Mar 12


Matthew Shadis Cut Chalk Co. Reel 2008 from Jiveon on Vimeo.

Jul 17

Oobleck

Like ferrofluids Oobleck is an example of a liquid that behaves in mysterious ways. In this case ‘Oobleck’ is simply cornstarch and water, mixed in with some deep bass. This bass causes the ‘liquid’ to change from it’s natural liquid form into gradations of solidity, depending upon it’s relation to the various tones emanating from the speaker. The result of this is an organic mass of material that moves and seems to change shape continuously. Essentially, it looks pretty cool and there is some neat science behind it.

The following is a related video for ferrofluids:

Ferrofluids

Link

Jul 14

Via Google Code comes the new video for Radioheads track “House of Cards” off their 2007 release “In Rainbows”. This video is unique in that it uses LIDAR and related technologies to capture images without the use of cameras or lights. Incidentally, this is the same technology employed by many of the vehicles entered in the DARPA Grand Challenge. The data is captured as singular points in 3D using lasers and their reflections into a receiver. This information can then be manipulated in post production in some pretty fantastic ways. Fortunately the creators of this video were kind enough to include a making of which, while light on technical details does give a good overview of the process and techniques involved in such an undertaking. Well worth watching both.

Additionally Google has included access to the data used to create this video, so you can play with it yourself.

Link

Jun 26

Californian David van Brinks delicious web site is full of fantastic goodies he has been so kind to provide. Not only does he create custom After Effects plug-ins but he has a number of scripts for AE, as well as a wonderful set of Quicktime Terminal tools. This site is a great resource - thanks a bunch David.

Link

Jun 26

Dale Bradshaw at Creative Workflow Hacks has been experimenting with a cool expression using After Effects CS3’s sampleImage(); command. He uses the brightness values of a given pixel in a pre-existing animation to select a particular ASCII character. It’s a pretty cool idea and one that I’ve been wanting to experiment with for awhile. It’s good to see someone actually get around to doing it! Inspires me to make my own take on it.

Link

May 28

Cell Phone in Microwave

So here is a fantastic example of using the weakness of a medium as strength in your work. In this case YouTube’s web video quality combined with handheld consumer level camcoder camera work come together brilliantly to provide a cool shock.

Link

May 24

As-Rigid-As-Possible Shape Manipulation

So the puppet tool in After Effects is a nice addition to CS3, the origins of this tool can be traced back to none other than Takeo Igarashi, the master Japanese animation/graphic tool programmer from the University of Tokyo. This guy is bad ass. The video above is just the tip of the iceberg. Want to know what might be in CS4? 5?

Moving Sketch
FiberMesh

Link

May 19

This is simply a beautiful piece of work - fantastic use of imagery to draw the viewer through the piece’s narrative. With a fantastic twist that is sure to make you think. Work like this is outside of my usual mograph/animation focus but I had to include this one. Shilo is one of those houses that produces consistently high caliber work, if you haven’t already check out some of their other work. Enjoy.

Link

May 18

So if you aren’t already familiar with the cartoonist/illustrator Chris Ware, well, you should be. His work is unique and really speaks so to the human condition. In this case he is contributing some animation work to This American Life’s TV program on Showtime. I hadn’t known Mr. Ware to do much in the animation realm but this one proves just how versatile his style really is.

Link