We’ve been getting a bunch of good work coming our way over the last week or so, but very little of it has reached out and grabbed me. This is probably due as much to my own over-saturation as it is to any other factor, but these droughts seem to occur regularly. On the flip side, they are usually followed by a deluge of amazing work. I can almost feel the clouds gathering on the horizon…
In the meantime, here are some ramblin’ thoughts…
Nailing It
I remember seeing nailgun*’s new reel during BDA. I loved it then, and I love it nowâ€â€?proof that my near constant state of intoxication didn’t cloud my judgment as much as I’d feared. I won’t say it’s a perfect reel, mainly because that’s a ridiculous thing to say. That’s like saying there’s such a thing as a perfect song or a perfect pie.
But the reel does work on many levels. The tight integration of music and visuals is not limited to strategically placed cuts that coincide with snare hits; there’s a real attention to the entire musical composition. Take, for instance, the moment around 1:12, when a long bass slide is visually echoed by the movement of cars along a stretch of road. It’s a small detail, but it’s stuff like that makes a reel stick in my mind.
Speaking of the music, I love the Chromeo/MIA mash-up. Notice how at the very beginning you can hear both songs intercut in a kind of radio transmission from the near future. Nice touch.
Of course, the work in the reel is strong, too. I’ve yet to see a great reel come from crappy work, and nailgun* has a huge body of a tasty projects to pull from. But I believe it’s also possible to take a mediocre (or merely good) collection of projects and infuse them with new life via a well crafted reel.
Demo is Justin Fines
I stumbled across the site of Demo (a.k.a. Justin Fines) via a mograph thread.
He’s done some great design work for Psyop, but his print work is definitely worth a gander, too.
Creative Workflow Hacks
Dale Bradshaw, the Technology Director at Primal Screen, has created an awesome blog called Creative Workflow Hacks that provides tips, scripts, and applications to make production life a bit easier. He’s also made a category dedicated to After Effects-related tips.
Given the regularity of posts, CWH looks like it’ll be a great resource for some time to come. I went ahead and added it to the Cream O’ the Crop under Resources: Tutorials.