for it!

The TV, film and video industry is one of the most technologically competitive markets out there, so it’s no surprise that the 2009 NAB Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center has been the talk of the tech blogosphere lately. I was lucky enough to get the chance to go to LV for the 2007 SEMA Auto Show (similar in proportion, only it’s for the auto industry instead of the TV, film and video). There is nothing like being in a convention center the size of Boeing (…not really…) that is fill with more lights than Tokyo, and more gadgets than Fry’s! It’s a tech heads dream. NAB has become the industry standard location for product launches, updates and fresh ideas.

Most media hardware and software companies believe that the evolution of video is resolution and speed, which is why I think that the SE Portland based company, Immersive Media is doing something right! Not only do they have a camera that shoots 360 degrees x 360 degrees, they’ve also figured out a way to stream the data LIVE(!!1!) from anywhere! I truly feel that their hardware/software is an industry revolution, not evolution (as keynote speech as that sounds…).

The video above and the photos below are examples of the media streaming from a camera setup in Texas and at the NAB Show, and how the viewer would navigate through the video stream. This technology has ENDLESS applications, and will only continue to explore the possibilities.

Virtually everyone in the post production/motion graphics industry had heard of MK12, and virtually every one in the real world (green pill) has seen their work. Opening title sequence for James Bond: Quantum of Solace, that was them.

A few years back when I was working at Nike I was turned on to a short film they did called, “MK12’s, History of America”. At the time I was more into it for entertainment value, but after I got more and more involved with motion graphics and 3D etc., I really gained an appreciation for their work. Their mixture of live action and motion graphics really compliment each other! “History of America” is pretty much a clinic on how to execute a ridiculously complicated short ‘film’ perfectly. The video is a little long, but trust me it’s worth it!

This is a great example of how someone took a played out idea and executed it perfectly. The two things that work for this piece are the lighting on the car (hard to match the scene without HDRI probes) and the motion capture they did for the movement of the “robot”.



I believe this ad was created by the same company, but for a different car. The studio that created the spot is a Canadian-based firm called The Embassy Visual Effects, Inc. There is a great write-up on how they accomplished the task HERE.

You can’t animate 3D objects that well, so you have to put a guy in a wetsuit-looking thing with about 150 infrared reflectors on it whilst being recorded by special infrared cameras… NERD ALERT!

I’ve really got to hand it to these guys. they made light-sensitive audio that can not only change the volume but the pitch as well. Above that, the audio drives the video screens which act as volume displays! Ridiculous. This is the ultimate fusion of performance and art.

The video is a little long and takes a while to get into the good stuff, but wait it out. It’s worth it!

I can’t tell you how good I think this piece is! The whole time I was watching it I couldn’t stop asking myself if it was stop-motion or 3D? I think it’s probably a mixture of both, but damn did they do it well.

After poking around for about 20 minutes, I found this great article on the making of “Asics Oragami: In Pursuit of Perfection“. Turns out much of the 3D work was done using the same software that I’m getting into called Cinema 4D. It’s always nice to know that something this polished was made using software that I have chillin on my laptop!