The Scene Progresses

A composite of all the static layers for a cloud city background.I don't want to give everything away, but I thought I'd share some sneak peaks at my progress so far. I'm done building the background artwork in Photoshop, and starting to build the characters. Warning: the following text is pretty process-heavy, so if you don't really care, don't read it.

I'll be bringing the background art into After Effects and creating 2.5D setpieces... which essentially means I'll be working with flat objects in a 3D space. It's like a paper diorama, but I love the way things look with a little depth of field and some dynamic lighting.

Once the character artwork is done, I'll import it into Flash to add certain movement to the characters. I prefer to do certain things (mostly mouth and some limb movement, as well as certain special movements) in Flash as opposed to After Effects, but I think that's just a personal preference. Lots of people do all their animation in After Effects, but it's all about whatever works best for you.

The Fett's gotta jet...One limiting factor with Flash is that animations currently can't exceed 2880 x 2880, so sometimes I have to be really creative about closeups and etc. I don't mind though, since it kind of forces me to make some decisions as I go... which means I have to plan ahead and think about what the final product is going to look like. That really helps with something like this where I'm not doing storyboards (since they pretty much already exist in the form of a finished film).

Once I get the Flash animation finished up, I import the SWF movies straight into After Effects and turn them into a 2.5D layer in the appropriate set... and then it's just a matter of adjusting things and creating some camera moves. That's always the fun part, but it's followed by the not fun part — rendering.

Because my sets generally consist of a number of really high-resolution textures, and numerous SWF layers, as well as camera moves and lights, the rendering process can be a drag. When pushing the software to its limit, crashes while rendering are pretty common, so I often sit and watch my renders pretty closely. Of course, with a 15 second piece that won't be terribly painful, but with longer pieces I've worked on, it can take hours and hours to churn out a couple minutes of footage... in case you were wondering.

So anyway, it's back to work for now. I'll share more soon.

Star Wars!

If you haven't heard of Star Wars Uncut, you should really check it out (www.starwarsuncut.com)... assuming you like things related to Star Wars. Here's the deal — fans from around the world, or galaxy, claim a 15 second clip from the film and recreate it... then all the clips get edited back into the full movie and we have a wicked-cool version of Star Wars to enjoy.

So anyway, the first one was a success, and it's time to recut The Empire Strikes Back... and I'm jumping onboard. I plan on sharing the process as I go — all the decisions, and how I'll do what I'm going to do. Should be a rip-roarin' good time (or mildly interesting at the least). Stay tuned.

Safe Place Chicago

Recently, I completed work on a print & digital campaign (with local agency, White Space) for Safe Place Chicago, who is trying to raise awareness in the Chicago area. They're working to get more people using the program, but they're also working to get more support and more businesses to step in as the actual "safe places" advertised. 

When you're aiming at kids who are living in hell, the hard part is getting away from imagery of that. Kids sleeping in dumpsters and etc... if that is indeed their reality, let's not remind them of that. Eventually, we decided to focus on the idea of looking into the eyes of a kid who has been there and made it out. It was more important to focus on the success stories than the idea of "here's where you are now," and try to put a light at the end of the tunnel. With this approach also came the clean look of everything. Much of the advertising in this area tends towards the gritty and darker look, but we thought more about the kids in the ads talking to you from the other side of everything. 

We created 4 different posters, each featuring a different kid, and then spread those across the different print pieces, such as bus and train ads, digital displays, online banner ads and even a unique bench installation.

One of the most important things we needed to push was a call to action asking teens in need to text "help" to a certain number if they felt in need. With today's teens, that's brilliant... they don't even have to talk to someone... just text help + their location and it's on the way. We decided to come up with some sort of lockup that made this highly recognizable and easy to get across, so we wrote in "text-speak," kept it short and placed it in a word bubble to reinforce the text message idea. On the posters, we also added an additional call to action, suggesting that you snap a pic of the lockup so you don't forget it. Just like the idea of texting, with camera phones everywhere, I really felt like this is a brilliant idea to suggest. 

All-in-all, it turned out to be a really slick campaign, and time will tell whether or not it serves its full purpose. White Space was great to work with on this, and brought A+ ideas to the table constantly, which always made my job easier. Well, okay... perhaps not easier... but it always made the work better.

Here Are Some Featured Prints

"The West End Of Town" Photography & Digital CollageFor some reason, I've suddenly gotten really jazzed about sharing some of this weird artwork I make. I've been creating stuff like this for a long time... but I'm only just now starting to share it.

Somewhere in my consciousness there is this concept of a place called Orangefield. I've tied things to it before, most notably my musical collaboration (with St. Louis' own Kevin Barry) called Orangefield. Now, I've started to attempt to give it an actual look with its own series of prints. The West End Of Town is the newest addition, and it has just recently become available for purchase on society6.com. I feel kind of like I'm retroactively creating a photo history for this place called Orangefield, and I'd expect there to be lots more to come. Currently, you can check out two other pieces in the series: Orangefield Road and The Old Mainline... and more is coming. I am obsessed with this idea... plus I really dig the look of the stuff.

"The Woodcutter" Photography & Digital CollageAlso high on the list of stuff I'm currently proud of is a new piece called The Woodcutter, also avaliable for purchase on society6.com. I have always, always been a person who gets into anything miniature... I love it. Show me a model of something and I'm giddy. Anyway, from time to time I set up small miniature scenes and grab some shots. This is one I did a while ago, but it still does something for me. It's really simple, but still a bit whimsical.

So that's that.

You Can Buy Prints At Society6 Now

I'm excited to announce that I'm starting to make some prints available for purchase (finally)... head on over to my page at Society6 and check it out. They've got a cool setup there... you can choose the size you want, and they'll ship it out. You don't have to wait for me to get my act together and ship something, which means you'll actually get it in a timely fashion!

For now I've got 8 prints available, but there will be more to come. One of my favorite pieces to date (the Orangefield Road print from the Artfix event) is up there, so now you too can own a real "piece of work" for your walls.