Quba HQ

January 12, 2012
In Featured, Games, imago, Motion, Video Bits
2 comments

AE64

Similarly to my 2005 piece entitled Demographix, AE64 is a tribute to the demoscene and to the legacy of world’s most popular microcomputer: Commodore 64.

While this video was created using the typical contemporary arsenal of tools (mainly After Effects and Cinema 4D), it conforms to most of the basic graphical limitations of the C64 such as a limited 16-color palette, low resolution, use of the overscan area etc. To maintain the spirit of the demo, I also created most of the effects using various scripts and code snippets, procedurally automating many of the tasks typically animated using keyframes.

Tutorial: UFO Trolling

About three months ago, some post production guys from The Mill decided to troll the Internet with videos of fake UFO sightings over London. I decided to join in on the fun and released a short YouTube video under a fake persona, “documenting” another sighting in Istanbul. Within several weeks, the video climbed up to 10,000 views – by far surpassing any view count I had on any other clips and tutorials uploaded to YouTube. It has also been “verified” by several “UFO authorities” and featured in magazines and UFO sighting websites around the world.

In this tutorial I will teach you how to create your own UFO troll video using After Effects and Mocha – a process that should take you no longer than 30 minutes from the moment you grab a camera, to the time you are ready for upload.

Running time: 31min
Difficulty: Extremely Easy
Required tools: After Effects, Mocha

September 6, 2011
In Announcements, Featured, Motion
3 comments

Quba Michalski: Creative Free Agent

It is my pleasure to publicly announce that as of today I have changed my official status into Creative Free Agent and I am available for work with all interested parties. For all business inquiries you may contact me directly – the details can be found on the About page of this site.

It took me a while to figure out how to properly title myself and my services. Freelance Director? Motion Design Artist for Hire? Unassociated Writer/Art/Creative/Director? Truth be told, looking back at the past decade, it is much easier to list the things I did not do than all the roles I assumed on all the projects.

Preset+Tutorial: Floaties

In this tutorial I will demonstrate the use of a new free preset from QubaHQ.com – Floaties. Floaties is a text animator based fake particle simulator allowing you to create floating specs of dust, glitters, bokeh-style out of focus abstract backgrounds and other visual elements. It attempts to emulate some of the basic behavior found in Trapcode Particular, providing limited, but free alternative to that popular plugin (as long as you are going for a certain visual style).

Running time: 51min
Difficulty: Easy
Required tools: After Effects

Music used in the preview video is a fragment of Borrel by Jukka Koops a.k.a. Sumo Lounge. Check his other works at: jukkakoops.com

Preset+Tutorial: Stop Motion Kit

This preset and tutorial have been inspired by true events …or to be precise – they are based on a project I did a short while ago.

In this tutorial I will show you how to quickly simulate stop motion aesthetic using my After Effects Stop Motion Kit. This collection of presets will allow you to easily add subtle imperfections to the movement of objects in your scene, emulating animator errors that are a staple of stop motion animation. Using 6 different expression sets, you will be able to apply and control glitches in movement, rotation and timing of your objects as well as simulate changes in camera position and exposure.

Running time: 37min
Difficulty: Easy
Required tools: After Effects

June 17, 2011
In Announcements, Featured, imago, Motion, Video Bits
5 comments

Reel 2011

Here is my personal reel for June 2011, featuring commercial and independent pieces I have directed, edited, animated and designed in the recent years.

Music composed by Joel Nielsen.

Macula Lutea

Recently, I have been accused of over-using lens flares in many of my latest projects. To all you flare nay-sayers: This one is for you :)

Macula Lutea started as a happy accident – I’ve been working on one of the projects and wrote a small script to control the movement of the lens flare. Due to the calculation error (my bad) the light source ended up in completely wrong spot, resulting in highly exaggerated flare on the screen. Rather than discard the mistake, I decided to pursue intentionally misusing flares and discovered an entire world of cool abstract imagery that can be created in this style.

At the same time I stumbled upon an audio track U Smile (800% Slower) in which composer Nick Pittsinger stretched and slowed down Justin Bieber‘s song U Smile, resulting in amazing half-hour ambient piece. It was also a perfect match for my visuals.

Due to the busy schedule, the project waited for completion for a few months – I have completely forgotten about it and discovered it today while cleaning up my hard drive :)

For best experience, make sure to watch this video full-screen and in HD.

May 25, 2011
In Featured, Motion, Telesine
7 comments

Sun Ich: Purely Fruit

This project was my first venture into the world of slow motion demo shots, and a pretty successful one, if I may judge it myself. It’s been shot over the course of 24hrs on Phantom HD and edited in my standard After Effects environment.

I am particularly happy with this commercial, since I had full creative control over all of its aspects. From concept and creative direction through directing the shoot, to post, vfx and music – I was able to execute the project precisely as I imagined it. In fact the final result is nearly 100% identical to the first storyboard-based animatic, originally pitched to the client.

February 11, 2011
In Featured, Motion, Video Bits
6 comments

Valentines 2011

Here comes another improvised collaboration between me and Bora. I had some more shots from the previous set and decided to put together this little cheerful St. Valentine’s day piece for all of you.

Most of the work was done in After Effects, with the exception of the 3D heart, created in Cinema 4D. With love,

February 9, 2011
In Featured, Motion, Video Bits
4 comments

Istanbul 5AM

It’s been a slow day today, one of those in-between-projects times that are too short to start a new tutorial, but too long to let it go to waste. I woke up late to the sound of cars crossing the Istanbul bridge.

I remembered how quiet and peaceful this city can be at dawn, and decided to capture that feeling. Fortunately I had quite a few great shots taken by Bora Sübakan a few weeks ago. I put on some music and started editing and compositing. 9 hours later I had this: