We've gone on at some length about the importance of other services we offer and why you should hire us instead of an undergraduate film student or hobbyist, but when it comes to motion graphics and animation, twenty four frames a second is worth a thousand words. Have a look at our reel and I think you'll find that the four words. "this is so cool," pretty much sums it up. And sometimes that's enough.
Most of the films you'll see on this site have our motion graphics in them, generally at the beginning and/or the end.
This reel also features a Blu-ray menu, and a character morphing excerpt from an evolution animation we did of John Gurche's artwork. All the work here is done with Adobe After Effects and Photoshop. We also shot and recorded the accompanying musical performance by Woody Pines at the Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival.
Custom animation is our top-of-the-line product and can be very time consuming, but we may just have something laying around the shop that we can retool to fit your needs.
Pointing cameras at sources of light in our community.
This is a playlist of YouTube videos I’ve made featuring Sandra Steingraber Ph.D., Robert Howarth Ph.D., Ron Bishop Ph.D., CHO., Thomas Shelley, Adam Law M.D., Michelle Bamberger M.S., D.V.M., and others, mostly responding to the prospect of hydrofracking in New York State. It is largely due to the hard work and dedication of people like these, who got themselves arrested in the name of environmental protection, that Governor Cuomo banned fracking in 2014.
But the threat remains, and hydrofracking, which even liberal-minded Barack Obama, got behind, is a big problem where it’s still being used. The methane it’s releasing into the atmosphere doesn’t stay where the gas is pulled out of the ground. It becomes a global problem. The most up to date science indicates that the best practice is to leave the gas in the ground and pursue sustainable energy sources, which are cheap and abundant.
Before moving to Trumansburg, I worked as a set dresser and propmaker in Los Angeles. These photos are (a tiny sample) of sets I dressed and destruction that I wrought for the TV show “The Middleman” as well as some stuff from “Dirty Habit,” and “Spacerex.”
Strictly speaking, I did not art direct the middle man. Rather I was part of a team of people among whom was an art director who was not me. I was the onset dresser, and worked the set during the actual production.
In my opinion, a video should be more than a commercial for a band. I worked art department doing MTV videos in Los Angeles in the 90s and, while I respect the creativity of the medium, I always feel a little embarrassed for everyone when the lip syncing starts.
The tension of filming real, live music informs every second when you have good camera people. It’s a dance between the camera and the musician and when the two hit a groove, there’s nothing else like it.
For me it’s about the moment of creation–and I like to shoot a band performing unplugged, or a song they haven’t yet gotten down cold. When real creativity is happening (as opposed to lip sync) and the cameras, the mics, and the lights are perfectly placed, you can see the thrill of the moment in musicians’ eyes. You can’t fake that.
I don’t like gimmicks or narratives. I don’t care if MTV says I have to have a cut every two seconds. If that’s important to you, I’m probably not the guy you’re looking for.
If musicians want to try acting, I’m all for it, let’s write a musical or a rock opera (on my to-do list), but let’s not pretend you’re singing your own song. I mean, really… we have microphones.
I have worked with several artist over the years. Bob Potts' kinetic sculptures, (above) have become a YouTube hit, and have gotten him into art shows all over the world. His show in Switzerland sold out last year. John Gurche, the paleo-artist who reconstructs early hominids was the first person to hire me here in Trumansburg--to document his works-in-progress for a the Human Origins wing of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. I have shot John's work for National Geographic as well.
