You may have heard that the short film I executive produced and co-wrote with Director Seth Worley, won a Webby for “Best Editing.” Other than finding Seth to direct the film, I really had nothing to do with it. It was all his talent once the shoot began. Still, I’m feeling pretty good about it, but, most of all, very thankful.

Since I was a teenager, all I wanted to do was make movies, but I soon realized that my talents lay elsewhere – visual effects, motion graphics…etc. Having the chance to work with people as talented as the Plot Device team, and having the backing of Red Giant to do it, is a dream come true.

Anyway, thank you you to everyone who supported our efforts to tell this story. Seth and I have a lot more planned, with one film already near completion, and another shoot already scheduled for the next one. Coincidentally, that shoot takes place in Portland the day of the Webby’s, so neither Seth nor I can attend. I guess Patten Oswalt will have to get along without us. No worries – someone from Red Giant will be there to represent.

I guess that’s what happens when you hit this button:

I’m on vacation, and then heading out to NAB, so I won’t belabor this… Plot Device was nominated for a Webby award. The award is for Best Editing, and so, the nomination really goes to Seth Worley. Read more about it HERE in my post at the Red Room Blog. It’s all in that post, however, I will reiterate just this:

I’m not a fan of telling people to rock the vote, and I’m even less a fan of when people email, asking me to vote for a creation in a contest without even considering that there may be someone who is truly more worthy of the win. But if you believe in the importance of acknowledging great work, then head over to the Webby Awards and check out all of the nominations. If, after that, you think Seth deserves the award, great – vote for Plot Device. If not – vote for someone else that worked hard and deserves the recognition that editors so often don’t get.

Hey folks – if your coming out to NAB, I’ll be there on Monday and Tuesday, working at the Red Giant Booth in the South Lower Hall – Booth # SL2124. Please stop by and say hello. Here’s my schedule:

Monday 4/16

• 10 AM -12 PM
• 1 PM – 2 PM

IMPORTANT: I’ll be giving a theater demo at 10AM.

Monday Night: I’ll be attending the Media Motion Ball. It’s a pretty cool event. Hope you can make it. I’m bringing a special guest with me, and maybe some cool surprises.

Tuesday 4/17

• 12 PM – 2PM
• 3 PM – 5 PM

Some of the best 3D work I’ve ever seen. Great action and fantastic virtual cinematography. Just wow.

Do me a favor, after watching this, check out all of the extras at the film’s site and then head over to Wes Ball’s site and learn more about him and his work.

Have you ever been on the bus/train home and said the above, knowing you would either have to go back to work, or accept hours of lost time?

Recently, my wife called me and said that she couldn’t be home on time, and asked me to pick up the kids from a birthday party. I lost track of time, and after rushing out I realized I forgot to hit the “Squeeze” button on a really heavy compression project. So as soon as I got the kids into bed, I went back to work to hit a button. Let me repeat that, I went back to work just to hit a fricken button. Fortunately, I work about 20 minutes from home. But that still comes to about 45 minutes of time spent very much not relaxing.

If you’re like me and  often have to duck out from work for a life crisis, or you have to duck out on life for a work crisis, consider that there might just be a better way. I recently asked my followers on twitter for a good recommendation on a way to control my computer remotely. I got a lot of suggestion, but my favorite was LogMeIn – A FREE app for computer, iphone and iPad. Basically, if you have a wifi connection, you can control your desktop computer as if you were in front of it on a different computer or mobile device. Here’s a videos that explains the LogMeIn product line (though, again, I use the free version):

And if you want to skip right to seeing it on an iPad:

I’ve used it to start an After Effects render, start a compression job in Sorenson Squeeze, send large files, start a big download and more. It actually allowed me to travel on a family trip recently, without a laptop, which, when you have 2 kids in tow, is just one more thing to pull out for the TSA to bug you about.

Anyway, just wanted to share. Hope it helps you the way it helps me.

We get pretty caught up in our motion graphics and VFX. It’s hard to find the satisfaction we get from our work, from anything else in life. But I’m here to tell you, there’s a lot more out there. I’m blessed to be a husband and father, but only because a few years back I made the active decision to make my family and personal life a priority over work – meaning turning down a lot of work I would have enjoyed and profited from.

It’s a few years later, and I can now look back on the decisions I’ve made with some clarity (and a severe lack of sleep). Do I regret it? Not a chance. And (forgetting for just a moment that I absolutely love my job) here’s just a few reasons why, all from the last few days…

From Left to Right: 1. My daughter uses a cat as a towel to clean Balmex off her hands (it’s poisonous to cats, so there was a midnight cat bath). 2. A picture of me and my daughter, side-by-side. Sadly she has my looks to look forward to in the years to come. 3. My son, Age 1 month – 1 year. My wife did this as a photography project. It was my job to keep him from falling off the couch. I got it right 11 out of 12 times. 4. My son at dinner last night. There was a lot of cleanup. I had to change afterwards.

So… in summation… Don’t wait to realize life has passed you by as you sat in front of a computer moving pixels around. Make your personal life, whatever that is for you (spouse, partner, kids, friends…whatever), a priority. You deserve it.

Next week, the entire Red Giant team will be getting together for our annual company meeting. We’re a virtual company with people in NY, Utah, Ottawa, Halifax, Oregon, California, the UK and more. We regularly communicate with each other, via Skype, iChat, gotomeeting.com and through some older tech called the telephone.

But there is no substitution for meeting face to face, and talking through the issues. I’m really looking forward to it. And I’m really looking forward to bringing you with me. And by that I mean – I want to hear your ideas and thoughts about Red Giant. What we’re doing right, wrong, too much of or not enough.

If you could do me a personal favor, please post your ideas and thoughts in the comments area below. I want to take them with me to discuss at the meeting.

Thanks.

P.S.: Red Giant is always listening. We read EVERYTHING that comes in via email, blog comments, tutorial comments, twitter and facebook. And you can always use the phone or live chat for support. The reason I’m doing this is because I want to come into this meeting with your ideas and thoughts fresh in my mind. So, basically, you’re helping me do my job better.

This amazing short film made me sad. I don’t find most CGI creatures to be all that realistic or scary, but as a kid, I remember those rubber mask monsters being terrifying, even when I could see the zipper going up it’s back.

End of a Scarer from Chris O'Hara on Vimeo.

Animated graduate film from D.L.I.A.D.T (2008) – A hollywood monster tries to prove hes still scary

Last week, thanks to Josh Diamond, I saw this fantastic video, called Space Stallions on YouTube:

What’s so great about it is that it feels authentic from a storytelling perspective – at least within the aesthetic of 80′s cartoons. Visually, the characters were a little to obviously 3D with toon shading, but outside that, it was dead on. You could easily have seen this show any day of the week, along side He-Man and the Master of the Universe, Voltron, Mask, or SilverHawks.

The point is, (Other than the 3D stuff) it didn’t feel like a parody. It felt like the real deal. But why? What’s the line between authentic imitation and absurd parody?

I think the answer is love and understanding. I am not trying to get all touchy feelly here. I’m not saying you have to have better relationships with your fellow man to make a good cartoon.

I mean that when you are trying to create something in a particular style, you have to have a love for that genre and an understanding of what made it what it was, if you ever want to re-create it in a way that doesn’t scream parody.

When Seth Worley and I were interviewed about making Plot Device, we were asked about having made fun of the various film genres. But the truth is this: We were absolutely not making fun of anything. We took our favorite ideas and moments from the films we love and we placed someone normal into them. What made the situations funny was not that we exaggerated the way in which these genres were portrayed – In fact Seth took great effort to deliver these scenarios exactly the way they have been served up before now – filming techniques, acting styles…etc.

What made the film funny was seeing the genres viewed through the eyes of the normal guy experiencing the abnormal. He allows us to step back and look at the genre with new eyes. If we had gone over the top, it would not have been funny because it would be about cheep jokes, and not about the truth. Instead, through Ben, our lead character, we get to look at how funny and formulaic genre films can be, especially when someone doesn’t want to play along.

In the same way, what makes the above video so funny is that we’re looking at something from a different era through they eyes of today. Space Stallions is totally true to itself and dead on for the period it represents (don’t believe me, watch THIS). We’re not laughing at it – we’re laughing at ourselves and the entire genre. I took that stuff so seriously as a kid – at that age it felt so serious and dire at every turn. More importantly, every show seemed different, but, in hindsight, was totally the same – and looking at it today, it’s hilarious.

Part of my job at Red Giant has me looking through the content on Vimeo to see what people are working on. It’s how I find great user stories and great people to work with. But also how I find inspiration – often from people who are still in school, working on student projects.  Students have a very different bottom line than professional artists, in that they can spend a lot of time making art for art’s sake, rather than worrying about satisfying a client’s needs.

Yesterday, I came across ‘No Robots,’ a short animated film (also the name of my high school rock band):

No Robots from YungHan Chang on Vimeo.

A student film, from San Jose State University, which is directed by Kimberly Knoll (USA) and 張永翰 Yunghan Chang (Taiwan)

Aside from being beautiful to look at, this is a great example of simple storytelling, that gives a huge amount of flavor to the world in which it takes place. I love that there’s no real speaking in this piece – or at least none that matters. If you can bring a short film to the point where words are not needed, and it still carries the kind of emotional weight contained in ‘No Robots,’ (or if you are even able to simply tell a clear story), you’ve achieved a great victory.

Yesterday, Angie Taylor tweeted out these cool bokeh textures from JenniStock on deviant art:

Lot’s of cool things you can do with this, such as applying and animating After Effects’ Turbulent Displace. Or you can use them as displacement maps. Or as textures for VideoCopilot’s Optical Flares. Be creative.

JenniStock’s got a lot of great free textures and art to check out.  She has the following rules on a lot of her work:

Rules:
You can use it wherever you want (also commercial use etc.)
You don’t have to ask me
Credit me please, if it’s possible
Give me a link to your picture, if it’s possible (I’d like to see your work)
If you download it, please fave it
Be creative

If you’re not already a member of DeviantArt.com, it’s worth joining. There are tons of inspiring visuals there.

Just saw both of these videos this morning and felt inspired. One is done with camera angles and well planned concept, prop and set design, the other is entirely digital and abstract.

NatGeo ID’s 2012 from Lumbre on Vimeo.

2012 – National Geographic Channels International commissioned LUMBRE to create four new ID’s.

Plexus Test from VinhSon Nguyen on Vimeo.

Just messing around with Plexus for the very first time and decided to play around with some vintage elements too.

n this episode of Red Giant TV, Aharon Rabinowitz walks you through the process of creating a Retro Sci-Fi logo. In addition to creating the logo, he’ll show you how to age the video to make it look like it came out of the early 80′s.

In this QuickTip, Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how he quickly generates a soundtrack for Motion Graphics, using Smartsound SonicFire Pro. This is a tool Aharon uses to score most of the videos created for Red Giant and many of his non RG projects.

Learn more about SonicFire Pro and Smartsound’s library of Royalty-Free music at SmartSound.com.

Inspired by a video he found on Vimeo, Aharon Rabinowitz shows you some quick tips and techniques for creating a sketchy stop motion look for text.

Links:

• Get the Sketch Rockwell font at urbanfonts.com/fonts/Sketch_Rockwell.htm
• Watch Working with the Scribble Effect Part 1 (Creative Cow Tutorial by Aharon) at allbetsareoff.com/tutorials/working-with-the-scribble-effect-part-1/
• Get the Project Files at people.redgiantsoftware.com/explore/presetdetail.aspx?presetid=2047
• Check out “Mike & Christie – Proposal” by James Lee (of tarboy.com) that inspired this tutorial: vimeo.com/32851562

In this Quicktip, Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how to control the way particles are emitted from a picture or text, when using a layer emitter. He’ll be exploring a feature called Layer Sampling.

Layer Sampling is a feature controls whether or not particles are revealed by a layer’s alpha channel, or, depending on the setting, if they are emitted at all. If you have ever wanted to blow up text, this tutorial will help.This is also a great technique for creating underwater simulations (Ex.: bubbles created from a layer’s motion).

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, but today, I caught this on Photoshop product manager John Nack’s Blog, and I wanted to make sure more After Effects users saw this.

MGMT – All We Ever Wanted Was Everything from oneedo on Vimeo.

Taken from the album Late Night Tales – MGMT
Info at www.latenighttales.co.uk

Directed by Ned Wenlock
Character animation by Rodney Selby
Produced by Georgiana Taylor

This is such an inspiring piece. I love how simple it seems on the surface, though clearly there’s a high level of complexity going on here. It’s well-executed and uses seemingly simple effects to transition between beautifully-crafted elements.

Read more about how the work was done, HERE at Motionographer.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. In this QuickTip, Aharon Rabinowitz builds a beautiful blue Plasma Fireball effect with the help of a Torch preset created by Harry Frank for Red Giant People.

Presets:

Get the FREE Plasma Fireball preset at Red Giant People: people.redgiantsoftware.com/Explore/PresetDetail.aspx?PresetId=1949

Get the FREE Form 2 Torch Preset at Red Giant People: people.redgiantsoftware.com/explore/presetdetail.aspx?presetid=1933

In this Episode of Red Giant TV, Aharon Rabinowitz explores the basics of 3D Stereoscopic Workflow with Trapcode 3D plug-ins.This tutorial is a great intro to Stereoscopic 3D in After Effects. If you have them, bring your 3D Glasses – it will help. Watch it here:

Check out Pinkau.com to get the FREE stereoscopic tools (and tutorials) for AE, By Christoph Keller.

In this tutorial, Aharon Rabinowitz shows you a new feature in Primatte Keyer 5 that helps you fix poor lighting on your green screen (or other chroma background), by unifying the background color to make it easier for you to key and composite. Watch the tutorial here:

Learn more about Primatte Keyer at: http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/primatte-keyer/

In this QuickTip, Aharon Rabinowitz explores some fun new tools in Magic Bullet Looks 2, to create a cool distorted “glassy look.” Watch the tutorial right here:

You can get the preset at: people.redgiantsoftware.com/​Explore/​PresetDetail.aspx?PresetId=1836

you can get Magic Bullet Looks 2 at redgiantsoftware.com/​products/​all/​magic-bullet-looks/​

In this QuickTip, Aharon Rabinowitz talks about the process of color correction/grading, when you are also compositing or adding visual effects. He’ll show you how to avoid a common mistake that kills the composite. Watch the video right here:

Many of you may have caught that I was working on a film with Seth Worley for Red Giant. I’ve not been able to say much until now, but today, the film has been released online as a part of the Magic Bullet Suite 11 Launch. Here it is:

I am truly blessed to be working at Red Giant, a company that supports creativity in it’s employees. They backed this film and gave me full autonomy in making it happen. Furthermore, I want to thank Stu Maschwitz for believing in the project, so much so, that he was willing to let us put our work together with his labor of love, Magic Bullet Suite 11 – software you must have if you are a filmmaker.

Behind the Scenes

On the non-RG side of things, I can’t thank Director Seth Worley enough for making this happen. While he and I co-wrote the film, he, along with his incredible team, did the heavy lifting. That’s not false modesty – my job was pretty easy compared to what they had to do on a very limited budget. I literally sat back and watched as they turned our ideas into a beautiful reality. I did get very involved with color correction, but really and truly, this is a Seth Worley Film – which is the kind of film I wanted to make. He is a director who’s work I love and respect, and that’s the reason I hired him for this project. Watch the Behind the scenes documentary right below this text to learn more about how and why we did it all.

What’s new, cool & delicious? Find out in NYC, SF and Portland

Ever wonder how certain people always know things before you do? That’s ’cause they go where the buzz, big shots and booze are.

On Monday, June 27, you can be the first to know about something really cool. Join us for a fun evening in New York City, San Francisco or Portland as we reveal a new, exciting creation. Mingle and meet Red Giant folks like Stu Maschwitz and other ‘Guru’ industry leaders at our Red Giant Tweet-Up.

Let us treat you to refreshing Cosmos, yummy finger food, and then whet your appetite with something surprising and truly delicious. Get more details throughout the week on Facebook or Twitter! If you can’t make Monday’s event, stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter all of this week for hints and updates about our surprise.

Red Giant Tweet-Up meetup*

When: Monday, June 27, 2011
Time: 5:00pm PST & 8:00pm EST

Where: New York City
Who: Chat with our Director of Communities, Aharon Rabinowitz, and in-house
Guru Harry Frank
Go to: Cafe Del Mar, 89 MacDougal St, NY, NY 10079, www.yelp.com

Where: San Francisco
Who: Hang out with Red Giant Co-founder Sean Safreed and Creative Director Stu Maschwitz
Go to: 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna Street, SF, CA, www.111minnagallery.com

Where: Portland
Who: Get to know Red Giant’s dedicated Portland Quality & Support teams and local Industry Gurus
Go to: Saucebox Annex, 214 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97205, www.saucebox.com

*Please note this a 21+ event.