A Lesson on Typography

Pixels

New York invasion by 8-bits creatures !
PIXELS is Patrick Jean' latest short film, shot on location in New York.

Written, directed by : Patrick Jean
Director of Photograhy : Matias Boucard
SFX by Patrick Jean and Onemoreprod

Simply Amazing!

Exit Through The Gift Shop

Do you know Banksy? If not you should. An innovator in guerrilla art Banksy has made his mark on the world and all the while no one has known what he even looks like. From stencil works done on city walls around the world to even personally hanging his work in major museums (without them even knowing it). This film looks Awesome!

SQUIRREL!

It isn't just the animation that is always amazing with Pixar but also their writers and sense of humor. I love the"SQUIRREL!" parts of the movie Up. How many talking dog movies have you ever seen? Most of them seem to be too close to personifying the dog as a person rather than as a dog with doggie traits.

Knockout 2

This animation is a remake of my original second part of my Knockout Poster project which uses Adobe After Effects to create an animation of the poster. In the animation I chose to have the poster become the climax of a dynamic introduction that portraits Knockout as a world champion boxer. Using the sidescroll text sequence of the name in combination with the iconic Rocky Balboa theme song. The end of the movie is the pasting of the broadsheet and hanging of the gloves to bring a cohesive whole to the piece and it’s connection to the poster.

Good Afternoon Jumpers

Just thought I would share this because it ran through my head yesterday as I drove down to Orange, Virginia to see three good friends go skydiving for one of their birthdays. I'm not a fan of open heights but after seeing it and the safety that goes into skydiving I'm seriously reconsidering my position. I think I may have to jump out of a plane And you have to love Pixar, the animation, the stories and their great sense of humor. :)

The Dark Knight 2

This is a redesign of an earlier work I did while a student in the grad program at SCAD. I've taken several weeks to truly teach myself After Effects from the ground up as well as doing a multitude of online tutorials.

The original premise of this title sequence was designed and executed several months before the release of the movie. In researching for the piece I found my inspiration in the poster of The Joker writing Why so serious? in blood on a window, in which the viewer is looking through at him.

I decided that since this movie was less about Batman and more about The Joker that the opening sequence should push that. Much in the same way that Saul Bass worked the opening sequence for a film in order to impress the mood of the film to the audience.

Many thanks goes to the excellent work and teaching of Andrew Kramer over at VideoCopilot.net.

Enjoy!

Lightsaber Technologies

With the increase of digital technologies and entertainment, the need for an animated logo is higher than ever. Movies, TV, Broadcast, Video Games all use animated logos. But how do we make something more conceptual than just spinning, zooming or fading in and out? I wanted to create an interesting and conceptual logo reveal so I created this. Lightsaber Technologies, where Jedi go to get their lightsabers fixed when they can't do it (the Jedi IT dept). And yes I know this is WAY off canon, but if you know me you know I'm a huge Star Wars fan.

Tapestry

This was a first round logo for my cousin's music group. As I was designing the logo I envisioned how it could be animated like this. Tapestry is a Christian music group from upstate New York comprised of five women. Their choice of name was that a tapestry requires each unique thread to be woven with the others into an intricately designed creation. The logo design was built directly from this concept as the threads weave with each other to create the shapes of the letterforms and the logo itself. Even though the logo isn't finalized I still wanted to create my vision for the animation.

The End

This is a pseudo teaser trailer for a made up movie called "Exterminatus" (and if you get the term you are a geek, and I love you for it). It is comprised of a meshing together of four different tutorials from Andrew Kramer's videocopilot.net (definitely check out the site if you are into learning motion graphics and After Effects). As I did the tutorials I just thought "I wonder what these would look like together?" So I went ahead and did it, with a couple additions of my own. Enjoy.

The song seemed appropriate being Smashing Pumpkins "The End Is The Beginning Is The End."
The typeface used is Electric Lady (B-29 Superfortress) by fellow SCAD MFA grad and aspiring typeface designer Derek Black.

Indiana Jones

I never understood why Indiana Jones had such an awesome logo but Lucas just seemed to drop the ball when it came to the on screen titles, all of which are Trajan. So I figured I would give Indiana a once over and created this, with a little help from Andrew Kramer's Ancient Titles tutorial at videocopilot.net.

Harry Potter!

Finished up my After Effects retraining! This is only a small (severely adjusted tutorial) piece I did. Don't worry more is yet to come ^____^

Where The Wild Things Are

Another awesome broadcasting project from my buddy and fellow SCAD MFA Seth :)

A Series of Awesome After Effects

I decided to take a break from my After Effects retraining (I'm currently working on learning the program more in depth), to watch Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Not the best movie per se but the end credits are just some amazing After Effects work.

Jabba the Scott

From Blue Milk Special

"Back in ‘76 the original Jabba the Hutt was to appear in a scene right before Han transports Luke, Obi-Wan and the droids off Tatooine. Jabba was always meant to be a monster of some kind, and at the time the special effects just weren’t living up to Lucas’ filthy imagination. Northern Irish actor Declan Mulholland played the role of Jabba as either a stand in for a stop-motion creation to be added in post production, or to wear a mask over his head. Neither ended up happening, and Lucas scrapped the scene."

I didn't know this until I read it on their site so I thought I would share. :)

Kiwi!

I had forgotten about this piece until a friend of mine had posted it up on facebook. I originally saw this sometime last year and it still amazes me.



Note the following is from the artist that created this piece (not me):
"My Master's Thesis Animation, which I completed while I was at The School of Visual Arts, MFA Computer Art, in New York City. Created using Maya, After Effects, and rigged using The Setup Machine by Anzovin studios. If you would like to download there is a small version at my website: www.donysanimation.com"

Non-Prophets Fresh Kinetic Typography

A motion graphics piece by my grad school friend Seth :)

Now On YouTube!

The Dark Knight

I went ahead and created a YouTube page so that I can put my motion graphics pieces up on it for easier hosting and viewing.

gregeckler on YouTube