I started about 6 months ago a project of traveling solo without an agenda, in other words:

You Choose – I Go.

At least that was the concept. How did it work? I would ask my FB friends where I should go next. With no plan or tickets ahead – just I go wherever they told me to go. The most votes/comments would determine my next destination.

How did I manage to cover this idea (economically)? 

I work as a designer full time. I work from Monday-Friday, but remotely, so it allows me to work wherever I want as long as I have a good WiFi connection. So I said “WHY NOT?” Gotta travel right?

My first destination was Italy. I spent two weeks sailing across Amalfi Coast, Pompei and Sorrento. I made a couple films, and people (friends mostly) started to react positively, so I got motivated on this whole idea of travel + video + anywhere. I decided to stick to it and continued doing this for:

Barcelona, Egypt, Turkey & India.

I started realising my friends were my biggest motivation, but I needed to push this a bit further and get people outside to watch too, including analytics on who is watching my stuff.

So I decided to start a mini-series in India called “inda por media calle” – it translates in English “India in the middle of the streets.”

It’s a Costa Rican slang term we use for people that for some crazy reason decide to walk in the middle of the road instead of the sidewalk. So since my biggest audience was Costa Rican, they identified with and loved the concept.

Basically, I have never really given importance to Facebook Pages before, so I decided to start one for my travel videos – I called it “Lost N Free.”

It rapidly took off. Friends started sharing it, and in the first five days I was up 2000 followers. I was impressed and shocked how well these mini-vids were enticing people to follow and watch more.

Once India was completed, I took a short break at my brother’s house in London to begin editing the film “Land of Kings,” which took me about three weeks to prepare and launch.

MUSIC

I had started a playlist for all the locations/countries I visit prior to arriving via Spotify .

For Iceland, I had a good idea for the feeling + style of music, but the Track “Solo Dancing by Indiana” was chosen right on the last day on my way back home. It was like those glorious moments where it was extremely rainy and hard to drive, and then suddenly the track starts to play and I saw a huge ray of sunlight shine through the whole sky, and that moment sparks.

My whole body went numb when it all clicked together. It was so cool. I had goosebumps running down my spine and chicken-skin all over.

The editing process started in my head almost after hearing the song, repeating it 100 times on my way home. I had the whole video in my head, seriously – everything I had captured was already put together in my head, and I was so excited. I needed to get home and start the edit as fast as possible.

I am glad I did. It took me about three days in total to get all footage indexed, filtered, rough cut, preparing the sound to make it shorter, color grading it, and adjusting everything to match the flow nicely. I was finally happy with it, and decided to give it an early launch.

Unfortunately it didn’t make it into the “Vimeo Staff Pick,” but they certainly loved it so much they put my video in top Travel & Performance films category!

I am extremely satisfied with how it ended up, short film with a bit of a my own flavour of Iceland – a very personal experience alone in heaven.

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I’ve had the chance to be a professional artist for 10+ years, and animation has brought me most of what is good in my life.

After so long spent on the same task, I’ve become – for lack of a better word – an expert. Expertise is wonderful because it allows me to express what I want with a certain degree of confidence and ease, and – not negligibly – allows me to go home early most of the time. The flip side of expertise is that it slowly, imperceptibly shrinks the scope of possibilities as I gradually became more of a craftsman and less of an artist.

A lot of the ideas I would have had before – and probably would have failed at – I dismiss today because experience tells me it’s not worth the trouble – I know it’s not gonna work, so why bother?

Except… Isn’t that what expressing oneself is all about? Taking risks, trying new things, being silly, failing?

All that had gone from my life, and I needed to recapture it. I started to work on ‘Violince’ an animated comic book, and it worked wonders at first. I was challenged again, I made mistakes, I learned – but after two years even that had become routine. I know how to do it and I simply execute.

That’s where the ‘short-shorts’ come in.

A new subject, a new style, a new challenge every couple of months, and maybe trying things that are silly or look impossible, or just try to make something pretty.

‘Madeleine’ is the first of this series.

A silly thing happened to my wife – that she told me in the funny way only she knows how – and I figured there was an animation idea there.

Two evenings later I had made a short animatic (story-board), and the response to it was so good that I felt confident to move on to the next stage. I had a very specific image in mind of what I wanted to achieve and struggled, and struggled, and struggled again, until I finally decided to do the smart thing and asked for advice.

It led me quite simply to try actual watercolors, on actual paper – an almost abstract notion in this digital age.

From the first sketch I knew I was on the right path, and after a few more efforts, I had something that I was happy with.

The experimentation was supposed to stop there, but then I was further intrigued by watercolor, and started wondering how I could harness the light and unpredictability of it for the characters as well, while still delivering a finished and polished piece of work.

I experimented with a few techniques, eventually settling on what I feel is still a bit of a compromise, but perfecting the technique – if I’m inclined to do so – will have to wait for another ‘short-short’.

Next in line are silly jokes, an office prank and animating zero G, all in a variety of techniques such as good old pencils, gouache, or maybe even messing around with the sacrosanct 24 frames per second.

Anything is game as long as it keeps me out of my comfort zone!

To see more of Nic’s animations and connect with him, visit:

Twitter: @niledog

Website: www.niledog.com

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In July 2015, my family and I spent 18 days traveling through Sri Lanka. It was truly astounding. Never ever have I met people this kind and caring, nor have I seen a country this rich in natural and cultural beauty. In my film “The Holy Land” I did my best to capture as much of it as I could.

Living in Austria, in the middle of Europe, cultural diversity is not exactly far away. It’s actually right on the doorstep. So why sit in a plane for 15 hours instead of 2 ½ and travel to a country as far away as Sri Lanka for holiday? Because it’s different. Different in every aspect.

Travelling with gear is always a bit of a hassle, but leaving something at home that you’d regret later is worse. My cabin baggage always ends up being too much for the limitations, but being nice and friendly goes a long way, and I’ve not had any troubles with carrying two full-size backpacks so far. I just don’t feel comfortable with checking either my camera or my drone. On the other hand, staying cool, while explaining to Turkish airport security what the hell I want with a drone in my carry on, is not exactly the most comfortable I’ve been, so that’s that.

When we finally arrived at the airport in Colombo, the single best travel guide was already awaiting us for pickup – a funny, friendly guy who was ready for showing us his country. He introduced the driver to us, and so we had our team set for the following week. After they dropped us off at our hotel for the night, we were on our own in the evening, so we decided to take a stroll on the beach. That’s where we had the first close encounter with the people of Sri Lanka. Ever Sunday they gather on the beach and simply enjoy life. The kids fly DIY kites and play with each other, while the adults have picnics all over the place. Serendipitously, a family’s soccer ball was blown – carried away by the strong wind – and landed right in front of our feet. Next thing we knew, we were playing with them, having fun while the sun was slowly setting. That evening, we met about 50 locals who were just happy to get to know us. Only having been in the country for 3 hours, we already knew it was going to be an amazing experience all the way through. And that was without seeing anything besides the airport, the hotel, and the 200 meters of beach.

Shooting there was simply a pleasure. The people were always welcoming us with shining smiles, and everywhere we went was beautiful. Because Sri Lanka is one of the lesser developed countries, the folks were fascinated by our shiny cameras – and of course by my drone. Wherever I unpacked the little quadcopter, they were astounded and wanted to catch a little on-screen time.

The whole week of touring through the country was a great experience with lots of temples, national parks, great food, and there was never a boring second. I had my camera with me pretty much all the time during the week, so I ended up with a LOT of footage with a few casual drone flights in between. After that, we proceeded to a small town on the east coast for a little over a week of beach, sun, and watersports. The people we met there weren’t any different in their kindness. I didn’t spend too much time behind the camera in that hotel, so from there I mainly had underwater and aerial footage.

Editing pretty much started on the plane home where I put together a little trailer. Back home, the tedious search after a suitable song started, but after quite some time sifting through Musicbed, I stumbled across “The Spectacular Quiet” by Lights and Motion, which was a perfect fit for what I was planning. After my preselection of the footage, I easily would have had enough material for a feature film, but compressing it in just under 4 minutes forced me to pay really close attention to perfection. What I really love about shooting while travelling is that the minute you return home the beautiful memories slowly start to fade, and while editing I have them available at the click of a button.

It was such an astonishing experience that I still struggle to find words for describing it. I can only recommend everyone visit this amazing island and meet these awesome folks.

Click below to connect with Philipp Kommenda:

Vimeo: vimeo.com/pippokommenda

Email: p.kommenda@me.com

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Him & Her was shot on a non-existing budget, in one day, and overloaded with passion, commitment, and excitement. I am a very big fan of low-budget filmmaking, so when my Production Designer Fleur van Oosten, who is also my girlfriend and partner in crime, gave me the inspiration to shoot a short in one day, I was obviously ecstatic.

The problem was what were we going to film? And how are we going to get it done? My Hasselblad 501C is probably my favorite film camera, and it was conveniently placed between us during our discussion. This happy coincidence, meshed with the memory of an older, similar video I had once watched titled Paris through a Pentax, locked down the problem of what to film.

Whilst I was coming up with a simple story with co-writers Joe Azzopardi and Sarah Naudi, I was also trying to solve the problem of how to film the Hasselblad framed perfectly in the screen. The solution was an entire day of DIY construction to create a rig design that can hold two cameras at once. Using an old DSLR camera rig with 8mm rods, an old tripod that acted as a makeshift magic arm, and a cardboard cutout to block out sun flares, I created the U-shape camera rig. The improvised rig allowed my canon 7D to fit nicely, vertically elevated on top of the Hasselblad, with the canon’s 11mm Tokina lens looking through the Hasselblad’s viewfinder. “Alas”, I thought, “I now have hope.”

We had decided on filming in Valletta because apart from having sentimental value to us, it is undoubtedly one hell of an amazing and picturesque capital city. Only 2 weeks passed, and we were prepared with a simple story, a shot list, 6 dedicated crew members and Valletta as our studio. Even though I had tested the rig a million times, I admit that I wasn’t prepared for the amount of running around I had to do on the day. The external monitor I attached to the Canon made it just a wee bit easier for me to see what I was filming, as the cardboard piece was blocking my vision.

The biggest challenge was being a cameraman and a hand model at the same time, I constantly had to be aware of what my hands were doing, though it was a blast going up and down the Upper Barracca lift 10 times to get the shot we needed.

The editing process was calmer than the shoot, thank goodness. I had used Davinci Resolve for colour grading, and Adobe Premiere Pro CC to edit the sequence. The short film was originally 8-9 minutes long but was then cut down in fear of being too boring.

When Alex Phillips happened to see a draft of the short when visiting the co-writer and actress Sarah Naudi, he was inspired to create the score and thus Chasing Love, the original song, was born.

I quite like the end result using the POV style as the main focus point of the story. This is not to say that I am solely a POV style director, though I am a director who adopts any style necessary to tell the story. It is ultimately the story that has to be told and the process of how is as an important factor as what. I was ultimately immersed in experimenting, and in this particular case I was focus on being technically creative, which is why we kept the story so simple and sweet.

To see more of Keith’s work, visit him here:

https://vimeo.com/keithtedesco

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I’m a motion designer in Perth, Western Australia. I started in print-design, many moons ago, and then by lucky accident moved into motion graphics about 12 years ago, doing titles, stings and corporate/educational motion design work for the Department of Education & Training, as well as freelance design projects.

As a sideline, three years back I started a Vimeo channel just for short, experimental clips I would do in my spare time, to gain experience using different techniques and style. It has proved an interesting journey, making good contacts in the industry and a win and nomination in a couple of international film and design competitions.

Take Flight from Gary Bird on Vimeo.

Chaotica and After Effects.
Music: Kai Engel: A Neon Flesh.

It’s become somewhat of a passion now, and I can’t be away from moving things around the screen for very long! Exploring that space where design meets movement and sound is a wonderful creative world and can be very addictive. I get a thrill from those moments when an unexpected solution to a design problem presents itself out of the blue, or times when inspiration comes from seeing something small but perfect as an idea for a new style or technique.

I’m more interested in creating graphical elements myself and combining them with footage produced by someone more expert in camera operation, than going out and filming stuff myself – I don’t have the patience!

TimeWalk from Gary Bird on Vimeo.

Experimenting with time remapping and displacement maps with E3D in After Effects.
Footage: videvo.net
Music: Kai Engel: Universe in Hands.

Typography has always interested me and I like to use type and fonts in a lot of my motion design work. Text on screen can be a great compliment to underlying footage and graphics, to drive home a message or just for decoration.

Music and sound effects have become increasingly important elements to accompany vision and multiply its emotional reach and impact. Seeing is only half-believing without sound!

Mostly I use Adobe After Effects and its multitude of plugins and scripts. After Effects works brilliantly with its sister Adobe products like Photoshop and Illustrator. And I use Video Copilot’s fantastic Element 3D plugin to produce 3D motion graphics in After Effects.

There are so many scripts and plugins developed for After Effects that produce wonderful results and that can also be addictive to experiment with.

In an Instant from Gary Bird on Vimeo.

Exploring displacement mapping in E3D and AE.
Glass shatter footage: epicslowmo.com
Music: Kai Engel: Counting Lights.

For my own experimental work I’ll start with a fairly clear vision in my head of a developing idea (sometimes the result of surprising influences like a dream, or seeing a shape or texture or color combination somewhere), and take that to the screen as closely as possible. But I find I always stray slightly from the original concept, being guided by what the software can do, by the combination of elements on the screen like which fonts suit the design, what color palette works best, what the right pace of the piece should be, what audio if any would be right for it, etc. It evolves quickly and fairly organically.

With corporate, client-based work, I normally get a brief or script and work closely to that, sometimes going back to the client with a suggestion to value-add or lift the idea if needed. Sometimes they take that on board – other times a compromise is reached.

There is so much great motion design being produced out there that I find I have to keep up constant research into emerging trends and developments in styles, markets, technology and techniques. That in itself keeps the creative juices flowing!

Confusion from Gary Bird on Vimeo.

Experimental…
Element 3D 2.2 in After Effects.
Music: Mobius: Night Shift.

‘Distortion’ came about after seeing an article in a newspaper about statistics being manipulated.

I combined a simple graphical treatment of that idea with an experiment using displacement/distortion plugins in After Effects, using Video Copilot’s Element 3D plugin.

I chose a symbol font to represent money, fuel and power, and a muted gradient colour scheme, then used Element 3D to create a glossy, reflective 3D world with these symbols and the main title extruded out of a rippling, distorted backgound.

I created a black and white ‘displacement map’ with troughs and peaks. Element 3D used this map to distort the images in a wave-like effect.

I decided to end the piece on a TV-logo style graphic, bringing the outer white frame in to create the logo at the end.

Finally, I chose a music track to fit the pace and feel of the animation.

Distortion from Gary Bird on Vimeo.

Test opener.
Element 3D in After Effects.
Music: Betterwithmusic.com: The Wrong Way.

See more of Gary’s work and connect with him here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/preview?vpa=cxn1&locale=en_US

Vimeo: https://www.vimeo.com/gazbaz1

Website: https://www.behance.net/gazbaz

If you’re interested in writing a guest blog, send your portfolio to social@wispeo.com!

Wispeo is now mobile! Get the easiest way to share videos and photos from your phone in the App Store or from Google Play.

The post An Insider’s Look at Motion Design with Gary Bird appeared first on Wispeo.