Santander: Lewis Hamilton TV Ad

A new Santander advert has been recently showing a massive bridge being made from lego bricks featuring Lewis Hamilton. The CGI looks really convincing and realistic or is it CGI? The ad has that 'wow' factor that stays in your head because of the setting and what is being built. I have heard many people talking about it so I decided to go and investigate.

I Found out that It was created by WCRS (WCRS LINK)to which I understand is a marketing agency and The Mill (Mill)who made the CGI. I also found a video on how the ad was made.

Modul8 VJ-ing software

As apart of my research and interest in audio visual i had an opportunity to try out a piece of leading VJ-ing software called Modul8. This software allows you mix images and videos live so that you can manipulate these images and videos as they are playing. You can have continuous rotations and scale sizes as the VJ mixes their set. The user can also export the mix made to use for future performances. When using the software i managed to export a video from the program but unfortunately the computer that Modul8 was on had a graphics card that was incompatible with the program so my mix came out terribly.

Modul8 Website: http://www.modul8.ch/index.php?c=home

Basic Monkey Limited

I was researching companies that worked in audio visual work and i had found a local company called Basic Monkey Limited. This company is based in Manchester and they are a firm that provide video and production solutions for the private, corporate and live music industries. The company also provides sound and lighting solutions for such events. I think this is a good practitioner to follow as their work involves live music events which i am really interested in also they have a blog which makes them easier to follow. The blog holds examples of Basic Monkey's work.

http://basicmonkey.net/

BBC - Blast

I have come across a BBC website that allows young creatives show case any type of work from design to fashion and even writing. BBC Blast also runs competitions and does national tour in which they run workshops and other events. The website also offers young creatives feedback from industry. I wish that the members age is a bit higher than 19 because i think it would open up more opportunities for those on higher level design and art courses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast/

Urban Audio Visual

Whilst researching audio visual work i cam across this company - Urban, they specialise in audio visual solutions for clients seeking audio visual design for promotions and event productions. They have a large list of their services on their website (link below). Here is their list of services that make them extremely important to myself and my interest in audio visual design and to my discipline

List:

events audio visual design and production for events audio visual system design for live shows events/show documentation equipment set up and technical support for events and exhibitions video shooting editing and special effects encoding dvd authoring content creation logo's animated branding video wall paper stock footage motion graphics

I thought that this could be a potential company that could be a group visit or an individual portfolio visit when my uni group goes on a residential trip to London in February.

http://www.urban-av.com/index.html

Particles

Further particle research took us to the video hosting site, Vimeo in which we found Matthias Muller who showcases many of his experiments with particles and 3D work. From looking at the names on the videos I have noticed that software used to create theses amazing pieces is 3DS MAX. The piece below shows an astonishing transformation between substances which include, fire, water, and smokey looking images combined with a random free style movement. They almost appear like pieces of art.

Particle collection from Matthias Müller on Vimeo.

Particles

As a result of a collaboration with my colleague for a brief we became increasingly interested in the use of particles and its uses in creating work. We came across this website (below) that shed information on particles and tutorials for using particles. These proved useful and inspiring in our knowledge of the use of this medium.

http://shinichiromatsuda.com/2009/07/07/53-essential-trapcode-particular-tutorials-for-after-effects-users/

Audio Visual Test - Particles Tutorial

I followed a complex tutorial on how you could manipulate particles to do a lot more than be dots on the screen. This was relevant to follow as i have a new found interest in particles which started whilst doing the competition project, which proved that particles were a great possibility and an exciting element to use in moving image because of its diversity and many uses. Following a Video Co-pilot tutorial i was able to 2 sets of particles to the bass and treble of an audio track. The particles reacts to the higher levels in the music's treble and bass. The tutorial involved a technical area that i have never tackled which is the use of expressions. The experiment was made in After Effects and the audio track used was 'Tiger By My Side' by Empire Of The Sun.

Arrow-Experiment

Whilst doing my collaborative competition project i had learnt that you could assign objects to a motion path in a 3D environment. With this knowledge i followed a tutorial which allowed me to create a 3D arrow and assign it to a motion path. It was very quick to do and opened up new ideas as to what else this feature could be used for such as cameras in a 3D environment which i experimented with but had great difficulty in trying to control.

The arrow video below was created with the use of Illustrator and Maya.

Ian Macklin Interview

I recently interviewed Ian Macklin of Goodies Corp when he came into Stockport College to lecture the second year students for one day and give a talk, I managed to grab half an hour with to talk about him and his work with concert visuals, as I was creating a concert visual piece for my self directed project. The Q&A is below:

Ian Macklin Interview

"Q. How did you get involved with concert visuals?

A. Free lancing, got passed on to the job by a friend from UVA.

Q. Enjoy it? If so what did you like?

A. Yeah, I love music!

Q. How do you find the rhythm and mould it visually?

A. Everyone interprets beats and rhythms differently, best advice is to lock in on a beat.

Q. What kinds of briefs are you set for a particular song?

A. With the Kylie Minogue brief it was very open and I was given references to arches, and was expected to use them.

Q. How do you approach or handle the design process?

A. Experiments to see what works. (An example was triangles with edges or triangles without edges)

Q. What sizes do you have to work at to get the visuals on these massive screens? What’s the process?

A. Clients will specify and provide templates to be used in after effects and other software. Tech guys sort out how the images get on the screen.

The Kylie project was HD 1080

Q. Rendering out final comps, anything to be done special in the term of settings?

A. Animation codec full resolution. Then export in QuickTime for a smaller file size.

Q. Any addition advice you could give to me?

A. Try own experiments keep experimenting and try different mediums."

Accent Feed: 10 Most Innovative Concert Visuals '08

I was researching concert visuals and I came across a search result that lead me to a page where Accent, which is an art direction and design company had compiles a list of the 10 most innovative concert visuals of 2008 on their blog named AccentFeed. Accent create live visuals themselves and print based work to.

This opened up my research making it a lot broader with a vast amount of companies listed and works posted it served as a great resource to go and find out more.

Synopsis of the 10 most innovative concert visuals of 2008:

"After a lot of research and with the help from Accent Feed's readers
I was able to put together a list of some of the 10 most impressive visuals seen in concerts in 2008.

This was not intended to be taken as a competition, or to see who is better than who, I believe you can't measure who is the best band, or who is the best VJ in the world, this is meant to inspire other video artists/ video art lovers, and to spread the word about the importance of video art/ visuals in concerts."

Accent Feed: 10 Most Innovative Concert Visuals '08 (LINK)

ACCENT CREATIVE - Art Direction & Design (LINK)

Max Hattler

Mike, Max Hattlers website has a lot more information about his own work including the audio visuals area. here's the link:
http://www.maxhattler.com/live/
Jenny

Basement Jaxx Visuals

Hey Mike! I was just looking at the creative review blog and came across this post about Max Hattler who designed stage visuals for their current tour! Thought it might be useful for you, Jenny.

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/june/max-hattler

WhatTheFont?

Whilst browsing for fonts that I wanted to perhaps use in my self-directed project i came across this site; its like a sister site /online application to the font website MyFonts.com. WhatTheFont allows users to upload an image with type in to help find the what font the type is in. Its not 100% perfect but it does deliver quite close results. Try It

The Result

http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

VJ Festival Sound Frame

Upon researching about live audio visual works and VJing I came across a site that is packed full of images and videos take from the Sound Frame festival in Vienna, Austria. This festival showcases live VJ works, DJ sets, installations and workshops all relating to the visualization of electronic music. the festival was branded and recognised as the "Best VJ Event Of 2008" by a poll from British DJ Mag.

http://www.soundframe.at/

Annoyingly.....

sound:frame goes NEW YORK!

The above statement from the the sound frame website describes that this festival group is going to New York. As it happens I am also going to New York in about 6 weeks on a residential with my course, unfortunately I/we miss sound frame by 10 days as they are in the big apple from 12.09.09 - 31.10.09. Here is their statement for the visit.

"From the 12th of September until the 31st of October 2009 the Austrian Cultural Forum New York (ACFNY) presents some of the best works of the sound:frame festival, the worldwide known VJ/DJ event from Vienna: videos and audiovisual installations by artists from Europe and the USA."

soundframe NY teaser from sound:frame on Vimeo.