Lost Marble Media

I made this test render of the Lost Marble Monster…soon to be used for a ‘Stinger’.

I’m posting this simply because it’s awesome…

Making of…

This was more of a result of ‘messing around’. It started out that I was going to use the NYC footage to add in a huge LMM logo and composite it in such a way that it looked like it was part of the shot that the car was driving past. Then I realized that timelapse footage was a terrible choice for this approach. I was making a fuzzy little character in C4D and then kind of spent an hour messing with forces and wind and somehow ended up with this odd little ident.

We had a series of voice-overs recorded by Bob Taylor for these clips…we had him say the most absurd lines (we were inspired by the Worldwide Pants clips at the end of Letterman). You can hire Bob for your personal projects by visiting his website. We altered the previous ‘Fuzzy’ stinger to use one of his VO’s too (below).

Texting…
My wife: ‘Hows wrk going?’
Me: ‘Not gud. Having to cook the pork chop 4 Jake. He wudnt touch it raw’

As a creator of web videos and a motionographer…I don’t often expect to have to entice a cat to steal a pork chop.

A client asked us to include Jake (our cat) in the ending of a video. I knew at the time that it was a mistake to say ‘sure, we can do that’ but the idea that it might be fun coupled with the unusual nature of the request had tempted me. Plus, in most of our shoots, we have to fight to stop him getting involved…attacking paper cut-outs or pushing the tripod or just walking across the scene.

We started off with a chicken leg. Jake seemed super enthusiastic at first…but once we introduced it to the whiteboard he seemed to go blank – as if the chicken leg had suddenly vanished. After 30 minutes of trying and trying to get him to attack it or at least grab it from the board, we gave in.

Then on to a pork chop. Normally, if we’re cooking or eating a pork chop he would be by my feet waiting for a piece. If I were to put down a plate with a piece of meat on it, he’d grab it first chance he got…not this time. Not the slightest bit of interest. So then I cooked it for him…(yes, today my job included cooking for a cat). Now he seemed up for it! Licking his lips and following me around. However, meat + whiteboard = scared cat. I don’t know why…it just really freaked him out…like big-time freak out! Neck stretched out, fur up on his back and then he fled the office!

Five hours it took me to give in. We decided to use two clips from the original ‘Chicken leg shoot’. The video below shows a client preview render with no voice-over.

Next time a client asks for Jake or any other animal to be used in a shoot…I’ll be politely declining

**** Shortly after I’d hit ‘Publish’ on this post…Jake strutted in and took the pork chop…while the camera was off!!!

I really need to figure out a better title for monthly updates as I’ll be posting them regularly (every 4 weeks would you believe!).

Prosperity for life campaign
We’ve just started working with an L.A. based company to produce a cool ‘inspirational’ web-ad. It’s a work in progress.

Stings
The video below is LMM iDent #1. We’re creating a series to let our clients see what we can do with logos and text….mmm…fuzzy.

Experimental Cinema (4D)
Check out the video below. It shows a couple of 3D ‘experiments’. There’s a cool glass reflection effect…it’s done in Cinema 4D. We saw Nick Campbell’s tut and thought we’d see if we can pull it off. I’ve also got hooked on the displacement features in Cinema…it’s just (nerdy) fun! Oh, and I tried my hand at recreating a Fringe-esque title reconstruct.

Handcraftedness…
Over the last few weeks we’ve produced a lot of Handcrafted videos (a few of which you can see below on the playlist) and also made an almost finished spankingly new website dedicated to all things Handcrafted – check it out! I added another sped up Handcrafted shoot to the playlist…Jake (our cat) makes another appearance. We’re also finally getting around to planning a Handcrafted promo for Handcrafted videos – this should be up next week.

We created a little logo thingy. The upper…erm, ball…is supposed to represent the ‘Lost Marble’, however, no one has grasped that yet. I like it whatever, so it stays.

Durham University Business School

We’ve had the pleasure of filming for Durham University. We covered a 2 day conference at Durham Castle capturing over 37 hours of footage. Standing while operating a camera for that amount of time is exhausting!

It’s been a busy month…on top of the above mentioned projects we’re working on a deal with resellers for Handcrafted and motion graphics videos, we’ve started offering voice-over services and are negotiating to bring in SEO and website development & design services.

Judging by the amount of interest and new projects booked in this week alone, next month is set to be even busier!

This was more of a result of ‘messing around’. It started out that I was going to use the NYC footage to add in a huge LMM logo and composite it in such a way that it looked like it was part of the shot that the car was driving past. Then I realized that timelapse footage was a terrible choice for this approach. I was making a fuzzy little character in C4D and then kind of spent an hour messing with forces and wind and somehow ended up with this odd little ident.

We had a series of voice-overs recorded by Bob Taylor for these clips…we had him say the most absurd lines (we were inspired by the Worldwide Pants clips at the end of Letterman). You can hire Bob for your personal projects by visiting his website. We altered the previous ‘Fuzzy’ stinger to use one of his VO’s too (below).

Although we primarily create motion graphics based commercials, they’re fast becoming second on our most popular list. The back-to-basics idea of taking a new or baffling concept and explaining it simply using paper cut-out characters and a casual, friendly voice-over just seems to connect to a very broad audience.

As a marketing tool, they’re amazingly effective. One of the biggest issues with using video to sell your product (especially on the web) is fighting to keep the viewers interest. In today’s world, peoples attention spans are getting ever shorter. We’re used to 15 – 30 second commercials on TV – we want everything condensed into a few seconds. A lot of customers ask for 5-10 minute videos and to be honest, people will not stick around to watch it. It’s an advertisement, not a show and thus, peoples minds wander or they start browsing elsewhere. The average attention span of someone watching even the most entertaining web video is 3-5 minutes. 30-90 seconds is ideal but sometimes, to get your product across, you need at least 3 minutes. What the handcrafted approach does is give the viewer something fun and humorous that they’re not used to seeing. Everything on TV is high-end motion graphics, explosions, giant 3D text and 60 seconds of dialogue delivered in 20. The handcrafted approach is a breath of fresh air. I don’t know of many things that will keep an internet viewer watching till the end of the video as effectively as they do.

We script, illustrate, film, narrate and edit the whole video from start to finish. You can come to us with nothing but a product or service and we’ll do all the hard work and provide you with a video to give your business a marketing boost.

Click here to hire us.

MEAccounting shoot timelapse: 30 minutes sped up at 1000%

I thought that this post might give our future clients a better idea of the amount of work that goes in to our creative process. We picked on a new Handcrafted video and followed it through the stages from chatting to the client to delivering the video. The promo is for http://rippedcutbuff.com. Edward Khoo, the client, was awesome. It’s so rare to get a client that allows us creative freedom. It’s such a great mix when a client says “we want a video for this product” and just allows us to come up with ideas and then execute them without restraint.

Day 1
Developing a concept…we’re a tad old-school when it comes to the early part of a project. We tend to lean towards a pen and paper. The initial part of the process is simply to read over the clients notes, view their website and/or press release or as is the case with this particular job, we read and then re-read Edward Khoo’s script – letting it sink in. Then came a brief brainstorming session – just a pen and paper. Edward had asked for a basic ‘Handcrafted’ web promo. Our Handcrafted videos tend to lean on humour and explanation as their strong-suits but the script was far from humorous and is written in the first person by Edward detailing his journey from picked on schoolboy to a lean, mean, ripped and muscular young man. It’s more of an inspirational and meaningful read than a funny one. So I stepped away from the project for a day and let the ideas form in my mind.

Day 2

I printed the script, read it over again, this time imagining how I think it should play out. In my mind it had pastel colours, a vignette effect and a more arty feel to it. The paper should appear crumpled and more earthy, at least throughout the early part of the story. It should have a little humour but only within the images.

I scribbled down a paragraph by paragraph account of what I had envisioned and then started to storyboard some of the ideas on a whiteboard in the office (again, we prefer to write and draw rather than using scripting and storyboarding software).

Day 3 & 4

Onto the artwork. This can take a while….there’s always way more scenes and characters to illustrate than you’d think so endurance and pacing is the key here. It took about 9 solid hours to work through the scenes.

We sent Edward the mock-up of the crumpled paper style and decided we’d produce the plain white version and then use post-production effects for the crumpled brown paper so we’d have the choice to use either style.

Day 5

Filming is often the most difficult, warm (due to lighting and equipment) and yet fun part of the job. It took 1 hour and 21 minutes to shoot (time-lapse is below).

Day 6
All that was left to do was edit. It took around 6 hours to fully edit in After Effects and Premiere and to render out the files. We uploaded the finished video to youtube for Edward to review and he loved it and so do we! We both much preferred the plain white version as the images are crisper and the whole thing is easier on the eyes.

Final results
This is the version we decided to go with:

…and here’s the version with added post-production:

If you’re interested in having a Handcrafted or motion Graphics video produced for your website or presentation - click here - and fill out the email form.

If you’d like to know more about Edward’s Ripped, Cut and Buff product, visit his website www.rippedcutbuff.com.