I received a call from a dear friend looking for Lower Third Graphics for a video he was doing for the School they support and currently send their kids too. I contested that finding some video graphics that would work would be harder than just creating a look, but the only time I had available was for a lower third, and as my friend shoots with a Canon 7D which was an upgrade recommendation from yours truly, I knew the footage would look good and some complimentary Graphics would be in order.

So I created the images you see below using the school logo in a background dealy as well as prime identity. I have included the video also so you can see the lower third in action. Not a big deal but worth a mention, I thought.

Some of the best shooting I have done or seen was captured with a prime lens. I recently borrowed what I guess is being hailed as the "Fantastic Plastic"! A 50mm lens surrounded by a plastic casing with great optics, offered by none other than Canon photography equipment. Wow! What a lens. Not perfect by any means but offering an aperature with an F stop of 1.8, again, WOW! Talk about letting some light in with great depth of field. So I had this lens and wanted to try it out, but I needed a project, a subject with some kind of purpose to utilize this lens and see what it could do.

Well the Annual Halloween Rant on evil was coming up and although we were not able to produce another chapter of Demon Squad, we decided to use Demon Squad - chapter 4: Bewildered, which actually was perfect for this years rant as it was focused on distractions the devil places in our lives. You can view that here. Something was missing tho, and since the primary topic of the rant was "The Cinematic and Commercial effect Halloween has on us", which boils down to why we seek evil, i.e. movies, haunted houses & theme parks, the pull evil has on our curiosity and what we are pouring into our lives, an illustration was needed. I had now found my purpose for trying out the new lens.

Canon always comes thru, this lens along with the Canon 7D is a great combo, like I said some of the best shooting is done with Primes and that is my new focus, along with either the 24-70 or another lens. More on that soon.

Enjoy!

This past weekend Harborside Church hosted the first annual Men of Harborside Conference. Coming up on the heels of the conference is the second annual Mens Action Day or Mad as they like to call it and a promo spot was needed to advertise one event during another and play continuosly until the next event takes place. 21C DIGITAL had a short time frame to shoot the leaders of each of the daily events that will take place so it was quick and dirty time, but I hate quick and dirty video shoots, so to the grind with some still and motion graphics we go before we dive into Final Cut.

Once again looking to Adobe's After Effects for some motion visuals to get things started, but not until we incorporate the Haborside Primary brand in the form of the motion logo I animated earlier this year for the Harborside Theatre spot, you can view that as soon as I post it, a bit behind on my blogging, I am.  Below is the final piece after I massaged it a few times, please dont have high expectations for the talent pool we had to choose from. Some dedicated fellas, but Brad Pitt they Ain't!

Although this Blog post is under the category of Motion Graphics, it does show off the Brand Id for the event also, along with the Brand Id for Harborside and the Men of Harborside. The primary Branding Identity with graphical treatment for the upcoming event is shown below along with a few stills from the promo spot. This image is also being used in an email marketing blast for additional promotional effort. 

Thanks for viewing. Comments welcome.

ThreeFold Student Ministries uses a contemporary Branded and focused theme, a Brand Campaign which was first created by the former Youth Pastor Tommy Shelton some years ago. I decided it was time to bring the Brand to Motion and here is the result. This Animation will play as the primary Video ID before Youth Small Group settings as a marker that events are about to begin with a short message about Wisdom and a lively Motion Brand Id.