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: Motion
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.
Liquid Lifeforms
Liquid Lifeforms is a short experiment in Cinema 4D softbody dynamics. Visuals were inspired and edited to the audio track Beazt, created by disconnectuser (Alan Pring).
After countless commercial productions, where the result needs to feel pretty and appealing to the viewer, I felt an urge to create something a bit more disturbing. I wanted to approach the animation in the same way I would approach a live animatronic shoot. To achieve that, I constructed two rigid body robots, controlled by a bunch of randomized motors and set them lose in C4D’s dynamics engine. I then wrapped the resulting animation in a softbody, latex-like skin and run a second level simulation.
The process resulted in a creepy, realistic motion – part mechanical and part organic. I cut everything together in After Effects with some extra color correction and distortions. Enjoy!
Fiat 500
I told you I was busy :)
This project started its life as a simple storyboard for a 2D piece based on photographs, delivered to us by the agency. The main brief was to show off different customization options for Fiat 500 using series of cuts. Right from the beginning I knew that the key to making the car look attractive in the commercial was in adding that one extra dimension, so we decided to upgrade the ad to a full 3D.
While the team was working on the car models, I rigged up yet another of my patented After Effects expression rigs (basically my own version of Trapcode Echospace) in order to easily create and animate the flower designs originally designed by the agency. The rest was a pretty standard editing, compositing and beautifying process, resulting in the ad you can see below.
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.
Tim Minchin: Storm
Over a year ago I posted a trailer for a fantastic animated short entitled Storm. The film was to be written and performed by Tim Minchin and directed by DC Turner and scheduled for release in 2010. They year has gone and passed and I assumed the film was cancelled. Apparently I haven’t followed it closely enough. The film was released in festivals in 2010 – and in April 2011 it premiered on YouTube.
Ulker: Dankek
I’ve been working on quite a few projects in the past months, all of which are in various stages of production and pre-production. Meanwhile, here are two short ads I made for Dankek.
The agency brief asked for a stop-motion aesthetic. We decided to shoot all of the elements live, but do the animation itself in After Effects. In fact I developed a pretty cool expression for creating random imperfections and errors in the object movement, especially for this project. (I am hoping to share it with you soon).
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:
Are After Effects cameras difficult to use?
Every now and then there is an outburst of tutorials, plugins, presets and rigs for After Effects camera controls. We have sure targets, orbit cameras, simple rigs, complex rigs and tons upon tons of tutorials on this subject. In fact, Rich from After Effects portal recently released a lengthy post over at aetuts+ compiling a list of resources, tools and videos talking about AE cameras.
Personally, I find cameras in After Effects extremely intuitive, easy to use and simple, so I have problems understanding why does this topic tend to reemerge so often. What is your opinion on the subject? What’s your experience with AE cams? Do you think it is a topic worth covering in one of the future tutorials?
Loading ...Vote in the poll above, and if you have something specific you’d like to see covered/explained – drop a comment underneath this post. You may also want to mention, whether you have experience using real, live cameras or 3D cameras in other programs and what is your experience with them, as compared to AE. How about your orientation in virtual 3D space? It’s a wide topic, so feel free to talk about it :)
