Haven’t updated this site in ages. Behind the scenes there’s a brand new site coming but of course it’s not ready yet. I’ve cut together a new reel though and did want to get it up here so take a looksie.

I recently had the opportunity to animate some titles and on-air graphics for a new branded entertainment show Along the Way for Under Armour. Working from designs by Second World Design out of Boston, Massachusetts I was able to quickly turn out some simple, clean and effective motion graphics. The show is due to launch later this month and I will update with clips once they’re released.

My involvement in the Integrated Design Wheel project at CK spans over a year but the project as a concept is years older than that. In my time it took the form of being purely a website, then a Flash website with animation and voice over, purely a video, and then finally where it is now as a combination microsite, Frontline-esque documentary. The website is launched at designsynthesis.betterbricks.com and is slowly beginning to be promoted.

I shot the footage with a small crew, lit with 2 Diva-Lite Kino’s and for being talking head footage I’m very happy with how it turned out. Follow the link to see it all but I’ve pulled a few of my favorite clips here.

As part of Coates Kokes’ work with Clean Rivers and Streams we manage their social media program – releasing little around the house tips and tricks for keeping a healthy water system. We proposed a series of low budget videos that we’d shoot on a Flip camera and then release via Twitter and Facebook. It’s an ongoing project but I wanted to share a couple.

My first opportunity to shoot on the RED camera, this was conceived as a single shot that with it’s stark simplicity would feel unique and grab some attention. Of course it was far more complicated to execute than it appears. Shot off speed first full of stuff with the door closing, then multiple takes with the beach ball that was eventually slowed to 80% full speed, then much later in the day shot with the garage empty.

Creatively, once I was brought into the project as the director I realized in order to really sell this as being one moment we had to have some element carry over from the full garage to the empty. We shot a few different elements but ended up using a rubber ball.

Karl, the copywriter on the project, and myself shot a behind the scenes video walking through some of the complicated compositing we pulled off.

Earlier this year we were working on an experimental website for PUSH Your Business, a consulting firm that helps businesses maximize their value throughout the entire life of the venture. Part of the concept for the project involved an opening animation of character pushing the letters in for the logo. We shot this footage to eventually turn into a simple vector animation but never had the opportunity to actually include it in the site.

I don’t know if it will ever see the light of day as a final project but I thought it was worth posting up here.

For a few years now I’ve been working with a former professor of mine, Andrea Marks, on a film she’s been working on for almost a decade called Freedom on the Fence. It tells the story of the Polish Poster and the fascinating successes the designers had under communism and the utter failure the work became under capitalism.

Part of my role with the film involved the final edit and mix as well as cutting together a trailer of it.

This video was put together as part of a pitch for the Portland Timbers. Unfortunately it didn’t go our way but the video was still a fun little piece.

So this is kind of a different piece than what I usually put in here. As a student I had occasionally corralled some of my oldest friends into helping me out with various short film projects. All were rather silly but a lot of fun to create for everyone and good experience for me. The most recent project was also the most ambitious, and unfortunately has fallen into a (most likely) permanent hiatus.

Written in 2007 before the current surge in vampire films, Red Shadows takes a serious look at what life would be like for vampires trying to exist amongst humans. Creating friendships built on a lifetime of lies, Lillian Greene has finally settled into a routine with a group of friends but in one night all of their lives change. It’s rough, but fun. Take a look.

An updated take on the ’07 spot from the Regional Coalition for Clean Rivers and Streams. With a new campaign beginning featuring a series of useful tips for day to day activities we wanted to do a refresh of the PSA spot that was the first project I shot at Coates Kokes. This turns the video into a sort of VH1 style pop-up video and is ended with my favorite part of the project – the new end tag.

Really no budget on this one at all, but I think we’re all really happy with how it came out. It starts airing on Monday.

Seems like it must be audition season. First one for QVC, now one for Redken. Spent a couple nights working with Lilly Huggins in her Salon in downtown Portland and put together this half hour video as an audition reel to become a Redken educator. I am pretty happy about how it turned out considering 48 hour turnaround and trying to make cutting and coloring hair for half an hour interesting. She should have a great chance at the job in that she is a fantastic stylist.

Just a note, the file is huge so give it a moment.

For the second year in a row at Coates Kokes put together a web-based Holiday Card for the Port of Vancouver. This time it was Art Directed by Alicia Mickes, Copy by Karl Schroeder, a bit of motion graphics prep work by Ryan O’Reilly, leaving me responsible for animation, editing and sound design.

It was actually a really fun project to work on – got to use some of the newer animation features of Adobe After Effects and really had the opportunity to do some character animation for basically the first time.

I had a bit of a different aesthetic in mind for the project – I wanted to make it a bit more atmospheric – but the clean lines of the animation were the consensus in the group. I might go back just for fun and throw in a bit of my own sort of style.