Bob: An Animated Gerbil

Bob's adventure is a big one for such a short animated film.  He covers a lot of ground.  Take a look at his adventures.  Fun little story.

Animation is challenging video production.  It's not the kind of thing you can do in a week as it takes a good deal of preparation and a number of steps depending on the kind of animation you want to create.  Computer animation, like the stuff you see in Bob, usually employes some modeling, and a good amount of time on a powerful computer to crunch out the frames.  Our work for MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies used animation to explain a story that ranged from the nano schedule to the scale in our world.  Moving back and forth between those worlds, while envisioning how technology might enhance the gear belonging to future soldiers was well suited to animation.    Sorry, the sounds of the live interviews is a little out of sync.  The MIT ISN video is three up from the bottom of the page linked here.  deweymedia Executive Producer Paul Dewey has produced a range of animated projects, from animated logos for GE and Pepsi, to his simple animation work for Pubget.

Great Time Lapse Video

There's an art to great time lapse Videos.  There's even a feature length film devoted to it called Koyaanisquatsi. 

Here's a nice montage (below) of great time lapse video utilitzing one of the best sets in the world, New York City.  What makes it so interesting to watch is all the action in the foreground.  Without any action, there wouldn't be much to interest you.  What's also interesting to me is that it takes a long time to create a quick time lapse shot and it doesn't take that much time at all to shoot a high speed video which in turn takes much longer to play.  We are talking opposite film making here.

Metropolis - A New York City Timelapse from Will Boisture on Vimeo.

If you are in the mood for more, here are 25 examples of great time lapse shots.  Great Time Lapse Footage

At deweymedia we add time lapse shots where it makes sense, but it's important to make sure there's a logical reason to show a time lapse shot.  For instance, showing a theatre filling up, but not showing it in real time....   or high speeding a football stadium filling up.  Throwing in a shot for the sake of having one may make good art, but they it takes time to design a good one (need to address issues such as: where is the sun moving over the course of the shot, foreground action, etc), and you need to have a good reason to make it.  Also, because you take a camera out of commission for a good amount of time, it better be a good use of that time.  That's one less camera you can use, and that represents opportunity cost. 

Going Frogging: Frog Hunter

Here's a great story from Garden & Gun Magazine about Jody Meche, a frogger from the Atchafalaya Basin in Lousiana.  Sometimes you take the ride because you never been there before.  I suspect this will be the story when you meet Jody and here his story about how he takes most of his food out of the swamp.

Here's a great adventure story.  It's got sounds and sights most of us have never experienced before.  How much do we really care about the quality of the images in the final analysis?  How much better would it have been if you had better images?  20% or 30%  Point is, this video has great information.  Sure, shoot it as best you can, but remember to get good sound and a great narration.  Even though it's a video, the sound makes up for deficiencies in the images. 

This was the case when deweymedia produce a fund raising video project for Agape, a charity that runs orphanages in India.  We had to figure out how to tell their story with very little funding.  So what did we do?  We trained up a volunteer who was India bound on the cameras we had.  A still camera and a video camera and we used whatever came back with them to make the best video we could.  You decide if it worked.  It's three up from the bottom of the page - it has a little girl smiling at you on a bus.  Agape Video

Jello Jiggle-It App: Real Simple

Here's a fun new app for Jello that allows you to pick any song and any flavor (read color) that the Jello dances to on your iPad, iPhone, etc.  So what's so great about this app? Watch and then we'll discuss.

Got it?  In addition to offering up a cool, entertaining video clip with some great music, it tells you the whole story without a spoken word.  Up front it tells you to pick the song, pick the flavor and then the Jello rocks out.  Maybe it's just me but I think the Jello has some personality.  While it's still dancing you widen out to see the iPad and at thee end of the piece we see the Jello on iPhones with a click-thru to download the app.... it's all really easy to follow.  You gotta love a piece that entertains you and achieves it's purpose without an announcer. 

An admissions video or a capital campaign video produced by a deweymedia producer will rarely use an annnouncer.  We think they get in the way.  Tell us what you think.

Virtual Guide: Putting an Avatar on your website

IBM is just one of many companies now offing Virtual Guide's for their website, and the guide could be you, or Barack Obama.  It's another creepy move towards personalized customization of websites using video.  But I have to wonder how helpful this customization will be.  You be the judge.  Check em out.  The package starts at $9.95 a month.  But don't look for us to add one of these vitual guides to deweymedia site any time soon.

http://www.sitepal.com/