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.
Archived entries: Featured
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.
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.
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,
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:
Preset+Tutorial: C4D DoF Camera Rig
A program of choice to many motion artists, Cinema 4D has a rather counter-intuitive method of producing depth of field. Both the camera controls and the way in which C4D handles depth maps can be a cause of major headache, especially for the newcomers to this program.
With the coding support from German motion artist and art director, Derya Ozturk, we have been able to construct an improved camera rig for Cinema 4D that should help you eliminate needless frustration, and get the results you need with just a few clicks.
Please note that while the tutorial will teach you how to use the preset, it will not show you how to construct the demo scene seen in the preview video.
As much as I would like to credit the awesome flute player who provided the audio for this preview, I was unable to locate the “patient zero” among dozens of videos around the net using this jingle. Whoever you are, kudos and don’t ever stop trying!
Code by Derya Ozturk
Concept and math logic by Quba Michalski
Running time: 46min
Difficulty: Easy
Required tools: Cinema 4D R11.5 or R12 (does not work with R13, sorry)
Optional software: After Effects, Frischluft Lenscare plug-in
Tutorial: Procedural Disintegration
In this long-delayed tutorial I will show you an efficient method for disintegrating/dispersing a 3D layer into particles. The method shown here has been optimized to produce maximum amount of particles at lowest computing cost (more stuff flying around, faster renders).
Originally planned to be released in June 2010, this tutorial concludes the four-part series including: 100% Accurate Reflections, Automated Light Rig and Light Wall.
Running time: 70min
Difficulty: Medium
Required tools: After Effects, Trapcode Particular
Optional plug-ins: VC Optical Flares (or similar)
10_11: Happy Holidays from imago!
Here’s a little video we cooked up at imago for this holiday season. May the new year bring you tons of inspiration, creative work, satisfied clients and just enough off time in between.
imago Reel 2010
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s address change, I am happy to present you with the latest reel of imago studios, closing down year 2010. Not much to talk about here – press play, sit back and enjoy.
Tutorial+Preset: Light Wall
Hello everyone! Yes, it is here – a long-delayed new tutorial from the June series. It’s been around 6 weeks since the previous tutorial, but I have been incredibly busy building a new kick-ass hi-tech intro for the tutorials… No. Not really. The truth is I have been working on multiple commercial projects and could not find any time off for neither leisure nor tutorials. As for the intro – I knocked it together in a few minutes at 4:00AM last night.
This tutorial is a hybrid between the Automated Light Rig and Scrolling LED Text. We will be building an animated image map driven light array that can be used for for either cool light effects or easily controlled particle emission.
While the entire project can be completed within After Effects, I will also jump into Cinema 4D every now and then and show you a very easy way for creating quite complex light arrays and importing them back into AE.
Music used in the trailer comes from Beck’s Cellphone’s Dead from the album The Information. Music in the intro comes from… here.
Running time: 73min
Difficulty: Easy-Advanced (depending how much you want to learn :)
Required tools: After Effects
Optional software and plug-ins: Cinema 4D, Trapcode Particular, VC Optical Flares (or similar)
