Cornerstone’s ‘The Loop’ Show

‘The Loop’ will replace the video announcements currently called ‘verbals’. The idea behind this approach is that it will break each announcement into distinguishable sections so people can comprehend what is being said better.

John McCain picks Sarah Palin – eh?

Palin for Vice President

I’m not going to pretend to know everything about this, but I will say I am surprised, and I don’t think I am the only one. McCain believes that she is the one “who can best help him shake up Washington”. I think he is being risky with this and will certainly work very well in his favor or totally blow the whole thing up. We’ll see pretty soon I suppose.

Set Extensions/Matte Painting pt2

The set extension I did yesterday was my 10 minute version. I wanted to go home and really get into a complicated version. I ended up spending too much time on some ideas and never got around to animating the results. Oh well. Here is one of my favs.

Before

After

Set Extension – After Effects

During one of our ‘creative breaks’ I filmed josh and promise kicking the ball around. We do not have a strange gate, brick building or mountain behind those walls. I added them later. It is really hard to add extensions behind objects and usually you plan green screen spots to make the process easier. This procedure will be heavily used in the Flood Short Film.

Before Extensions

With set extension

The Flood: Legacy Video

Matt looks flustered. The Legacy Set.

Last Saturday Matt and I were out in the heat for the morning working on the legacy video piece. I haven’t written about this part of ‘flood’ because it’s more corporate and not as creative. However, I think it went really well. The idea was to get some testimonies in the huge empty lot across the street from cornerstone. I wanted a black couch with the building soft and in the background. I used a Canon HDV camera to get some candid footage, b-roll, and side profile shots. Anyway, here is a photo of the ’set’. I will put the final video up after it’s edited. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to log tape!

2008 Beijing Olympics – It’s over

Closing Ceremony: It's interesting to be a designer or work in film and see a production of this magnitude.

A total of 10,500 athletes were expected to compete in 302 events in 28 sports, one event more than was on the schedule of the 2004 games. Over 90,000 people show up for the closing ceremony and the olympic torch is passed to London, the host of the 2012 Olympics. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was also in attendance while London’s mayor, Boris Johnson received the Olympic flag from Beijing Mayor Go Jinlong. 

I think the the last 16 days allowed the world to learn more about China and it’s culture as well as exposing China to world. I hope that it has opened many new opportunities and eyes to what could be a new China one day. It’s gotta be such a crazy experience hosting the olympics, especially if you are close by. The traffic, the designs, the tourists and the opportunities. China spent over $40 billion on the whole deal.

Join the Rhythm – Branding

JoinTheRhythm.com

I just wanted to get this design out there. Chaz did a good job with the logo and I think achieved the light streak technique he was going after. I had to make some wallpapers for the group and get a blog up for them by this weekend. Check out more of the designs at jointherhythm.com. I made a post last week, you might remember, the vector web badges. I used one of those to make a web badge for this group.

Win a free Wacom Cintiq 21UX

Wacom Cintiq 21 on the right

You can enter once ever day to up your chances to win the Wacom Cintiq 21ux. I have been thinking about getting one of these tablets for a while. They are usually $1,999 which is a bit expensive, but I think worth it. I currently use a 9×12 Intous 3 Tablet. I would never try painting in photoshop without it. I think the possibilities are endless with direct interaction with your digital canvas on a screen. Makes so much more sense. This competition is being offered by SnapVillage, a source for royalty-free images. The drawing will be September 5. Anyway, enter in the competition and good luck. Click Here.

More Designs to check out

Yes, these are designs for a blackoutgraphics client, but i thought I would share it anyway. I like where they are going, I just need to finish them. Please feel free to let me know what you think. This is a really high end interior designer looking for something artistic. Her main request was black with her logo red.
Thanks for your thoughts.

Interior Design website 001

Design 002

Web 2.0 Stripe Generator

This is a pretty cool resource for those of us that just want a quick background patter for our site. You can fuss around with some controls and then download the graphic. Click here.

Free Photoshop Texture Brush

It is nearly unbelievable to me that someone would make such a hi-res brush set available for free. The download file is 65MB. Yeah, it was so big, my download timed out. We are talking about 2500px brushes here. It’s good stuff. Take a look. I find these handy when you need to overlay a texture on something, or you just need a good pattern as a background.

Download the brushes here. 

Cornerstone Web Comps

I’m working on the new cornerstone website. We are hoping to use SiteWrench.com as the CMS. Here are the two comps I made. No, they are not done. The flash player is pretty intense, if you or someone you know can build a player with some pretty crazy mods and functions, please let us know. It’s a paid gig.

Design 001

Comp 1:
I think “thin” sites are in, or at least are cool. There are too many sites out there that have too much going on, too many links, images and the desired destination can be hard to find. If this comp gets picked, you’ll get to see all the small details that make this site cool. There are small tabs on the right that allow the user to choose between 3 style sheets (skins). I know, impressive.