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(Photoshop.VN) -

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In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to achieve a 1920’s folk art deco look, seen in the works of artists such as, Transylvanian architectural illustrator and researcher

László Debreceni

. I recommend you use a graphic tablet for this one, as we’ll be taking full advantage of pressure sensitivity. The techniques shown here work best on buildings and structures.

Final Image Preview

Below is the final image we will be working towards. Want access to the full Vector Source files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join

Vector Plus

for just 9$ a month.

Tutorial Details

• 
  Program
  
  : Adobe Illustrator CS and Up
  
• 
  Difficulty:
  
  Beginner
  
• 
  Estimated Completion Time:
  
  1 hour
  

Step 1 – Find the Right Image

The best is to go on site and take your photos, but if you are using stock footage try to find a picture on which the mass of your building is centered and there’s no other building or foliage obstructing the view. The photo used here is taken by me.

Step 2 – Set Up the Workspace

Use File > Place to import your image. Place the image on the center of the artboard. Double-click on its layer and set the Dim Images value to 70%.

I usually use A4 sized artboard and if the resolution of the image permits, I size it so that the mass of the building fills about 80% of the artboard.

Step 3 – Set Up Your Brush

Most of the time I use Adobe Illustrator’s default brushes. Set the fidelity so the program corrects your small mistakes. pressure sensitivity is also very important to achieve dynamic lines. Set that to have about 3 points of variation. Experiment and find the settings that fit your vision of graphically appealing lines considering your skills.

Step 4 – Start Tracing

It’s a good practice to start with repetitive textures like tiles, fences and such, since this is the most tedious part and people tend to have more enthusiasm at the beginning of a project.

Step 5 – parallel lines and the Trick of Lines

Lots of parallel lines give the feeling of detail so it’s good to use them to avoid dullness. For me it’s quite hard to draw straight lines so I developed my technique of doing this (Disclaimer: it’s highly possible, that this wasn’t developed by me, but it’s how I do this).

So the trick is to look in front of your cursor and not on the cursor. You want to see what you will draw and not what you have drawn. Tick number two: start drawing the line and when you feel that it is getting off course do a small

hop

, a small crease or wrinkle by quickly moving your pencil up and down a bit.

This way your eyes will find the right line again and your lines will get a really nice texture. And voila! The overall feeling of the lines, despite the

hops

, is straight not to mention the added visually movement.

Step 6 – Draw the Rest of the Building

That’s easier to say than to do, you would think. The question is, “Where should I draw my lines?” My way of deciding on that is to look for dark areas. Sometimes a well drawn shadow can represent greatly, without making the drawing too busy or heavy.

Don’t go too much into the details, it will kill a lot of time and won’t be visible on the finished drawing. Use thin, not continuous lines, just like clues to represent the edges.

Find good instrumental music and drink green tea instead of coffee if you are into a tracing project, and find the peace in monotony. Your reward will be a killer looking architectural illustration!

Here is some advice to improve your work methods:

• Don’t believe your eyes just follow the lines.
  
• Don’t worry about jagged lines, even if not all the lines are straight or correct the original perspective of the photo will save the day.
  
• Command + Z is your friend. It isn’t for correcting the mistakes but to improve quality.
  
• Let Illustrator and pressure sensitiveness do their magic to achieve interesting lines.
  
• Don’t trace edges on blocks with repetitive texture like roofs. It will give a light feeling to your illustration.
  

Here are our results so far.

Step 7 – shadows

Soft shadows are not common in these type of illustrations since they were reproduced with linocuts. Blocks of full black shadows will balance the design and give a strong feeling of depth.

So it is very important to find the right borderline between shadows and the rest of the image. My way of finding the border of shadows is to decide on the darkest point, and everything that is about 40% lighter in shade than my reference point, will be represented as shadow. Find what works for your illustration, as it may differ.

Once you identified your shadow areas pick the pencil Tool, set your fill to black or any dark color you prefer and start to trace the shadows.

Step 8 – Foliage

Drawing credible and also abstract foliage can be tricky. The first and most important guideline to consider is you will only represent the foliage, not actually draw it leaf by leaf, blade by blade. Look for major forms and represent them by drawing an array of small lines around them. This works great on grass and leaves too.

Step 9 – Thick Outlines

To emphasize depth, draw a thick (about 6 times thicker than your average lines) continuous line around the main forms or masses.

Step 10 – Border

For this type of illustration simple borders work the best. Textured thick lines, lines made of small dots, two or three parallel lines, it’s up to you but don’t make it too prominent.

Also, try to break the border with protruding towers or some foliage outside the border. For this illustration I used hand drawn dotted lines and a thick line drawn with the “hops” technique.

Step 11 Text

Use art nouveau fonts with a fairy tale feeling. I’ve used

Diehl Deco

a font by Apostrophic Labs, which is just perfect for these type of illustrations. It will give a nice look if you redraw the fonts of the title and add curly lines and dots specific to the art deco feeling.

To Sum it Up

Using the techniques discussed above you can easily turn a photo of a building into a graphical piece of art, even if you can’t draw a straight line.

And by the way, the information on the bell tower is true. For further details on this small Transylvanian village check

kecset.ro

.

Final Image

The final image is below and have fun applying these techniques in your own work.

Source: How to Create Vector Folk Buildings Using a Digital Tablet and Tracing Techniques

Favorite movies don’t always overlap with the canon of great movies. Sometimes they’re not even good. I wouldn’t call this selection a “guilty pleasure,” really; instead, it’s a movie made with so little talent and so much enthusiasm that I can spend hours pondering its mysteries. It’s Glen or Glenda (1953, viewable here), the first feature film directed the infamous Edward D. Wood, Jr. I don’t remember when I first learned of this film. It’s hidden deep within the recesses of my childhood.

Coming from a family of devoted B movie fans, Ed Wood was of course in our pantheon along with Roger Corman, William Castle, and Inoshiro Honda of Godzilla fame. I saw Plan 9 at any early age (and many, many times since), as well as Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (I think my father was disconcerted by how many times Martin Landau says “fuck”). And somewhere along the line, I learned that Wood, the reputed “worst director of all time,” had made a movie about crossdressers. Some years ago, I turned up a DVD copy at the public library; my initial response was a mix of amazement, shock, and some third adjective involving surprise at the film’s low quality. Plenty more viewings would follow.

Glen or Glenda is a curious animal. On the one hand, it follows in the long tradition of classical exploitation filmmaking: movies made starting after WWI that pretend to educate while attempting to titillate. Glenda producer George Weiss had already attached his name to such movies as Test Tube Babies and Racket Girls, the latter of which has been in MST3K, and is probably the least sexy movie about female wrestling. The intent was for Glen or Glenda to follow in this long-standing mold by ostensibly telling the public about sex-change operations while actually providing a teasing glimpse of taboo sexuality. All the trappings are visible, but with Wood at the helm, the film took off in several very strange directions, all at once.

Initially, Glen or Glenda looks like your usual exploitation movie. It’s got its topic, its selling point, and it’s even got what Eric Schaefer (writing in Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films) calls the “square up”: the title card at the beginning justifying its existence, and warning that “this is a picture of stark realism” – generally code for “There might be some stock footage of a woman giving birth that shows her vagina.” However, for reasons pretty much unknown to anyone, the film then jumps to an aged, morphine-addicted Bela Lugosi sitting in a room full of skeletons and holding a book. His incomprehensible, long-winded monologue, all delivered in Lugosi’s inimitable Hungarian drawl, sets up the unpredictable, unexplainable structure of all that is to come.

As Lugosi’s monologue (with many more to come) demonstrates, it’s largely Wood’s script which keeps this from being just another bad exploitation movie. His dialogue is often redundant, usually stilted, and never good, yet grows increasingly strange, as if Wood had been drifting in and out of touch with reality (and the art of writing) while creating it. Similarly, the narrative as a whole makes stabs at being conventional, but consistently misses its mark, as if Wood’s internal compass were driving him toward the avant-garde.

Sure, a story starts up – a transvestite named Patrick commits suicide, a dim-witted police inspector goes to talk with a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist launches into the usual “Let me tell you a story…” spiel that frames many exploitation films, Reefer Madness being a well-known example. But no sooner does he attempt to narrate the life of Glen/Glenda than Bela interrupts, signaled (as always) by a flash of stock footage lightning, and begins commenting on the psychiatrist in the vaguest terms possible: “There is no mistaking the thoughts in man’s mind… the story is begun…”

Lugosi’s presence is one of the film’s true mysteries. The obvious answer is that Wood was friends with Lugosi, and wanted to give the ailing veteran some work. Furthermore, Lugosi’s (somewhat faded) star power could potentially lend the movie some slight mainstream credibility; hell, he gets top billing. Even so, why locate him so undecipherably within the movie, intruding on the actual narrative, and generally making the entire film inaccessible to ordinary moviegoers? Both his dialogue and his locale feel drawn from another, even weirder movie, perhaps some uneasy mesh of fatalism, mysticism, and mad science.

Even without Lugosi, Glen or Glenda would be an outlier among exploitation films. Not only does it deviate heavily from its intended sex-change subject matter, but at times it feels uncertain what its subject matter is. Transvestites, or modern man’s inability to overcome destiny (albeit phrased in a much less coherent way)? While most exploitation films let their morality-tale plots flow unhindered, the psychiatrist frequently stops his own story to meditate on sexuality and tolerance. At one point, Glen visits his friend Johnny for advice, and Johnny tells his story, within a story, within a story.

All of this is only exacerbated by the fact that production values are a low which Wood would never again reach, even through Bride of the Monster and Plan 9. During the psychiatrist’s digressions, the film resorts to merely suggesting the existence of a set: a sign reading “BUS STOP” indicates a bus stop, or a water cooler to evoke an office. Wood’s extreme dependence on stock footage also has its consequences: many scenes are reduced to voiceovers underscored by the same few seconds of cars on a freeway, or people on a busy sidewalk, and over a minute and a half of the Alan/Anne story consists of WWII battle footage (this, in a film that’s barely an hour long). Other uses are total non sequiturs, most infamously the buffalo herd stampeding while Lugosi chants, “Pull the string!”

Granted, pointing out badness in an Ed Wood movie may be like shooting poorly-executed scenes in a barrel (or… something), but I think these examples help show why this movie is worth all the attention I give it. Many of these creative choices weren’t just bad, they were also unnecessary, and not really justifiable. I’d say this willingness to do the wrong thing, even if the only effect is undercutting traditional narrative cinema, sets Wood apart from the bulk of exploitation craftsmen, who were content merely to film their hackneyed story and maybe inject it with a few minutes of burlesque shows.

Glen or Glenda does have the requisite burlesque padding – inserted, may I add, right in the middle of the movie, with no narrative context whatsoever – but it has so much more going on that the drawn-out stripteases and softcore bondage porn feel like an interruption from the normal outside world of ’50s sleaze rather than the ascended gibberish Wood’s been serving up. This padding is also sandwiched inside Glen/Glenda’s nightmare, the point in the movie where the main narrative (the psychiatrist’s story) intersects with the oneiric horror movie atmosphere of the Lugosi interludes.

This is a movie that takes its subconscious’s noctural soliloquies and puts them on the surface for the audience for the audience to puzzle over. During the nightmare sequence, both the visuals and the sinister, cackling dialogue become completely opaque, and you wonder, If this was transcribed and psychoanalyzed, would some new truth about gender identity be revealed? Or is there no meaning, just intimations toward one? Also, is that guy the devil?

It really is a movie brimming with mysteries, possibly wrapped in riddles and/or enigmas. Its incessantly tangential structure doesn’t help, as the movie repeatedly doubles back on itself, leading the viewer down stories and lines of argument that look eerily familiar. A few salient points can be gleaned from these many approaches, however, and the clearest of these is a plea for tolerance. Ultimately, this is a movie rooted in autobiography and personal interest – Wood’s own transvestism. And it’s remarkably progressive, in its own surreal way, asking (sometimes) for an acceptance of all gender and sexual identities.

Admittedly, the film does make more than a few self-contradictory statements and engages in some obviously false reasoning, but what emerges from the majority of the viewpoints presented is an internal consensus that if a man feels more comfortable in woman’s clothes – or a woman’s body – then those options should be available to him. (Unsurprisingly, female transvestites and transsexuals aren’t even considered.) The film’s one mention of homosexuals comes when the psychiatrist specifies that Glen is not one, but it’s not a condemnation by any means, itself a triumph for an era when the word “homosexual” was verboten in mainstream cinema.

Of course, Glen or Glenda doesn’t even come close to being a systematic or intelligible defense of transvestism, but that’s hardly its purpose. Instead, I see it as Ed Wood personally expressing, under the only circumstances he could, his feelings about crossdressing and gender identity. And amidst a flurry of hysterical expressionism, he manages to communicate that people should accept ideas that seem strange at first. If Ed Wood had had a shred of talent or artistry, he might’ve been Jack Smith or Kenneth Anger. But he didn’t, thank God, and thus he was Ed Wood. With its indecisively multifaceted narrative, its manic mix of genres and messages, and its wildly idiosyncratic take on human sexuality, Glen or Glenda is one of my favorite movies.

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Digital Juice’s Compositor’s Toolkit 2 was just announced today. It ships on November 19th. With a list price of $499.95 (and an actual price of probably $249 considering their constant specials) this collection is way beyond a steal. And this time around, if you pre-order your copy you can reap the rewards for just $199.95.

For those who don’t know, the Compositor’s Toolkit 2 is a set of 275 royalty-free clips shot in ultra high resolution 2K (that’s bigger than full HD) shot in slow motion giving you full control of the speed for endless possibilities. And the content and quality are beyond superb. These pre-keyed clips have a dual purpose to serve both the visual effects compositor and the motion graphics artist featuring organic elements in a variety of categories. No computer simulations; this is the real deal. And it’s ‘real’ good!

After watching all the sample clips (yes, i watched pretty much all 275 clips) I saw the potential for this collection is astounding. Well, I didn’t want to keep it to myself so I’m going to go through most of the new categories and tell you where the mograph people will be looking and what’s gonna tickle the visual effects guys and also describe how some of these clips can be repurposed for even more uses.

Explosion
Twenty-four fiery clips. There is a lot of repetition in this category; many clips seem almost identical to others yet unique in their little ways. Well, I think that’s grand. I think I mentioned this before on the Digital Juice forums that this kind of similarity is good. Each clip varies just enough to give it its own unique character and personality. You may not be so picky, but I’d rather have a lot to choose from to find just the right fireball that fits my comp.

CTK2’s Explosion clips do a fantastic job of staying inside the frame so that you can simulate distant explosions. Too many stock fire clips whoop up and fill your screen, touch the sides and leave you able to create only close-up explosions. Thank God someone finally got it right! About half of the clips feature explosions that are well rounded like they’re off to the side (on the side of a building), in the air, below you on the ground and, of course, in space. The other half are grounded and shoot upward into the air. Nice.

Clip 024_Explosion is a great wall of fire probably more suited for titles.

Fire
Again, a lot of repetition. And, again, I think that’s good. The Fire category probably would have been better named Flicks and Flames as this fire doesn’t quite have the mass to be considered full out fire. This leaves them more suited to motion graphics title sequences and it’s here the similarities among the clips are useful. You’ll probably be using this footage to set titles on fire and you’ll easily find a clip to match (or burn) all words in your sequence.

I had suggested on the Digital Juice forums that fire for torches and such should be included and it looks like they had a go at that as there are several. The slow motion doesn’t come in handy here if you’re going to composite torches, but they flicker so often that if you loop them at normal speed they’ll look just fine. There are a couple unique clips that go their own way and could come in handy for visual effects: one has flames spreading from the side which you could easily use to composite over a window, and another features flames sprawling across a dark floor. I’m sure you see the potential for vfx here.

However you choose to utilize these clips, you’ll probably need to beef ‘em up with levels as they’re a little on the weak side as far as power. But that’s good, this gives you detail. It’s up to you how you make them shine.

Water
Not much to say here. It’s water. And it’s mostly abstract. These clips are more backdrop footage (albeit nice backdrop footage) and I don’t see very many compositing opportunities here, though it is always fascinating to see water in slow motion. These clips are great for editing projects and motion graphic backgrounds.

Bubbles
Pretty good selection and lots of compositing and vfx possibilities. Most of the clips seem to be on a small (or close-up) scale. I’m talking on a home aquarium level here. But there are also enough clips that have a grand scale feel to them; many would work well for underwater explosions. Over all, fantastic stuff. And again, fascinating to see in slow motion.

Shatter
Careful where you step, the Shatter Category is a fantastic selection of both fine and coarse glass shatterings perfect for visual effects applications as well as motion graphics. In addition to the full out shatters there are a nice selection of falling glass and glass “dust”, some of them directional.  I wish there more.  Priceless.

Ink Drops
They held the camera below glass and dropped blue ink from above making some crazy flower-like designs. I can see a lot of mograph potential here. But visual effects compositors working with horror or even action projects should take note: the blue ink has just the right shading in it that just a spin of the hue wheel will give you some nasty looking blood — and I mean nasty in a good way. These clips would look so convincing as blood that had they used red ink they might have gotten an R rating. (Wise of them not to teeter on offending some customers.)

Sparks
At first glance this sets seems to be a twenty-four clips of the same thing. There is a lot of repetition and though I’ve been going on about how that’s a good thing, in this case I think it just left no more room for more possibilities. Most of the clips seem small scale/up close good, again, for both vfx and mograph work. There’s a great selection of raining embers and a lot of burning fuse type sparks which you could easily animate to lead up to one of those big, black, round bombs. (Do they still do that?) I was very pleased to see that at least one of the clips was shot from directly above. This set could have used a little more of that. All in all as sparks go, these are great.

Paint
White paint on rollers up against glass ready to be colored any way you like. These would definitely be of interest to mostly motion graphics folk. The slow motion comes in handy here as you can remap the time to suit the pace of your project. But aside from the paint rollers, there’s also a good selection of paint getting whopped onto glass (wait, did I just make up a word to suit me?) complete with drips as well as gushes of spray. Again, mapping a dark red onto these splats and sprays will give the horror vfx guys a lot of good compositing blood. Picture a zombie in a car getting shot in the head. The blood (paint) splats outward onto the inside of the window. The slow motion helps here as you can speed it up just right to see the splat form. Good stuff!

Electricity
This is a brief collection of blue, Frankenstein style electricity, maybe good for a Halloween commercial or two. I don’t see a lot of opportunity here to map these bolts from point a to point b so you’re probably better off using After Effects‘ built-in filters or Sapphire’s Zap To effect. Although… these are real.

Debris
Good stuff if you need it. Clips range from the chunky building collapsing type debris to finer clouds of falling dust. Good for visual effects work.

Lighting
At first I was disappointed with this category which I made numerous suggestions for on the Digital Juice forum. However when I took a closer look and examined each clip I realized the team at Digital Juice really know what they’re doing. The Lighting category is a collection of light beams with just the right amount of atmosphere which you can use to make 20th Century Fox style… well, light beams. The beams in this collection don’t just sit there. Each clip has it’s own choreography so you’re sure to find a dance that fits your motion graphics project or your visual effects requirement. Now, should you want to choreograph the beam yourself in After Effects you don’t need to worry about the beams not sitting still.  You’ll need to capture only a frame, move the anchor point to the light source and animate the rotation of the layer to taste. (At first I thought they’d make clips that just sit there so we could animate them and then realized that’s just a waste of video.) Again, Digital Juice did a very nice job of not letting the beams “touch the sides”. You’ll still have to do a little masking but that’s to be expected. Some clips are shot vertically so that you get even more resolution (after all, you’re probably going to mask and transform these anyway.)

Variety abounds! There are beams going up, going down, off to the side, etc. perfect for making ground lights, helicopters, prison wall search lights and more. I was very pleased to see clip 006_lighting had a moving texture in the beam (perhaps done with a rotating gobo?) that looks PERFECT for an underwater light beam. Just perform a little color adjustment, get some bubbles from the Bubbles category or get clip 0006_snow from the original Compositor’s Toolkit (see the value of collecting them all?), turn it upside-down and choke the alpha channel a touch for some up-drifting fine particles (already in slo-mo for realistic underwater movement) and then throw in some fish-eye-view Trapcode Psunami to finish it off and you’re under the sea. (I’d demonstrate with video but the product isn’t out yet.)

Some of the light beam movements were probably arranged with some of these potential uses in mind. Have a scene with a helicopter or UFO searching the ground? Clip 017_lighting is perfect. There are many clips with just motion graphics in mind and some with just vfx. There’s a good selection of stadium type lamp clusters which you could use for, well, stadium lighting. Or, you could scale them down and line up multiple copies for very organic and very real looking UFO lights. The lamps juice up from blackness and then run a few frames; you’ll need to freeze the clips after that.

Well that’s a wrap. I don’t know about you but I’m just itchin’ to try some of the ideas I mentioned. Goto Digital Juice and reserve your copy right now. And if you like what you see don’t forget there’s a Compositor’s Toolkit 1. Like I said before, this deal’s a steal. And if you had to buy all of these clips from, say, ArtBeats you’d have to sell your car first!

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Bonne chance!

It’s been a while. This always happens towards the end of semester. But despite the silence, various productions have been under way, pieces of knowledge have been accumulated, and our TV2 film is slowly becoming more polished.

I’m quite pleased with the way it’s going. We’ve colour graded, edited sound, changed things that Christine thought would be good to change (I generally agree with her, so there are no bad feelings).
I’ll rip some screenshots tomorrow, but I think the project’s looking visually strong and interesting.. and the colour grading makes some of our.. ‘eclectic’ cutaways a bit more uniform and hence cohesive. We’ve added a vignette to shots of Gitta (this was Paul’s suggestion) and I think it works well, gives the shots more depth and draws the viewer’s eye into the centre of the frame. Dawn and I were having some technical difficulties using the 8-point garbage matte filter.. at times the vignette looked too obvious and had a hard edge to it, but if you feathered the edge, the darkness bled into the centre of the frame and made Gitta look underexposed. We ended up tweaking the garbage matte on a shot-by-shot basis.. quite a time-consuming process, but worth it.

The only problem I can see, in terms of our progress, is that Emma and Tim haven’t seen the new sequence yet, and me and Dawn have started colour grading.. which is a fairly subjective process. It’s possible that our colour grades will be completely different to what Tim and Emma are envisioning, hopefully not. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, since we can always go back to previous sequences and redo the colour grades. But we’re running out of time, and there are always complications with the process of exporting files.. the export phase can’t be underestimated.

Still, I don’t think it’s terribly likely that Tim and Emma will dislike the colour grades. They’re strong, but they’re not insane or anything. (of course, it gets hard to tell what’s “Insane” when you’ve been editing for long stretches of time..).

Other forseeable problems?
It seems that every time we’ve decided to kill a particular cutaway, we’ve replaced it with footage from Decasia. While the Decasia material is mesmerising and brilliant, I’m quite conscious of the fact that it’s not ours. We’ve pan-and-scanned the film, and we’ve colour graded it differently and we’re using it in a different context. But we use quite a lot.. in quite large slabs.. and it does feel cheap.
Tim and Emma are looking into contacting Jim Morrison, the creator of Decasia, in order to get permission to use the footage. If we could do this, I would feel much better. It would also mean we could send our films to festivals and whatever else. So hopefully that comes together.
It’s not like we’re stealing Morrison’s film, and I don’t think we’re “lazy” either. It’s just that given the tone of our documentary, there are times where no “normal” cutaway will serve the purpose.. we need shots that are intensely abstract, and the broken down, degraded footage of Decasia is perfect to suit our needs. And it’s not like we’ve slapped in random footage wherever we feel like.. we’ve taken shots that do connect, in some abstract way, to what Gitta is talking about, and it completely changes the way you look at the Decasia footage. If I forced you to watch our film, and then watch Decasia, you’d see what I mean. Decasia’s a lot more sinister and relentless… it makes you tense and your hairs stand up. Our film’s not like that.. we’ve used the same footage for a completely different purpose, and if we can get Morrison’s permission, I’d feel completely confident that we were justified in using it. Our film wouldn’t be the same without it.

My final, and perhaps most valid fear, is that our audio levels won’t match the rest of the TV2 docos. It’s hard to judge where to aim for. -6 and -12.. that’s the zone you’re meant to be in when making a DVD. But what if other groups don’t do this? Theirs may be much quieter, and then we blast them with comparatively massive levels.. that would be absolutely terrible. Same deal with massively quiet levels, I’d want to shoot myself. I guess there’s not much to do except aim for “the zone” and hope everyone else does the same. We’ll soon find out. And despite all my grim visions of all the bad things that could potentially happen at this screening, I’m looking forward to it.

Are you looking for traffic video clips and traffic stock video footage? If you or someone you know need traffic video clips, then you should check out this collection of traffic stock video footage from Clipcanvas, or simply check out this great traffic stock video clip. These are available for purchase, so you can buy this footage and use it in your own video production. Enjoy!

Are you looking for city video clips and city or urban stock video footage? If you or someone you know need city or urban video clips, then you should check out this collection of city and urban stock video footage from Clipcanvas, or simply check out this great city stock video clip. These are available for purchase, so you can buy this footage and use it in your own video production. Enjoy!

Are you looking for video background clips and video background and loops stock video footage? If you or someone you know need video background clips, then you should check out this collection of video background stock video footage from Clipcanvas, or simply check out this great video background stock video clip. These are available for purchase, so you can buy this footage and use it in your own video production. Enjoy!

Are you looking for winter and snow video clips and winter stock video footage? If you or someone you know need wintertime video clips, then you should check out this collection of winter stock video footage from Clipcanvas, or simply check out this great winter stock video clip. These are available for purchase, so you can buy this footage and use it in your own video production. Enjoy!

Are you looking for business video clips and business stock video footage? If you or someone you know need business video clips, then you should check out this collection of business stock video footage from Clipcanvas, or simply check out this great business stock video clip. These are available for purchase, so you can buy this footage and use it in your own video production. Enjoy!

Are you in desperate need of being galvanized about the state of hip hop, or perhaps, the state of yourself? Got six minutes? The opening track on Skyzoo’s new album, titled “The Opener“, is your ticket to salvation. OK, that was an abominable reference, because this track is off the album “Salvation” which just dropped (and is fiyah), but seriously, it fits the proverbial task of music feeding your soul to a tee. Bear through the first two minutes of pseudo-Jesuit melody, and prepare for animistic worship. We’re under the impression a chosen few will watch/listen to this track with exuberance, hence the inclusion of scenery.

For the record, this track was produced by Cyrus Tha Great. Nuff’ said…

MPFREE: Skyzoo – The Opener (album cut)

“One of the many ways we are helping clients is in multi-purposing video assets. If you can make the initial investment in shooting enough footage to cover who you are and what you do, then you can turn that footage into various pieces. For example, you can shoot 2 to 3 days and come away with enough footage to produce a TV Commercial, Web Video, External Marketing Video, Internal Marketing Video, Identity Video for Branding purposes, Tradeshow Video, DVD Compilation, etc… We know that budgets can be tight with the current economy, but this is the best way to get a video campaign off the ground and you can utilize the existing resources for other projects down the road. By having a video presence on TV and on the Web you can reach your target audience faster and more efficiently and it doesn’t cost as much as you think.”

 
“The Bondurant School of High Performance Driving is a perfect example of a client that invested in 2 to 3 days of shooting and walked away with a lot of visual assets. They turned those assets into a Promo Video that plays on their Website, Flat Screen Monitors at their office and company store, YouTube and many other locations. They also turned the footage into a TV Commercial, a DVD compilation which can work for promotional and training purposes and they also created a visual display at the Phoenix Airport where millions of people pass by each month.”

 
Recommendation from Ken Thom, President, Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving:

“Working with Boyce has been an amazing experience. His production crew captured the essence of the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving. The video they shot of our vehicles ontrack gives the viewer an up-close and personal look at the cars, the track, and almost translates the feel of being behind the wheel. Count on Mantis Media to perform professional and timely work that exceeds your expectations!”

 
“In working with WhiteWave Foods, we produced a variety of videos demonstrating potential new products that were shown to online Focus Groups. The feedback on these videos led to further investment in developing these new products and ultimately to the creation of an entire group within the R&D department dedicated to the development and marketing of these new products. Just another way Mantis Media can help you grow your business.”

Was thinking of projecting timelapses onto the walls of Gitta’s house, to represent the passage of time, the continual flux of existence, etc, but also because it’d look cool. Here’s a sample of the sort of material we could project, shot a few weeks ago on my Panasonic NV-GS500 (hardly pro equipment, but it’s 3CCD..). Note that movement can be increased as needed, but for this web export, more movement means worse compression, and it’s bad enough as it is.

PLAY

Forgive the “music”. It makes time go faster, but it also hurts your average speakers..

Anway

After watching the TV2 lecture today, in which Steve Thomas played several parts of his film Hope to us via the projector, l’m thinking that all of our projected stock footage should be deinterlaced in FCP, if possible. Those little interlaced lines rather than hard edges.. it bugs me. Though at the same time, 25p footage could be harder to sync? Or perhaps that’s irrelevant because the projector has such a fast refresh rate. We’ll soon find out.

The Work

At Mantis Media, we think our work speaks for itself, but the relationship we have with our clients is just as important. If your company isn’t successful then our company won’t be successful, so we will go the extra mile to make your project the best it can be.

The List

* As hired through Moxie Media Group
** As hired through BVP Media

Video Suggestions:  Here are several video suggestions based on projects we have worked on with a variety of clients internally and externally. We have also gathered information from collaborating with other creative companies and studying the latest trends on TV and the Web.

 External Opportunities:  Commercials (Local, Regional, National)  We have a lot of experience with Commercial production on all levels. We can help with creative, production and distribution. There are lot more lower cost options than ever before on the Commercial front.

Infomercials: Infomercials have become a great way to promote your company or products. There are a variety of forms (2 minutes to an hour) and TV Networks are desperate to fill time slots. There are even local stations looking to fill time at a fraction of the normal costs. You can also get creative with the format and use the infomercial as a way to educate people. Sponsor the show allowing you to get your name out there, but without the hard sell. Endless opportunities here.

 Identity and PR Video: Here is your chance to demonstrate who you are and what you are all about. Can be anywhere from 2 to 8 minutes and will allow your company to talk about its history, culture and what separates them from the competition. Can also complement other marketing  and PR collateral. What is your company identity?

 Testimonial Specific Video: Add more power to your story by having your customers talk about how you have helped their business. Much better to hear it from your customers than to have you tell it. Utilize sound bites and footage from your best clients. Can be packaged on DVD or shown on the Web. You can get a lot of mileage from this approach.

 Sales Kits: Have your sales force equipped with the weapons they need to close the deal. Package all of your marketing collateral in one kit that they can take with them wherever they go. You can include a DVD or Flash Drive that contains some or all of the videos from above. Videos complement and complete the messaging and look and feel you are trying to get across to prospective clients.

 Trade Show Videos: Express and Impress at the biggest gatherings. Trade Show Videos can really make an impact and draw more people to your booth, but the videos have to be done properly. These events get loud and crazy, so the visuals and music are critical in getting your company noticed. We have produced plenty of these videos with great success.

 CD-Rom/Flash Drive Giveaways:Design a CD-Rom or Flash Drive with an opening video and other materials that you want to provide your current or prospective customers. These can be included in a Sales Kit or as giveaways at Trade-shows or other events.

 Meeting Videos: Videos are key elements for User Group Meetings or any other large event that involves your customers or prospects. We have produced videos for a wide range of these types of events (Kickoff videos, entertainment, educational, presenter intros, etc…).

Online :Webisodes  We can create recurring Webisodes based on specific content or from an educational/entertainment standpoint.

 Commercials: You can also design a commercial specifically for the Web or simply place you existing TV commercials on your site.

 Message from Executives: Tape messages from your top personnel to be strategically used on the Web.

 Identity: Take your existing Identity Video and place it on the web.       

Testimonials: Utilize video testimonials from your clients to promote your products and services.

News/Hot Topics:  Video section for your clients to find out the latest news about your company or any hot topics that might be of interest. Could also be connected to your ongoing Blog.

Educational Updates:  Avoid the hard sell. Show your existing customers or potential prospects that you are experts in the field. This will allow you to make a genuine connection with your audience by giving something back. Becoming an expert in the field gives you a lot of leverage and can keep your audience coming back for updates.

Identity Video:  The Identity Video can be utilized internally as well to educate your employees on who you are and what you want to communicate to clients and prospects. Used internally this type of video can be instrumental in establishing and maintaining your corporate culture.

 Testimonial Specific Video: Testimonials can also be used as specific case studies for your sales and marketing staff as well as other employees. Gain valuable feedback from the good and not so good quotes that come out of client interviews.

 Presentations: Spice up any presentation by adding video into the mix. Video segments can help add humor, explain something more simply and concisely or demonstrate something that you have to see in order to get it. Keep your audience’s attention by adding video to your next presentation.

 Internal Meetings: Keep your employee’s attention by adding video into your agenda. Use video to entertain and educate your personnel and they will gain a lot more from the meeting. Don’t underestimate the importance of keeping your employee’s engaged and entertained.

Training Videos:   Use video to keep employees up to date and educated as it relates to their job. Whether it’s how to use new software, what to tell your customers or prospects or how to run equipment, training videos can be critical to success.

 Video Toolkits:     Create a video toolkit that contains a variety of videos or one specific video along with print collateral to give out to vendors, business partners, etc… All of this information could be place on a CD-Rom or a Flash Drive. The video toolkit will keep your vendors and business partners and others with the information they need to get your message out and the job done.