The motion/movement Archive, Vol. II

The Kingdom Opening   (Spring 2006)

EDIT: I would suggest clicking the arrow in the lower right corner and choosing “HQ” to watch in high quality.  It’s hard to tell what’s going on otherwise.

This one is near and dear to my heart.  It’s a sequel of sorts to the Leave it Behind opening video (notice the overused cardboard sign motif here yet again), but this time, the idea is what we had wrongly left behind, rather than what we needed to leave behind.

I wrote The Kingdom during a time of great change in my life.  I had survived a year of world-smashing theology study and was in the middle of a one year internship at Greenville Area Interfaith Hospitality Network (GAIHN), an amazing homeless mission directed by the great/peculiar Tony McDade.  I was an idealistic fool for idealism’s sake, and I was too scared of the larger world and too bewildered to be much help, as an intern or otherwise.  I was an infant.  It probably wasn’t a good time to bring my ideas to a public showing like this, but the responsibility was given to me nonetheless.  I poured my heart into that play, and it left me physically, spiritually, and emotionally exhausted. 

At the beginning of that Spring Break, Tiffany (we’d only been dating for about two months at this point) and I set out on downtown Greenville with a camera.  I wanted to get the feel of the city, the feel of life.  I sought out the beautiful, and the not-so-beautiful hidden in the corners.  I was particularly drawn to the bridges of downtown– a haven for literally hundreds of homeless people every night, hidden amongst the picturesque parks and streets.  This was the setting for the main message of the play– “can you SEE?”  I wasn’t out to change minds, to sway anyone one way or the other.  I just wanted us to see.  

It was an innocent, naive suggestion.  But I miss that place.

The motion/movement Archive, Vol. I

It’s video day!

While fishing through all of the old promos for the sake of some Conclave display DVDs, I came across a stockpile of some of my old videos.  I think I’m going to start uploading a bunch of these to YouTube (keeping them separate from my Vimeo page for obvious reasons), and share some periodically here for their comedic value.  I also put these here as a tribute to my friends; I couldn’t do this at all without years of their encouragement and participation.  

Notice that in just about every case, these were the days before I understood the concept of de-interlacing.  A few of you will be able to appreciate that.  

The Discipleship Linebacker

Ah, good times.  This was the first video I ever made.  In spring of my senior year in high school, my discipleship group decided we wanted to do something special as a going-away gift to the rest of the youth group.  The thing is, the video isn’t that inaccurate.  For the six years we met together, our group was about Bible Study, Football, and Pizza.  Nothing else.  

Furman BCM: “Leave it Behind” Opening Video

In Spring of ‘05 (my freshman year in college), my brother and Andrew Floyd wrote a wonderful little play called “Leave it Behind,” which a large group of us then performed as a Dinner Theater fundraiser.  Inspired by Matt McNair’s video work in the previous dinner theater, I set out with a Sony Handcam and made other members of the cast stand very still in high traffic areas of campus for uncomfortably long amounts of time.  Thinking back, it’s one of only two videos where I set out to make art with the camera alone.  And I miss those days.

13 Days, 5 Videos

It’s been an exhausting two weeks.  Chillipepper was this past weekend, so exhaustion was already in the cards, but this time around, we decided on doing a whopping FIVE major videos for the weekend, instead of the normal one or two.  To make things more peachy, this process started less than two weeks out, which is my normal minimum timespan for getting one significant video done.  Yippee!  

Thankfully, while this could have been an unmitigated disaster that sent me running from the world of motion design and video forever, it was actually pretty invigorating.  Though, I was working 12 hour days and some extra hours on the weekend, and was even editing in between shooting actual sessions of Chillipepper.  I would like to avoid doing that…well, ever again.  

I would like to thank the many, many of you who have shared kind words regarding these videos.  It’s been really encouraging.

Chillipepper Intro

This one was entirely overambitious.  It’s not that I didn’t think I could do it, or that I was short on ideas for it…I’m just not skilled enough yet to do this sort of video quickly.  Though, I don’t think that any sort of fully animated video is supposed to be done quickly.  All told, it took in between four and five very long days to get this one done, which was just way too long given the situation.  I don’t regret it, though, because it was fun, and I learned a lot, and more importantly, it gave me a better grasp on just how much I don’t know.  The inspiration came from this year’s Chillipepper T-Shirt, with its simplistic, geometric mountains.  

Seesalt 09: “Invasion”

The idea to do a movie trailer-style promo for this coming summer’s alien theme (the only way I know to describe it) was my Dad’s idea, though there was some seesawing back and forth regarding whether it should be an old 50’s B-movie style trailer or a contemporary dark and mysterious one.  The B-movie one couldn’t be done well quickly, so I ran with the contemporary idea, armed with some stock video footage and some sound effects.  I have to give major thanks to Video CoPilot/Andrew Kramer, whose Twitch plug-in made getting this look a lot easier.  Kramer’s tutorials are the reason I know anything at all about After Effects, so this one’s for you.  

SAM 09: “To the World”

This one was easy.  The look and vibe hit me the first time I heard this particular Garageband track, and it was in the can roughly five hours later.  Special thanks to the “Wiggle” expression in After Effects.  

Seesalt 09: “See”

“This is so cheesy.”  That’s all I could think about when making this, our primary Seesalt promo.  But I wanted something simple, something that communicated strongly, easily, and effectively.  I’m actually kind of surprised that we haven’t done more with the word “see” in the past.  This video also demonstrates my continued obsession with light as a primary effect.  It’s the new grungy.

Art to Heart

This one, admittedly, did not get the full treatment.  This video was made in between the Saturday morning sessions and Saturday evening sessions of Chillipepper.  It was definitely the shortest project from start to finish, and definitely the video for which I had the least ideas.  This video is almost sleepy in a way…a great mirror of my physical and mental state at the time.  This is actually the first promotional video I’ve ever made that used lived audio from the event itself.  That was the only way I could think of to convey the narrative of Art to Heart.  The audio is of terrible quality, coming straight from the rinky-dink built-in microphone on my camera, but it works.  I hope.  

So now, it is time for rest.  And when I say rest, I mean time for rebuilding the rest of the Concoxions website, preferably by Monday.  Yippee!

Daily_Blog: 1/14

I’ve gotten to a point where there is so much I want to write, so much I want to express, that somehow welding all of these thoughts into some cohesive yet barely meaningful blog post is virtually impossible.  

So I’m not really going to try.  My fingers are just going to move for a while.

I’m in the midst of a creative renaissance, yet my one legitimate shot at using whatever skill I have professionally (at least for now) is gone.  This was expected, but still a little bit of a downer.  I have a lot of projects on my plate right now, and I’m even doing some further exploration during my “down time” (I can’t get enough of the world 3-D modeling and its infinite possibilities, even at just the demo level…perhaps associated with my PIXAR addiction…).  I’m very nearly done with a unique Seesalt promotional video– definitely unlike any we’ve ever done– and I’ve spent an exhausting two days throwing it together, driven by the opportunity to actually create rather than just quilt together redundant highlight video shots.  I have roughly five more videos to get done before Chillipepper next Friday, I’m frankly worried that I won’t have the same excited drive to pull me through those.  But pull through I must.

I just typed a long paragraph on the the dichotomy between the creative work that drives me and the more-prevalent, busy work that is somewhat soul-crushing.  Then I deleted it.  Keep moving, fingers.

So, seminary.  Why?  Sometimes it feels like I’m going just because I don’t know where else to go.  Other times I feel that this is a confirmed calling and a real opportunity.  I’m hoping for a bit more revelation and guidance than that, and soon.  I don’t want to not go and realize I missed a great chance to dive deeper into something I already find very fulfilling.  However, I also don’t want to get there and realize that I wasn’t ready to dive that deep, or that often.  I know that I’m passionate about theological education.  Theological education, in this “Christian nation” is lousy.  No, make that Lousy.  That’s right: capital-L and italics.  If I have the opportunity to spend the rest of my life encouraging students/people to think very seriously about matters of faith, religion, and theology, I would be very grateful.  I just don’t know yet if graduate school and eventually the classroom is where I’m supposed to do that.  I probably will never know for sure.    But I do know that I want to do something.  

Jake Delhomme played lousily on Saturday.  I’m normally in your camp, Jake, but I have to call it like I see it.  

At the McAfee preview weekend, one of the topics that my peer/faculty panel discussed was the blurring of divisions and the elimination of labels.  ”Liberal Christian” and “Conservative Christian” (or just “Liberal” and “Conservative”) simply don’t work anymore, and they never should have.  A person cannot be defined by our perception of where they may fall on some theological or political spectrum.  It’s an excuse to not get to know someone for what they really think (about any matter; not just, say, homosexuality).  I could rant so much more about this, and I may one day, but for now I simply ask: do your best to never use these labels in your everyday conversation.  I still find myself doing it, just because it’s easy.  But it doesn’t help.  

The first one hundred pages or so of Rob Bell’s Jesus Wants to Save Christians are very interesting.  I don’t know about the other pages yet.  Some may call it revisionist history, but I at least applaud Bell for refusing to accept Sunday School interpretations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, recognizing that Solomon was an utter failure as a King, for example (he then goes on to claim that Jesus fits the bill as the “true” son of David).  It’s definitely thought-provoking.  American Nationalists may want to steer clear, though.

Actually, go ahead and read it.

Also (completely unrelated), go to www.capacity.tv and check out the new branding job that Capacity did for Cartoon Network.  The Capacity folks are truly, truly, truly talented motion designers, and if you watch TV, you’ve undoubtedly seen a ton of their stuff (NBC, NFL Network, and about a dozen other stations).  I first found out about Capacity when they were profiled in an old issue of Relevant Magazine, and have kept an eye on them since.  On their website, be sure to check out “Planted,” an animated short based on the Parable of the Sower.  It’s neat stuff.

If you made it this far, you are a patient, patient person.

Bike Hero

I’m not feeling so hot today, but this made me smile (and simultaneously blew my mind).  A) How do you come up with this, and B) Say to yourself, “yeah, we could pull that off”?

Video Double-Dip

A couple of videos that a few have requested.  Enjoy!

SAM Highlight Video Screen Grabs

Link

Inspiration: Awesomely Creative Toyota Commercial

…from Logan (the Pixar of Motion Graphics, in my book).  They’re normally my main source for motion graphics inspiration, but this time they pull out a great live action short that is, surprisingly, almost completely devoid of special effects.  Will it make you want to buy a new car?  Probably not.  But it’s engaging nonetheless.  Click the picture.

One Down…

Can I sleep now?

More thoughts when I come to…

It’s done. Can I go home now?