Wednesday, December 09, 2015

New Promo Video for the Carpet Design Awards 2016


This is the online video I've just delivered to help promote the Carpet Design Awards 2016. The annual event takes place in Hanover Germany each January and is a showcase for all the best in contemporary carpet design. I directed, made the motion graphics and edited this promo video. The video includes video footage from the previous show which I didn't shoot.

The production was made for Hali Publications Ltd., the same firm I delivered the 'Ottoman Art' exhibition film for last year.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

New Book Promo Video for Simon's Cat



Today is the launch of Simon Tofield's new cartoon book 'Off To The Vet.'
I shot and cut this promotional/interview video for Simon's Cat Ltd. and the publisher Canongate Books.

I've been working on quite a few more 'corporate' video projects over the last couple of months, but most of these are 'secret' things that can't be shared. It's nice that the video work I make for Simon's Cat at least gets a decent airing. I wish Simon and his team continuing success.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Thomas & Friends YouTube Content: New Zealand



Here's another episode of the online series put together by Spider Eye for Hit Entertainment. In this episode Thomas travels to New Zealand.

I made the motion graphics title sequence (first 20 seconds) for this web series.  On this particular episode got to colour-in all the New Zealand backgrounds too.

Tuesday, September 08, 2015

New product video for Nevion: 'Flashlink'



The product video I made recently for Nevion has just appeared on their YouTube channel. (see video embedded above.) Nevion Flashlink is an optical transfer system for sending multiple signals from one location to another in real-time.

The client had the script written already, and I sourced the US male voice-over for them. For this video I built a simplified model of the product in Cinema 4D, then combined this with text and graphics I put-together in After Effects. Turnaround time for this kind of video is usually around three weeks.

The Nevion team will be at the IBC show in Amsterdam this week, I wish them a successful and fruitful time at the exhibition.

Using C4D

 

I've been using Maxon Cinema 4D for many of the corporate/web videos I've been making since I bought the software last year. I tend to make pretty simple 3D stuff to incorporate into these projects; learning just a little more about it each time I get to use it. I seem to be more interested in making 'graphical' work with it rather than photo-realistic stuff.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

My Past Year in Videos

About this time last year, the directors of TANDEM Films decided to call it a day and announced the closure of the company. So having worked at the studio for twelve years, I was out in the world looking for work ...

As a family man and mortgagee I had to find an income somehow from my skills and experiences, so I started offering my services on a freelance basis to anyone who might value them. Job offers didn't exactly flood in, so I decided to start making calls, sending out emails and see if I could start generating some work.

So over the last year I have been somehow been finding video projects to make. Some of the fruits of this labour can be seen here...

July 2014

Simon's Cat 'Off To The Vet: a behind the scenes glimpse. 01:56
A promotional 'Behind The Scenes' film featuring Simon Tofield storyboarding his new film project 'Off to The Vet'

August 2014

Simon's Cat 'Off To The Vet: Story Inspiration. 02:16
A promotional film featuring Simon Tofield and his new film project 'Off to The Vet'

September 2014

FusePump, BuyNow Explained 02:00
An 'explainer' film for FusePump to show how their BuyNow web marketing product works.

October 2014

Arte Ottomana 1450-1600 08:45
An 8 minute documentary for Hali Publishing to accompany an exhibition of Ottoman era artworks showing at the Palazzo Lomellino gallery in Genoa. (Italian with Enflish over-titles).

November 2014

Simon's Cat 'Off To The Vet: Vet Visit'
A promotional documentary for Simon's Cat Ltd. documenting a visit to the Cats Protection Charity Headquarters by Simon's Cat creator Simon Tofield.

December 2014

Thomas & Friends YouTube content (intro only). 0:20
I made the 20 seconds motion graphics introduction now being used by Hit! Entertainment to brand all of their Thomas & Friends YouTube video content. Produced by Spider Eye.

January 2015
Sofreh: The The Art of Persian Celebration. 8:00
I made a motion graphics 'slide show' to play at the London book launch of a very special art book by author Maryam Khosrowshahi and Hali Publishing. (The video shows much of the book content and can't be viewed here.)

February 2015

Vanderpump & Sykes Solicitors 6:00
A longer 8 minute version of this motion graphics film plays on a continual loop at the headquarters of this legal firm.

March 2015

Phonebook.club 1:23

April 2015

Nevion Product videos 4 x 1:40
I made 4 product videos for this tech company producing studio equipment for the broadcast industry. .

May 2015
Currently unrelaeased app. demo video 1:20
More Photoshop background artwork made for Thomas & Friends.

June 2015
Some After Effects compositing work for an old TANDEM colleague...

So if anybody out there is remotely interested, that's most of what I've been doing for the year since TANDEM closed down.

Sunday, July 05, 2015

Simon Draws 'Squirrels'

Here's a newly-released episode in the Simon Draws series of videos I put-together for the Simon's Cat YouTube channel.

We recorded Simon Tofield talking whilst he's drawing to make these entertaining tutorial-style videos. Simon draws these digitally using a Wacom tablet and Adobe Flash software. We captured his drawing performance directly using the Quicktime 'Screen Capture' option.

The audio was recorded simultaneously using my Tascam DR07 mk II recorder and Rode VideomicPro microphone. The editing on these videos is pretty minimal; we combine the best takes and put these together on one 'page', then round the episodes off to a neat three minutes each. Although we use 'best takes' and cut-out unnecessary pauses, we don't speed-up the drawing footage, so these really do show what a talented artist Simon Tofield is.

The music track was composed specifically for these by Russell Pay a.k.a 'Shrooty'.