james polits

In my job, I’m responsible for creating promotional videos for youth events. On top of my other responsibilities, I rarely have time to put the hours upon hours into writing, shooting, editing, or creating motion graphic that the promos require. Good video = tons of time. And I refuse to create a crappy promo video. Those crappy videos often do more to hurt promotions than help. With that said, videos rarely were made for our promotions.

One great solution for the time-drain is to use pre-made templates. (more…)

Ok. I know. It’s not your average online series trying to make money. But I think it’s hilarious. Best Friends is a series by a couple of my friends: David Green & Max Monty. The current season is being shot in HD on a Canon 5D Mark II. (more…)

Always looking for something new and exciting to learn and dabble gets dangerous. Spreading myself between so many things keeps me from mastering most of the things I set out to learn. I learn enough to have an understanding of the topic and then float on to the next thing. Well, motion graphics—specifically, After Effects—has been my latest thing.

Adobe After Effects is a monster of a program. It’s been called “Photoshop with a timeline.” So, think of how complex Photoshop is and how many different tools and functions that are built in then multiply that by ten. That’s how I would describe it.

After Effects (AE) is the sort of program that you need some sort of direction and help to start learning. AETuts is just the sort of tool you need to start taming the AE beast. It has various sorts of tutorials from a three part Beginners Guide to an animated homage to Bruce Lee to breath-taking cinematic sequences. However, for the beginner, I’d suggest skipping the breath-taking stuff and jump into the beginner’s guide. It’s there for a reason.

After I went through the beginner’s guide, I decided I needed a project to work on. I’m the sort of person who needs to be doing it and fiddling to learn. I decided the best way to do it was purchase a project file from Video Hive and start tinkering around and see how other people put together projects.

To see the two projects I played with, you can go to UNVEILED | Opener and The Bridge Overnighter on Vimeo.

This music video is a unusual. I can’t say that I particularly like it. It seems a little too forced… Check it out and let me know what you think.

via http://twitter.com/davidairey

Recently, I stumbled upon an inspiring project by photographer and filmmaker Andrew Zuckerman. The Wisdom Project is a one hour documentary and book featuring wisdom from 51 artists, authors, and leaders over age 65 from around the world. Interviewed in this project are the likes of Madeleine Albright, Chuck Close, Clint Eastwood, and Desmond Tutu.

This would have been a dream project to work on. For a writeup on the project, as well as higher quality videos, check it out Apple’s feature on Andrew Zuckerman.

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A couple weeks ago I came across an awesome site for motion graphics and animation. Motionographer is a blog that posts videos from studios, freelancers and students. If you are looking for some inspiration, you need to check it out! There are some incredibly talented designers and animators that Motionographer highlights.

Recently, I’ve been working on a film project as a supervising producer/editor. One of the specific parts of the project that I have had on my plate is the title sequence. As I was trying to find a little inspiration, I stumbled upon this site: The Art of the Title Sequence.

The authors of The Art of the Title Sequence post an article every week that highlights a different movie’s title sequence. Not only do they provide some good insight and commentary on the sequence, but they post it for you to watch! When you have a free moment, I would suggest stopping by and watching a couple.