Kanye West "Mercy"

I recently wrapped up on doing compositing/roto work over at Omega Darling for a new Kanye West video called "Mercy". The video may not visually be the most impressive thing ever, but it's actually a miracle the whole thing came together. The elements we had to work with posed some very interesting challenges for compositing. A mechanized camera was used which was supposed to make the same exact camera move for every take, but unfortunately all of the takes were all slightly off. This made compositing very challenging, especially since it was such a geometric background. We basically had to stitch multiple takes together in a way that made the video look natural and seamless. And finally, here's the fruit of our labors,

Kanye West [MERCY] ft. Big Sean, Pusha T, and 2 Chainz from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.


Hope you enjoy it!


Also sometime soon I will be posting some short Flash animations I made for Sockeye Media. They're part of a series called Mother Goose Club. It's a far cry from Kanye for sure, but they're very cute and I look forward to being able to share them with people.


If I'm not employed this week I'm going to make it my goal to start designing some new elements for an updated website. I think it's time for a change. An old friend of mine is going to code it for me in exchange for a short animation for his site. It seems like a great trade to me!

GE video

I helped out on this video for GE around Christmas time. It's just a bunch of sliding images moving around, but the editing was great. Editing by Matt Kliegman. Sliding images by me. Enjoy!

I also just wrapped on a long term project for Omega Darling. Some day it will be released... about 4 years from now. I'll be sure to share it at that time.

New Purse!

The last week I had off from work, so I decided to finally bunker down and do something productive like make a new purse. Voila! I think it might be my favorite I've made so far (which is really saying something since I've been making my own bags for 10 years). It's constructed out of vinyl fabric I got from a friend's sister who wanted to get rid of it- lucky for me! The interior is lined with cotton. Sewing vinyl is really hard on my machine and my hands. Pinning that stuff is a nightmare. I kept having to ice my fingertips! But I think the end result was worth it :) .

The interior has 3 accordion pockets for extra storage.

In other news I'm in the process of learning Maya finally. I've got a pretty good grip on the animating part, now I figure I'll work backwards and learn rigging, then return to learning more about modeling. Over the week of new years an ad I worked on for Samsung with Omega Darling aired on the massive jumbotron in Times Square! It was really exciting to see my work that big and to know that millions of people saw it. I also recently had to turn down a full time job on a show I really wanted to work on due to money. I don't understand how people expect animators to live on such puny salaries. It's especially mind blowing because we do a job that most people couldn't even dream of being CAPABLE of doing. It's a really hard skill to master, and thus it deserves fair wages. Sigh...

Love at First Bark

Hooray! After a few rather unexpected set backs, the book trailer I spent 2 months directing/designing/story boarding/character rigging/and animating is up online! The book is Love At First Bark by Julie Klam for Riverhead Books (a division of Penguin Publishing).




Credits:

Author/narrator
Julie Klam

Producer
Paul Leo

Director/Animator
Vanessa Appleby

Music and additional sound help
Roger Paul Mason

Additional voices
Isam Prado

The whole video was made in After Effects. The actual animation isn't up to the quality that I would've like it to be, but such is the case when you're on a tight schedule. Overall though, I'm very happy with it. Share this!

How to Make it in America for HBO

On Tuesday I did a little motion graphic spot for my buddies over at Omega Darling/Looseworld . They gave me pretty much free reign to animate the intro motion graphics however I wanted for this here video:



I had a good time making it. Sadly the footage was sped up since I left the office, which may have been done in the edit because we didn't have sound effects, but either way, it still looks pretty nice. I'm finally amassing enough work to put together a legit motion graphics reel. Hooray! Character animation is loads of fun, but let's face it, it doesn't pay very well...

I'll be back in their studio next week for some 2d animation for an educational project. I'm excited about getting out of my house more!

I also just concluded the big long project for Riverhead Books/Penguin Books. More to come on that in the near future.

Animals Howcast Videos

In July I made these two short videos for Howcast. They were really fun. The frog video only took me a day to do- a far cry from the first video I ever made for them! I had an especially good time with the rap video. It's not every day you get to animate sheep with grills.

Songs for Kids: The Color Song on Howcast

Songs for Kids: Animal Sounds on Howcast

Oh, and pardon the ads before the videos. I wish they'd get rid of those...

American Express Serve

Hoorah! A few weeks ago over at Omega Darling I animated an American Express commercial/tutorial for their new service called Serve. It's now online. Finally! Something that I've worked on in the last 6 months that's been released for public viewing!



I'm currently finishing up some new Howcast videos along with directing a book trailer for the beloved Paul Leo, former creative director at Howcast. I'm quite excited about this project. I greatly enjoy the conception/boarding/design portion of production, so having that opportunity again is very exciting!