The story I’m sharing is titled: The Falling Leaf.

The Falling Leaf
It was a cold autumn night, summer has just passed and winter is knocking at the door. In the middle of a playground stood a tall tree. Inside one of the tree holes lives a family of ants. The tree is their home and their playground. From one of the tree holes, baby ant sees the first leaf started to fall to the floor. Baby ant could not believe it. Baby ant felt sad as she saw the first leaf touch the floor. Is the tree dying, she pondered? What will happen to her family? Over the days the leaves started to shed more and more. Leaving the tree standing there naked. Winter reached and it started to snow, temperatures started to drop below 0 and hard cold winds blew between the tree’s branches. Baby ant was sheltered inside the tree, always able to stay warm. The tree was always on her mind, feeling sad every time that her home has died because of the circumstances. One day, the sun came out, spring was in the air! The harsh and cold winter has passed. Baby ant climbed up to the tree hole and took a look outside. She jumped from excitement when she say the first leaf bud hanging on a tree branch! The tree is alive! The tree is alive she screamed with excitement. A new life has come to the tree. After standing proud in the ground, winter came and brought dark and cold days for the tree, yet the tree stood through it and now that the days are brighter, clearer and better the tree can stand proudly again and grow his new leaves!

What did you guys think of the story? Like it? It’s okay? Don’t like it? Let me know, I’m more than happy to hear from you guys!

Thanks for reading!

The creatives who have created the post explains the whole (design) process they went through to create a single poster for a short film. I find this a very interesting and informative post. If you ask me, the steps they took to create the poster is exactly what should be written in a design document. However, before I explain my why, this is the poster they’ve made for the short film Connected.

Connected Posted by Barq

So why do I find this a very good design document? They’ve placed every step they took and wrote it down. They’ve show you (the client) the breakdown of their poster. How it all began, what was the initial idea and why they chose that certain style.

The steps taken and explained:

Briefing
The briefing is the explanation of what your client wants.

Inspiration
This is the phase where you start collecting different stuff that would inspire your design/idea.

Concept development
During this phase you start brainstorming and sketching your ideas.
Which style/format you want to present your idea.

(Design)
Illustrations / Typography
Here is where you explain your official design. From beginning till the end you explain how you’ve reached your final design, from sketch to 1st draft to the final design.

Here’s some examples of the design steps that Barq has took:

Connected Title Design

Different Concept Sketches

See how they explained in each step why they made a change what they didn’t like?
This is important for your teachers to see, if you’re a student or your clients to see your design process. It shows that you see things as a bigger picture and want the best design to come forward. It shows your interest and your creativity.

To read more in depth about the steps these guys took to create the poster, take a look at there portfolio blog.
Direct link: http://jokke-svin.dk/the-connected-poster-by-barq/

I hope that this post cleared up some stuff for you if you were confused on how to create a design document.
Now, I’d like to know, how do you create your design documents? What do you put into your design documents?
Share your knowledge with me in the comments below!

Nowadays there are a bunch of ways to promote your company and also different ways to explain a complex message. A style that’s getting more attention now-a-days is Whiteboard Animations. This is basically a voice over explaining a complex message while an artist draws on a whiteboard. The whole process is edited and the words of the voice-over and the drawings are matching each other.

Just as my luck has it I was asked by a recently opened creative company in the Netherlands if I can help them edit their whiteboard animations. They want to explain a message using whiteboard animations. If it’s for a product or a company, they can explain it! Now I’m their editor and I must admit I do like it. I get to edit the voice overs and the animations. Making everything fit just right.Whiteboard animations is a pretty cool way to bring forward a message. It’s fun and also effective.

BRAINDSTUD is the first official company creating whiteboard animations in The Netherlands.

Their website: http://www.whiteboardanimation.nl

Here’s a whiteboard animation explaining who they are and what they’re all about.

If you are in the Netherlands and would like to have your idea explained by using a whiteboard animation, contact them their cool guys!

If you are interested in more whiteboard animations, I’d advice you to check out RSA animate’s work. They create awesome whiteboard animations explaining some pretty interesting subjects.

Here’s a example of their video:

The reason I like whiteboard animations is because it’s fun to watch and because they also use visuals you can understand faster what they are talking about.

What’s your opinion on Whiteboard Animations? Like it? Would you ever use one? I’d be happy to read your answers! Just leave a comment!

Once again my fellow online friends, I’m signing off!

Till next time!

Preparation

A good foundation is what will sell your idea. When you score a project, and go through the briefing session, here you will get the vision and the idea the client has. After the briefing it’s your time to start doing more research and even do some inspirational session. If your client did not give you a briefing, ask them for a meeting so you can get some information on what they want. Self-initiative always leaves a positive impression on your client.

Research

I cannot explain how important research is. Before hand, learn whom you are pitching too, what they are like, how they view the world, and what type of projects they approved before or what projects they like. The better your pitch fits into their needs, perspectives, and desires, the greater your odds of being successful. So understand the person you are pitching to, and optimize your pitch to their understanding. When you have found a new project, and passed the briefing process, you will have an idea on what the client would like. From this step, you start building your idea. It’s also important to do some inspiration sessions. How and what you do is up to you. Find your inspiration. No matter how bizarre. Some logos were inspired by architecture design. The company that created the logo was a big fan of architecture, he was inspired by it, and based his logo on that… and guess what! He won with his design.

Practice

Practice, practice, practice, this point is very important. Whatever you do, you never want to wing your pitch. To convince your client on your idea or design, you must be confident; confidence comes from working hard and from practicing. Practice in front of someone you know or in the mirror first. Practice pitching your idea until you are comfortable explaining the details.

Pitch

If you have prepared well and you truly believe in your idea, most of your work is already done. Now it’s in the hand of your client. To win over a client you have to convince them. Convince them that they have to try your idea. They have to choose your idea. When you begin your pitch, bring your client to your level, not everybody in the room will know what you have been doing. Inform those present on what your idea is, this way they can understand what you are saying. Clients wants to be wowed, lots of text on a sheet is not the best way to do this. Pictures and videos help clients visualize, stories keeps a client tagged to your communication. Having objects/products on a table can let them touch and feel, see things from up close. Having multimedia products at your pitch can really help you win your client over.

The Pitch Deck

Your pitch deck is your presenting platform at a pitch. This could be using slides from PowerPoint or keynote, a prezzi presentation or even a white board. Use what best suits your product. Everybody creates their pitch decks different, this goes more on personal taste and what the information you want to show your client. Some guidelines to create a good pitch deck are:

-       Elevator pitch: In 30 seconds or less, explain what you are doing and how it works.

-       The problem

-       The Solution

-       The market

-       Development plan

-       Contact information

Proof

Saying “I’m sure this will work” is not a valid proposal on why your product/idea will be successful. Make sure to validate your claims by using concrete evidence and by specifically pointing out how the elements of your idea will help achieve your goals.

Conclusion

When you are reaching the end of your pitch, wrap everything up nicely. Briefly repeat some points that you find important for the client. Try to make this short. It would make the client happy to see all the goods one more time.

Post-Pitch

Be prepared for questions, positive and negative. Before you even start pitching it is a good idea to think of questions that the client might ask and practice your answers. What would you do if you get a positive response? Always have a plan; by a positive response you can for example explain what you need to make this idea/design possible. And what about a negative response? It’s always a good idea to ask “why”. Why didn’t they like it, what didn’t they like about it? You can always use these feedbacks to improve yourself. So remember, there’s no failure, only feedback!

Plan of Action

Make sure you always have a plan of action. Once you are done pitching, take some charge by politely asking that if they would like, you would be more than happy to come back and further explain the idea with greater detail or to present this idea to their partners. This way you politely give them an option, and you let them know you are ready and confident.

Personal Information

When you’re done, it’s always a good idea to give your contact information to the people you are pitching too. Not every company says yes right away, they have to “think about it” first. This way you are sure they have your contact information and even if this pitch did not work out for you, you never know, you might be the person they are looking for, for another project they might have in the future! So always keep your networking fresh and running.

Here’s a nice infographic animation about the pitch process:

___________________________

I hope you guys enjoyed my blog post. I also hope that you found the necessary information you were looking for or that you now have an idea on how to present yourself with a pitch presentation.

I am always happy to read comments and hear from my viewers.

Thank you for taking your time to read this post.

Recently I’ve been in a slump. Whenever I’m home I’ve been walking around and doing other stuff to avoid working on my projects. I was lazy and tired most of the time,  I can’t find a way to produce and continue with my work. I don’t feel like it, I get distracted very fast, but why? Why can’t I concentrate? It all may be an effect that I’m trying to do too much. I’ve been working at RTL, learning new programs and doing tutorials and doing my research on infographic animation for my school project. I think my brain just crashed and needs a vacation. Maybe that’s where the slump has started. Or maybe the fact that I have been comparing myself to others and feeling envious or superior to their work? Or maybe I am not aligned to the values that matter to me anymore? Whatever it is, I had to shake it off!

After some inspirational sessions (funny term… inspirational session) I noticed that there are some good tips for getting out of your slump! I started to think about what I have to do everyday, just keep thinking about it and think about it in different ways, maybe think about a design in only one color, how would you manage that? Or how would it look like animated? Just think! Think, think, think! Have a laugh while doing it, sometimes you can get the idea you are looking for just by have fun in your mind!

When I thought about these things daily I started to anticipate my project, I started to get excited to reach home and continue working on my infographics animation. Just by having random and fun ideas in my head, I made the project important and exciting again!

Now after 2 weeks I am finally excited and happy again to work on my project. My slump took me in for 2 weeks. But it differs per person, so no matter what you do, be patient and keep on trying. A slump is just your brain telling you it needs some time off from the labour.

There are different websites that have tips to help you get out of your slump. Don’t be afraid to try them!

Ok now back to work!

Cheers my cyber friends!

The Dano

What is an Infographic?

When you want to share information, data or knowledge, there are various ways of doing it, and using a visual tool to represent these things is called an Infographic. These graphics present complex information quick and clearly. Infographics are quite ancient; early humans, for example, made maps and other visual representations of their lives, which can be seen today. There is a wide range of modern uses for infographics, from maps of subway systems to slides in a presentation given at a conference.

Many people are familiar with basic infographics, like weather maps, which have small symbols to indicate areas of low and high pressure, as well as predictions for snow, rain, and sunshine. You’ve probably also made an infographic at some point in your life if you’ve ever drawn out a quick map to help someone find your house, or created a chart graphing data which you collected. These small units of visual information contain a lot of information when they are closely studied, and they organize that information in a very accessible way. An easy-to-read illustration helps tell a story and makes data points easier to understand. And it doesn’t hurt when infographics are not only clear and straightforward but also beautiful and engaging.

Here are some examples of infographics:

Here are some infographics that help people understand facts through visuals.

Let’s take this one step higher. The examples I’ve shown you above are all “still images” of an infographic. Aren’t there any other types of infographics? The answer is of course, YES! These days, since we are in the digital and internet era, infographics are also being shown using animations. Companies put their infographic animation on their website or social media site. So instead of putting text online to explain what they do, who they are or any other information, knowledge or data, they use infographics for that! Why? The internet world is a fast pace world. People don’t stop just to read something on a page, unless it’s a website that they were looking for. So that is where infographics come in handy, a quick and clear visual of an information, data or knowledge.

An animated infographic explanation can be seen at “in60seconds” website. They just call it a different name. In60seconds calls their infographic animations: “ Explanimations”.

Here’s their video:

Direct Link: http://www.in60seconds.nl/en/case/explanimation-explained/

Here are other infographic animation videos out there on the internet.

Jailbirds: http://www.good.is/posts/jailbirds-2/

It’s time for Real: http://vimeo.com/5477517#at=16

My thoughts and vision about infographics

Infographics are a fun way to bring information, data and knowledge over to someone. People these days do not sit and read text information, especially long ones that fast, unless it has a certain meaning for them that moment. Seeing a creatively made visual containing the same information will catch their attention faster than text. Infographics are an effective and eye-catching means of communication. High quality infographics stand a 30% more chance of being read than plain text. 40% of people are visual learners. More important, 90% of information sent to the brain is visual.

If you combine a creative animation, audio and the right information, I think you would have a greater chance that your audience would memorize your information if you use a visual where the audience can place themselves into and this will help them watch the video with full attention and help them memorize the information, data or knowledge because they feel like they’ve done it before.

I think next time I’ll make an infographic about what’s an infographic instead of putting so many text on my blog … who am I kidding, I wouldn’t do that to you all. Happy reading!

Well after a little searching online I found an infographic explaining what is an infographic. So as a last gift, here’s an infographic about infographics. The perfect mix of visual and information, data and knowledge:

(Link for better viewing: http://www.customermagnetism.com/infographics/what-is-an-infographic/)

Hope you enjoyed this post about infographics!

Cheers!

Dano Nunes

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And just to make sure, here are some sources I’ve used for my research! I would like to thank these bloggers and websites for their information.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infographic

http://columnfivemedia.com/what-is-an-infographic/

http://columnfivemedia.com/book/

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-infographics.htm#

http://www.customermagnetism.com/infographics/what-is-an-infographic/

http://visual.ly/what-is-an-infographic

http://www.in60seconds.nl/case/explanimations-uitgelegd/

http://www.videoinfographics.com

http://speckyboy.com/2010/06/10/10-creative-and-inspiring-video-infographics/

http://speckyboy.com/2010/05/27/40-retro-and-cool-pop-cultural-vector-resources/

http://trufitt.com/2009/09/21-beautiful-infographic-videos/

http://www.europeanjournalofscientificresearch.com/ISSUES/EJSR_84_3_15.pdf

I personally feel that if you are a entrepreneur and you have a “back then” story to tell, I’d say you are now successful in your life.

On Sunday, 24th of June was my promo filming day at my first client’s home office. Of course since Friday I have cleaned, charged and packed my equipment. To my surprise Saturday began raining cats and dogs and Sunday decided to follow in the footsteps of the day before. Sunday morning reached and I was prepared to go. Of course in Holland everybody has a bike and almost no young adult has a car. It should be about 30 minutes on the bike. From Leeuwarden to Gystsjerk.

Now here’s what my first “back then” story will be like: “Back then I used to ride my bicycle about 20 kilometers in the cold and windy rain, so I could film my first promotion video. I was with my camera bag on my back, wrapped in 2 garbage bags, my lights set were wrapped in even more garbage and plastic bags and hooked up to the rear part of my bicycle. But it did not matter to me because I want to become successful, and every opportunity I got, I took with great dedication and motivation.”

 This is my trusty transporter. When I reached by my client everything was dry and ready to use. Thanks pal!

]]> http://gnunespresents.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/a-freelancers-journey-production-phase-blues/ Mon, 18 Jun 2012 09:27:44 +0000 The DANO http://gnunespresents.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/a-freelancers-journey-production-phase-blues/ So the days of planning and document writing have passed. After several emails and meetings, you and your client are satisfied with your plan and sketches. What now? Now the actual nerve wrecking phase begins.

You’ve painted a pretty nice picture for the client. But that’s all just sketches and ideas. Those sketches and ideas now have to actually become a product that actually lives to the expectation of the client. This can be pretty nerve wrecking if you let it work on you. It’s your first project, your first real paying project and of course you don’t want to screw things up. Now you have busy days and restless nights. You’re brain gets drained just by thinking about it.

The first day of shooting reaches, the previous night you go through your “what I need on set” list (assuming you made one). Make sure everything is packed, and everything is charged. In the morning you get up extra early, make sure you have  some breakfast, double-double check your bags and head to the location. Oh yeah, and also pack some lunch or take lunch money with you. Maybe dinner too. Depends on how busy your schedule is. Hunger can lead to short fuses (you’ll get stressed and pissed off faster than normal) and you don’t want to be stressed while working. Chaos is not your friend.

The thing is, since this is your first time (as a freelancer), you don’t know exactly what will or can happen. You think you have everything covered. But you must always remember that the way to become a professional is by learning and do-ing. Trail and error is a part of that.

On the set you set your camera, mics, lights and props as you planned. This is the moment of truth. Your hearth is racing and your eyes are scanning the area for anything that’s not right. Your mind is thinking about the good and the bad (mostly the bad) and you’re conscious’ making you doubt if the set, mic and camera focus is good enough. Not even good enough, it wants it to be perfect!

But then, you press the record button and the stress, worries and nervousness just fades away. Your mind starts to think about how successful the video will be.
Your confidence gets a boost and the positive thoughts take over. Now you are on the set guiding and explaining stuff to the actor / the person being filmed. Yep, this means that you’re the boss now. The picture you see there, that’s my weapon, my toy, my production friend.

The key is also to show confidence before you start to film. Even tough you are not completely sure about yourself at that moment, you must show confidence so that the actors and your client can also be calm and do their work. You are the energy giver at that moment. If you panic, those around you will also start to doubt and panic.

The past few days I’ve been looking around the web and trying new things in C4D. I stumbled upon (no not the website) a trick or feature in C4D that was just amazing. Camera Projection/Mapping. What this does is, you take an image, and the camera will project it on to whatever area (mostly planes) that you want.

So basically you take an image, place it as a background and add a camera as a projector. These settings have to be done in your materials and tags. Then you create different planes or cube or whatever and let it accept the camera projection. It sounds so easy… but follow some tutorials on youtube or videocopilot or greyskillgorilla. You’ll find some helpful information there.

I want to dig deeper this method now, it would be so cool to create a scenery out of a photo and place 3D elements in it and animate the camera!

This technique worked for a title card but the problem I was now facing is the fact that the image didn’t have a high resolution. The image I used for the background was a .jpg and when the camera “zoomed” in, you can notice it is pixelated! Of course we don’t want this. So I decided to create the whole scene in cinema4D. I already had the text and animation. So basically I only needed to add the ground and skies.

For the running tracks I used a high quality texture and placed it on a plane, that was matched with the floor of the previous projected image. Afterwards I put the lines in and also some grass in the background.

The final color correction touches was done in after effects. Also some masking and vignette was added afterwards in after effects to complete the final image.

Let’s search for our next adventure and stay tune for new updates!

- The Dano

To start off we have to recreate the logo in 3D. Here’s some snapshots of the process.

First we start off by tracing the logo in Illustrator… getting the correct shapes and curves. After, the traced path was inserted into Cinema4D.

After importing into Cinema we load the paths in Extrude Nurbs and edit to the size and style desired.

Next step was the placement, materials and lightning. After trying different position and analyzing the shot, I got the right settings and position for the lights. It’s pretty important to look at the shot over and over again. Try to imagine you are there and try to see how the lights were shining and how to camera moves. For instance in this shot, there was some yellow lights on Tom Cruise’s face. So on the logo, should be some light stains from the yellow light.

The last step was adding the finishing touch in After Effects. Finishing touches are the grain and noise on the text. The shot is not smooth. There’s tv-grain and noise in it. I also worked on some color correction and added some smoke (with a yellow shine) on it to let the text seem more in the 3D space instead of a 3D text on a 2D photo.

Here’s the final design:

I’ve also worked on 2 other title cards last week. The Holiday and The Eagle.

For the eagle I’ve build a scene where the eagle flies in and the main characters of the movie are a bit faded in the background. For this idea I wanted them to appear in the smoke. So only when the smoke passes on them you see their faces. This worked pretty well… only problem I had encounter is that the title card is only 5 seconds. Which means there’s not a lot of time to animate the smoke the way I wanted. So had to put extra smoke in the shot were you can see their faces a little bit and some smoke will pass over their faces and highlight it a little. Here are a few screen shots of the steps I’ve made:

Well that’s that for now! Hope you enjoyed this post.. and maybe even got some new or inspiring ideas!

- The Dano

GNunesPresents.com

3D is not that hard to learn… if you put your mind to it! The “problem” is that 3D is a very broad subject. There’s a lot to learn and the possibilities are next to endless. Also just knowing the theory and techniques are not enough. You have to have a good “vision” of what you want to do and always think a few steps ahead. There are different ways of doing something. That’ll take you to the same result, but it can take you into another working direction.

Here’s the design I made over the last 2 days:

This design is not to be used by RTL. I’ve created it to learn more about cinema4D and after effects. The 4 was not created by me. I used it to get a complete composition. Ok I admit! I have learn some things from cinema over the few months I’ve been working here. The falling ice cubes, glass and liquid was created and animated in Cinema4D. I am pretty proud of this design, even though there a couple of mistakes and errors. These got noted and it’s time to move on to my next tutorial/project. I am thinking of doing some camera mapping tutorials… not so sure yet.

The video of this animation will be online to view at the end of my internship. There will be a nice showreel online that showcase all of my work.

Peace readers and bloggers!

My first client goes by the name of “Joke Lunsing” and she would like a promo video for her course: “Training voor HBO-Docenten”. This might sound a bit weird for you right now, but it’s not what you are imagining. The meeting went very well. We talked, shared our stories, ideas and made notes here and there. It was a very nice and easy environment to discuss our thoughts. Even though Douwe Egberts was pretty busy that day. After a delicious cup of cappuccino and an hour of conversation, the meeting finished and we both went our separate ways with a big smile on our face. The info I received will be taken into consideration while I create the first stuff for the promo video.

On another note, I’ve always thought business cards were overrated. Why should we still use business cards? Do they really help? After doing some research and talking some people. I got a surprising answer from: Yes! It does work. Giving a client your business card is an easy way for them to have your contact information in a quick and easy access place. Most business or people have a business card wallet or a box filled with business cards of potential business that they might want to use their service. (Waw, That’s a long sentence… Hope you understand what I meant ) Once I received this information I started to design my business cards, they are now done… next step is to print them and actually start using them! Oh Look! It’s a concept image of my business card! Beautiful isn’t it?

My first letter was send to CheeseCake Company in Den Haag. A small baking place that specializes in making cheesecakes. I was really motivated to send them my first letter because when I went to buy a cheesecake I kinda felt and noticed the passion the lady had for what she was doing. So i went straight to work, creating my project proposal to make a promo video, update my website portfolio, let a few people double check my letter and talk to other freelancers to gain more info on how to approach clients. A week after my letter was sent to the cheesecake Company, I passed by to show the friendly face that had send the letter and of course to ask for feedback about my letter, was it any good, how was the price and all that. My letter was very clear and straight forward, explaining everything from A to Z. So that was a plus point. But, they didn’t want or were not in need of a promo video for their company at the time. Which is quite understandable. Not everybody is in need of a promo video at all times. But but but not all was lost, I received a FREE banana cheesecake from them and IT WAS DELICIOUS! and of course now my name and face is out there. Networking… if she hears of friend or a friend of a friend whom need a promo video for their company. I might be mentioned in a conversation between them… just the thought of that makes me feel like I have accomplished something again.

Look here’s the cheesecake I received!

I do recommend any Cheesecake lovers to try their cheesecake!

They always have another flavor.

Even though one client didn’t need my service, doesn’t mean that I should give up. I’m still motivated to keep on searching for people/companies who love what they do, and offer them a promo video that brings forward their story… their passion.

I got a small (one day) job from a friend of mine. He was working on some motion graphics design for a Airplane Company and needed some help. So he hired me for a day to help him work on some stuff. I can’t really mention what it is yet, cause the video is not released yet. In a future post (hopefully next week) I will put the link to the video in my journal. Working for a real client was pretty nice. We get the information and just be creative with it. I like it! For this project I did a lot of photoshopping. A lot of image slicing. These sliced images would then be set in After Effects and they’ll get animated! This project/task was a success. They were happy with the job I did and I left my information with them. Hopefully in the near future I could work with them again. I’m looking forward to it! With the compensation I received with this project, I got myself a RODE VIDEO MIC PRO. Right now I need to grow as a “business”, the way I can do that is to work on projects and the compensation I get, put it in my “business” again. With the RODE Video Mic Pro I can record and film nicer interviews for my promo videos.

Look at it, ain’t it a beauty?

The other two projects I have pending are 1. a promo video for a lady’s entrepreneurship and 2. a promo video for of Leeuwarden made for Aruban students. But these projects are still in the planning and design phases. The funny thing is, both these projects I received unexpected. The entrepreneurship project I received because I have send the lady my letter to double check the info and the clarity of the letter. She like it so much that she replied on my email saying that she would like to use my offer. Now she’s a client. The promo video for Leeuwarden is from a Aruban guidance counselor who want to help and motivate new Aruban students to come to Leeuwarden. I got in touch with him easily because he is my guidance counselor in Leeuwarden. What I’m trying to say here is… Always be ready and available, you never know where your projects might come from. It’s good to always have contacts and a good network. Once I receive more info and an okay from my clients, I will post some more info here… and of course more about my journey to become a professional freelancer.

It’s been a pretty good start for me. I can’t complain!. I have already done 1 job, I am busy with 2 and I received positive feedback from the first company I’ve sent my letter. This weekend I’ll be searching for some new companies and also work on translating my letter into Dutch. I am still trying to balance my price for the service I provide. Professionals freelancers makes a living out of this and they receive a pretty nice amount of money for their work. But I am not a professional yet. I need clients.. and clients want to see portfolio and past projects. So right now, to gain more experience and to create a nice network, I offer my service and skills at a very low (affordable) price. I want to get paid with experience, and the money will come after.

Thank you for taking your time and reading my journey!

- Giordano Nunes

I started my own “business”, well actually I started to offer my services as a freelancer. I enjoy working on motion graphic designs everyday. I don’t even think of it as work, it’s what I like. I decided to mix my “talent” and passion for story telling into one. The idea is to start making Promo videos for small business at an affordable price. The promo video will be a mixture of film, photography, motion graphics, animation and storytelling. All done by me with some help of some friends. If I could summarize this, it’ll be pretty simple: I WANT TO CREATE MY STORY, BY TELLING YOUR STORY! That’s basically what it is. The objective I have is simply too create a beautiful promo video for the company.

I will operate under the name of GNunesPresents. Why this name? I’ve always dreamed of owning an “business empire” which has different sections and business under it. GNunesPresents is the name of the empire… and one day, with hard work and dedication… I will have a few branches under GNunesPresents. But for now we start with small steps.

I have contact 4 different clients already, 2 I will be creating a beautiful promo video for them and I am awaiting reply from the other two. Of course not every business need a promo video at the moment, no matter what the price is. When the time is right, they will know what to do. I am happy that I am getting my name out there.

You will be hearing more and more of me in the coming weeks with updates of my internship and my freelance work. Not to leave this page with only text (I personally don’t like a page that’s just pure text) here’s my company logo and my iconic logo I am very proud of this and am happy to reveal it to all of you!

I have made different versions of my logo and find that this one says more about me. The a bit straight and square text symbolizes straight forward and power. The Alien design (my iconic logo) in the P represents me and my creativity side.

Izz, there’s a million reason I have chosen an Alien as my Iconic Logo. I’d have to make a separate blog to explain that. But to keep it short, I’d like to say that the Alien has been around me my whole life, in some way it represents my whole life in one design. The hands of the Alien are in “ready to work/touch/feel/create position” and that’s how I always am. I am ready… always.

This post isn’t like my regular post, but I find this important to share. Share my dreams with all of y’all.

I thank you for your time and patience while reading this blog post!

- Giordano Nunes

What seemed to be like a break (since I have 2 weeks without updating) turns out to be a pretty relaxing learning and testing journey for me. Of course here and there some title cards and some motion graphics, it’s all good.

The last 2 weeks I was busy with learning some tracking and character rigging. I mentioned in a previous post about tracking and I find that tracking is a really tough job. I have much respect for experts who do tracking on a daily basis for big budget movie or just tracking for their projects. It’s fun to see, especially when you get the result you want, but to learn it and apply it can be a drag sometimes. Before diving into character rigging here are some nice designs I did for EHBO (Eerste Hulp Bij Opvoeding), Top Chef and News Movie.

Let’s start with News Movie:

News Movie is a parody-ish movie like scary movie. Because of the title, we decided to go with a news mic  for the title card. So I went hands on in cinema4D and created my own news mic in 3D, added a texturem text and animated it. All in cinema 4D. I must admit it is not quite difficult anymore. I did it pretty fast and good. I think my skills in cinema4D are developing fast. After cinema4D I’ve exported the animation and put it in place in After Effects. The promo producer was very happy with the results of the title card.

Top Chef:

For Top Chef, a freelance promo producer came by my and asked me if I can make a title card for him but not for the end, but for in between the promo. Somewhere in the promo they say: which province has its turn to cook in the kitchen (something like that) and he wanted an animation that displays the province. So I went to work again, this time in photoshop and After Effects and created a very nice title card for him. What’s very important in designing a motion graphics art work is the timing. Timing is everything. So animation and camera movement’s perfection comes from timing. This is something I’ve been noticing lately in all of my projects. Here’s a preview of the final design.

EHBO (Eerste Hulp Bij Opvoeding)

This week I worked with another great freelancer. This time for EHBO. It’s nice to work with different freelancers because all have their own style and taste. I worked on EHBO, it’s a tv show and this freelancer had a 1950′s theme promo in mind. So he made everything black and white, with some 1950′s TV effect over it and some nice 1950′s effect voice overs. So of course the title card had to be a bit old school themed but of course a bit modernized also! After some fun editing in photoshop and also in After effects, to the left you can see the final design used!

So that were the designs I did the last 2 weeks. But most of my time was spend on rigging and animating characters.

So as you can see, I’ve been trying a bunch of character rigging and motion capture. The first I’ve tried was rigging the assassin’s creed character. I learned how to create the bones and joint points for him, what should move when I animate it and how to set the keyframes. The second I tried was to create a car jump in a scene. So I rigged an alien, animated a car and let the Alien jump over a car in front of RTL Nederland. These 2 character rigging and animation was done by hand in cinema4D, but what about motion capture? Since I do not have a $350 mocap suit, I created tracking points in photoshop and place them on my body. I stood in front of a camera and started to march. When I was done I’ve uploaded the clip in after effects and started to track it. In after effects I created the bones for the puppet and placed the tracking data at the correct bone/joint. The result was pretty good. It could of a been better but I am very happy with the stuff I learned and the outcome of it. Hopefully there will be more motion capture during my internship, maybe even with 3D objects.

Now this was a small summary of the last 2 weeks. I’ll be signing off again and will sign in with more great stories and updates soon!

Take care!

The Dano

http://www.gnunespresents.com

88 Minutes. Pretty awesome movie, and I got to make the title card for it! I 5 days to finish it, so I decided to create it in cinema4D. Why? Cause I want to expand my skills even more!

This is the final design I made for the title card:

Let’s break it down a minute shall we? The whole design is made in Cinema 4D and After Effects. Cinema 4D for the 3D objects (which is (almost) everything) and After Effects for the color correction and final touches. The clock was build up from nothing but imagination. The 88 Minutes logo was re-created (by me) using the original Logo as a reference. The “TV Premiere Zaterdag 23.00″ was created in After Effects and animated using the same camera settings from Cinema 4D.

You have a whole new world to explore once you start working with cinema 4D and after effects. The workflow between them is pretty amazing. But you must take time to learn it.

This is my first “real” design in cinema 4D. With guidance of my coach I artwork you see above. I have done so much to create this image that I can’t really explain everything. I’ll just give a short description of what I have done.

To begin this design I had to create a clock. Using reference photos is always a good choice when creating something. This way I could get the clock in the right position. After I placed the traced 88 minutes text in the shot and added a camera and some lights.

When the lights and camera was set, I had to animate the clock to the sound. The sound I got from promo producer Sander that freelances at RTL. He made the promo for 88 Minutes.

After adding the clock animations where needed and animating the camera, I started to work with the textures. Giving the clock the right color, giving it some sort of background/backplate and coloring the logo. Choosing the right color can be a pain in the butt. Creating everything and choosing the colors can be very bad or very good depending on your lightning. Learning to work with the lights (and understanding) is something I really want to do. But first we begin with the baby steps, I need to understand 3D first.

Lastly I imported the animation into After Effects and worked on the color correction and final touches there. Adding some motion blur, lens blur, grain, shadows, etc. gives the design a less “static effect”. Playing a little bit with the color correction options i.e. levels, hue and saturation can give your design a brighter or more blended effect. Even though everybody knows this is a 3D animation, you must try to make it as real as possible. Nothing in the real world is perfect. There’s no perfect edge. I try to view my designs as if they were right in front of me in the “real world”.

Well that’s a short and fast explanation of what was done to create this title card. Of course it did not go easy like that. Was a lot of work and a lot of thinking. Creativity level had to be on high throughout the whole day. Ronald also helped me a lot explaining things. What I really like about working here at RTL promo is that I get the chance to do it myself. They explain me what has to happen or how to do it and I get the opportunity to create it. I’m being treated like a employee / colleague instead of an intern.

Working under pressure can be hard sometimes, but this time I did not crack under pressure. I was focused and ready for any feedback and task. I think my colleagues realized this also. And I am very glad they did.

Here’s a link to the video of the Title Card.

Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this!

- Giordano Nunes

http://www.gnunespresents.com

http://www.facebook.com/AlternativeNote

Every designer gets designer’s block once in awhile. When we’re working long hours on a design or spending days sitting behind the computer screen going from one design to the other, we often get a blank image in our head. Finding no inspiration or motivation to create or finish a design. You get stuck. Our creativity ceases. All our designs look the same, and we don’t have any feeling for it. Yep that’s designer’s block… something designers cannot prevent, but can surely work through!

I’m still a pretty young designer, a student actually. I’m busy with a Motion Graphics internship at a big television company in the Netherlands. I’ve been working alongside some veterans in the business and I realized (and experienced) that every designer gets designers block. There is no way of preventing it, but there are some good tips to work through it.

I divided the tips in different categories. Not every one is the same. Maybe some tips just won’t work for you. Then you could try another category.

So without any further ado, here are some great tips that can help you fight designer’s block!

Category 1: Get Loose

• Get Loose! That’s right! You can start your designs by first getting loose! Take a piece of paper and just sketch. Sketch the first thing that comes to mind. Like this you can clear your mind and loosen the muscles of your hand, wrist and arm. For some, this can even relax them before starting to work.

• Improve an old design! Yep this is also a handy trick. Take an old design that was denied by a client or that you didn’t want to work on anymore and use it as a starting point to your new design.

• Copy (only for practice) Don’t worry you won’t be the first to copy a design. This has been done since way before you became a designer. Copying another’s design is a great way to practice and learn new methods. Find designs that you adore and just recreate them. It will only make you better!

• Create a collage, or start a collection of designs! Yep that’s right, start cutting out designs and images out of magazines, brochures or whatever that you like, or just save images in a folder on your desktop. This way you can always open the folder or a scrapbook with your cutouts and browse all the great works that inspire you!

Category 2: Different Techniques

If you got some time and patience, why don’t you use a different technique to design?

• Design in reverse If you always start by designing the layout for your design, and then adding the content… why don’t you start this time by adding the content and then working on the layout. Give your brain a fresh spin; maybe you’ll see the layout in your mind once you added all the content.

• Switch mediums Try switching programs and or mediums. If you always start with a design layout in Photoshop and then animate it in After Effects. Change it up; try to create the design layout in after effects. If you always start by sketching, try starting in a program. Your mind just might thank you!

• Try new ways of doing things! I don’t mean only in the design area. Try to make a twist in your lifestyle. When you get used to doing things in a standard manner. Your mind gets used to certain habits and kills your creativity. Take a fresh breath and do something else. Eat out somewhere else, take the bus instead of your car and sketch with crayons instead of a pencil anything that helps you get your creative juices flowing again.

Category 3: Inspiration & Help

One topic that designers everywhere knows of… Inspiration!

• Inspiration You can find inspiration all around you. Sometimes you are too busy to notice it. Slow down a little and find some time for inspiration. Search the web for designs and just look at them. Be inspired by artwork of others. It shouldn’t only be about artworks of others on the internet. For example put on your headphones and get lost in your favorite song. Turn on the TV and look at all the colors around you! There is enough inspiration all around you, let your design go for a minute and just browse the web for inspiration!

• Talk to people Yeah talk, clear your mind of your thoughts. By talking to others you relax and your mind becomes clear. Just hang out a little by a colleague or somebody near you. Ask them about your design, ask them for tips and be open to their feedback. It can help you come up with new ideas.

• Start networking Get contact with other designers across the web. Join forums and other design websites. Leave a friendly comment on their designs. Put some of your designs on the web. Network with others and just share your thoughts, designs and feedback with others.

Category 4: Time off

• Take a break Sitting hours being a computer screen can be pretty tiring for your mind. Take a break. Take a load off. If you feel like you can’t seem to concentrate, go out and do something else. Step away from your computer and find something else to do. Hey! Here’s an idea, go grab a bite to eat or go have a piece of cake with a cup of tea at a café. Just get your mind off of your project.

• Exercise. If it’s just a walk or going to the gym, you will have some alone time to collect your thoughts and work on your creativity. Releasing some endorphins by exercising can also help break through your creative blocks.

• Take a bath or shower Taking a hot shower or a nice bath relaxes your muscles and relaxes your mind. I don’t know if it’s the water running on your head, or the sound of the constant water falling on your head that relaxes you, but it can help with your train of thoughts and help you fight through a designer’s block.

• Meditate I don’t really mean meditating like a monk. If you can do that, of course it’s great! But just by sitting and/or lying down on your back, close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. Open up your mind and let all your thoughts and designs out. When you’re done, get back at it with a fresh mind!

Conclusion

Designer’s block can be really frustrating when you just can’t seem to pass through it. As you’ve read in my article, there are different ways of overcoming designer’s block. From my experience I would say the best way to work through designers block is to get away from your computer or drawing pad and do something else. I hope I was able to inspire and/or help you through your designer’s block. I use several of these techniques anytime I can. Depending on my situation I choose one and do it. If you have any thoughts, ideas or more information feel free to comment and like my post.

- Giordano Nunes

http://www.gnunespresents.com

My relationship with my colleagues is getting better. We are communicating more on topics of work and non-work related stuff. So basically being social. I feel more comfortable working and communicating with colleagues outside my office also. When I need something from somebody I just go to their office and ask them. Or just go take a look at a new promo their working on whenever I need a minute break from my computer.

I’ve also experienced that sometimes the creativity is just not there. I’ve seen it by Ronald also. It’s normal, working long on a project can lead to a designers block. It’s not something you can prevent but you can overcome it. How? By asking someone else to take a look at what you are doing. A fresh mind you can say. This “fresh mind” can give you feedback that can help you a little. From a simple remark like: “Are they floating?” You can start imagining new stuff for your design or project. You do have to be open to critisism, cause sometimes you will get negative comments and sometimes positive. You should be able to accept their feedback and use it to improve your design.

Ok leggo with the “what I’ve done this week” part.

I started the week with some “spotting” again! This time for Ultimate Dance Battle. This time it went much smoother than the last time. I basically did the same thing like last time but this time the raw edit of the show had more stuff I could work with. Nicer shots, better shots that carry the message of the show. Afterwards I upload the selected clips into the template of the ident and choose the 3 best ones to put in.

That’s that, let’s move on to the next. This week I continued on “Echte Meisjes Op Zoek Naar Zichzelf” title card but did not finish it yet. I keyed out the girls from the blue- and green screen last week. This week was getting them into the same composition. The idea Ronald had in his mind was to place them on a mountain top doing some sort of dance and every week that one leaves the show, we remove her from the mountain top until the last one (the winner) stays. Sounds quite easy right?

This sketch looked pretty good, it had space for date, time and the logos. I would of sticked to this sketch if we did not get the banners and other promo material for this show. They used a vector-ish look and feel for the banners and bumpers for the show. So my sketch didn’t really fit the style anymore. So let’s brainstorm on a new design and sketch.

Keepig the idea of the banners and promo materials I created a new sketch for the title card. This time using the colors that match. In the banners they used a mountain also. So I searched for the same mountain and placed it in my design also. To keep things pretty much neutral. To bad the mountain was not good enough to place the girls on but that was not that big of a issue. I just had to figure out a way to let the girls “stand” in the picture. They were kinda floating around right now, without a platform to stand on. Keeping the word “floating around” in my mind I thought of using a flying carpet for the girls to stand on. Since the show will be shot in India and the middle east. The toughest part I’m dealing with right now is to introduce the girls in the shot. How will I “fit” 10 different entrances into 4 seconds without making it hard on the eyes (and mind). I’ve been trying different entrances and camera motions to make it work. I’m starting to find one I can work with so let’s see this week how it goes. Here’s the development of the designs.

Working with this design I learned more about the “z-axis” (3D space). The “z-axis” works great wth camera movements. It’s just like multiplanes. The trick to getting a nice shot is the placement of your objects. If they are close to eachother, you will not get the same effects and movements than when you got the objects further apart. More space in between.

Here’s a preview of working with the “z-axis” to create a depth in your design.

The left part of the screen are the objects being placed behind eachother. The screen on the right are the objects from front view. You can see that some look further than the others.

My last creation of the week is the title card for “Barbies Bruiloft”.

We received the designs from the company that’s producing the show and I have to created a title card in the same style as the designs. When I heard it’s about a woman who calels herself barbie and she’s getting married, first thing that came in mind is everything pink and cake. To my surprise this was exactly what the designs were made of. Cake, cake decorations and pink. From the minute I saw the cake I got a animation in my mind. The cake is a tower cake going from big to small. Well I knew the cake had pop up like jack in the box. Ronald had the same idea also. So I started to create this right away using masking, parenting and position keyframing.

I like this sketch also, but we received one more cake animation from the production company and we decided to use that design because it had to be done on thursday and thursday is when I received the project files. The animation ofthe cake was already done so basically I just had to place the logo and time. This was not that easy because the animation the people made did not really leave space for the time and logo of RTL. I noticed that other production companies that make designs do not keep in mind that we have to place the time and date and logo in. After playing around a little we decided on the final position for the logo and the time. We were not that happy with the design but it worked.

Well that was my week. It’s time to begin a new one full of new ideas and projects! leggo!