If you ever need to animate your logo for video, you have two choices: spend thousands of dollars on a high-tech digital motion graphics that will look fake and dated in five years, or make it yourself for next to nothing out of cardboard, wire, and mud. (Direct link to video)
Here's me and Jeanette behind the scenes during filming.
With a lot of filmmakers looking for practical, in-camera effects, this is the best way to get logo animations grounded in reality.
This analog technique is also a good way for artists using CGI to quickly and cheaply generate reference of real effects little nuances of wind vortices in smoke, cast shadows, etc, which would be hard to imagine in purely digital simulations.
What I plan to do with this re-usable frame is to shoot it in a few different environments, such as in front of a roaring bonfire or in the middle of a fern garden.
Here are some of the real animated logos for inspiration (link to video).
Other news
For those of you following the "How I Paint Dinosaurs" video— we've now got the digital download also at Sellfy that accepts Paypal. You can access it directly at this link. It's also available via credit card at Gumroad and as a DVD at Kunaki.
This is brilliant, and so much more interesting than a computer animated logo!
ReplyDeleteJames, I think there might be a "relatively" simple way to remove the wires in Photoshop using a layer mask. But much like green screen compositing, you would need a shot of the background without the letters and wires.
ReplyDeleteEven as is it looks great though!
Anyway, gotta go work on that shampoo logo. Can't wait to see what other people have come up with. I bet it would make for some cool poster's or t-shirts for that steam-punk convention you guys have each year.
Wow, James. Completely mad!! -- and genius too!
ReplyDeleteI wondered how you created it. I think it's much more interesting with the wires there. With After Effects you could get rid of them fairly easily, but it has this sort of old school look to it with it in there as if it was just simply made by hand -- just as it was!
ReplyDeleteLove this behind the scenes look.
ReplyDeleteJeanette and You are an awesome team!
Very cool, thanks so much.
ReplyDeleteGreat video
ReplyDeleteWho's the frog trainer?
lol
Really, your are so so inventive...
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for sharing this with us !
Thanks, everyone. Can't wait to see your lionfish entries.
ReplyDeleteMaywyn, that frog attacked a 10 inch worm that was wiggling next to my feet. The frog was completely unafraid of me and my cameras. It took me a while to get a shot of him.
I love this so much. I adore the handmadeness, the low techness. I especially love seeing those wires, along with the slight shakiness. So charming. I love that you say that it's so easy. Hahahaha - my students don't think that is very easy - or quick. Thankyou for your charming quirkiness. Its perfect.
ReplyDeleteI have been reading your blog for a while now. Love your work. Greetings from Netherlands.
ReplyDeleteDear James
ReplyDeleteSo your secret dream is to become a joiner - don't deny it! lol :o)
Your crafty ideas never cease to amaze me!
ReplyDeleteGreat video James. One of the things I like about you and your blog is the unpretentiousness. Everything is so natural and down to earth. Thanks for the wonderful and helpful information on the art subject.
ReplyDeleteCool idea! although, Blender is free and is much easier than building stuff (at least for me).. I don't have all these drills and saws and stuff :)
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAHA!... That's really awesome! absolutely love it! I think I might have to do this for my own portfolio.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! Thanks for this blog post.
ReplyDeleteforanimatedvideos