I recently had the pleasure of creating the animated motion graphics for a music collaboration between my good friend Kieron James, and talented poet Shadi A.

Kieron sent me a link to an early version of a song he was working on called ‘Mass of Moments’ to get some feedback. I liked the track and left a comment on his website giving him an idea of the visuals that his melody had evoked in my mind’s eye. Shadi read the comment and got in touch with me through Kieron. Shadi asked if I would create a video for ‘Mass of Moments’ for her, and also some abstract animated visuals that could be projected onto a screen behind her when she launched the debut of her new CD “Messy Spaces” by performing it live at an event sponsored by the Goethe Institute. I was honored!

She allowed me total creative freedom with the piece. When I heard the final mastered version (mastering done by another good friend Tony Tewes of PureTone Mastering), and got the lyrics from Shadi I discovered that my original concept for the visuals didn’t totally fit her lyrics. That, and the song is six and a half minutes long which is a lot of time to fill. We had a very limited budget for this piece, so I couldn’t do everything I wanted and imagined, but I’m pleased with the way it turned out and I had a great time putting it together.

See it for yourself, below the jump.

I got to splice together segments from old videos from the Prelinger Archives and also some old silent film scenes from the 1913 version of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, (since the lyrics referenced characters from the play) from the British Film Institute.

So please enjoy, “Mass of Moments.”

Here are Shadi’s lyrics:

Mass of Moments

I’ve got nothing left but time, Ophelia,
in these late autumn nights,
I have come to measure
the density of darkness,
I have come to measure
the mass of moments,
the heavy sleepless hours in between…
I have come to measure
the speed of my lost
lovers madness.

-Remember him so much
that I am forgotten.
Remember him so much, Ophelia
that the rest has become a myth.

In a dream last night I saw
you running,
alongside fields of white poppies,
like someone suddenly born into color.
I saw sunflowers trying to reach the moon
and the colliding of two heavenly bodies above
-the willow growing aslant the brook.

At a predestined moment, Ophelia, I have come to be
that weeping brook, turning
the water wheel
with the flow of my tears

Remove the cork once more;
I have come to turn grapes into wine,
carry the autumn leaves
into the streams of a newborn spring.

-Euphoria blossom, Ophelia,
the speed of his madness,
my lost lover of leaving…
Remove the cork once more.

©Shadi A., selected lines from Molana Rumi, autumn 09

You can see this story by clicking here.

This was another of the 170+ historical stories we did for the Old Red Museum. This one is cub reporter Tom Simmons’ story of how he got his first byline in the Dallas Morning News, by being sent to cover the ambush of the infamous Bonnie & Clyde.

You can see this story by clicking here.

This was another of the 170+ historical stories we did for the Old Red Museum. This one is taken from a newspaper report of the 1911 Dallas Aviation Meet and describes vividly the events of the day. Had fun with this on in After Effects. Susan Platt did a wonderful job with the voice acting.

You can see this story by clicking here.

This was another of the 170+ historical stories we did for the Old Red Museum. This one tells the story of Sarah Horton Cockrell, one of Dallas’ earliest entrepreneurs. When you watch the video, the reason that her husband’s eyes look strange is because this is the only photo of him and it was taken just after he died. He was a bit of a scoundrel and was shot in the street over a bad business deal. The photographer painted the eyes in, and they didn’t do a very convincing job. This was actually a fairly common practice, at the time. But the technology of photography was very new back then, so we’ll cut them some slack.

You can see this story by clicking here.

One of the biggest challenges for creating the AV stories for the Early Years Gallery in The Old Red Museum was the scarcity of related visual materials that were available from the mid 1800s. For this story all we originally had were the line drawings of William and Henry Miller and the story of Henry’s recollection. As a solution, I came up with the idea of creating scenes using 3D characters. Originally we were planning to tell the story using only still renders of the characters, since we had a very limited production budget.

But after my multi-talented wife and partner Darla showed me the beautiful and detailed characters she created and clothed in a 3D program called Poser, I just had to animate them a bit and bring them to life. Animation in version 6 of Poser was a challenge (I usually prefer Lightwave), but it was also a blast and I enjoyed it. I wish we’d had more time and budget, but we did the best we could with what we had.

Of the 170+ approximately 3 minute AV stories that we produced for the Old Red Museum, this is one of my very favorites. The fine voice work done by voice actor Dell Johnson was perfect for the piece. We were very fortunate to have a group of very talented voice actors, and they greatly improved the power and impact of all our stories.

During a meeting of the Old Red Museum’s Board of Directors, at which I’d been asked to take 15 minutes to show some of the AV content we’d been developing, I showed an early version of this story. The Board loved it, but was concerned that, at the end, I had left the mischievous Isam character unmoving after he hit the ‘ground’. There was concern that children viewing the story might think Isam was really dead. So I woke him up at the end to assuage that concern.

The Board originally gave me 15 minutes to show some of the stories; but they wound up keeping me for an hour and a half and then gave me a big round of applause when I was finished, which was totally unexpected but very gratifying. I love bringing historical stories to life!

You can see this story by clicking here.

This was one of the 170+ historical stories we did for the Old Red Museum. This one features a two camera interview we shot with John Schoellkopf, former City Council Member of Dallas, telling the story of how his ancestors first came to Dallas and about their saddle and leather goods store.

Below you’ll find links to a few of the more than 170 historical story videos we produced for The Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture. I will be putting up working examples of some of the 41 touch screen kiosks we produced for the museum soon, but for now, these are just examples of the videos that run in those kiosks.

The first one is former slave Henry Miller’s recollections.

This is a story of Sarah Horton Cockrell, one of the first successful entrepreneurs in Dallas.

And here is a story of early aviation and the first Dallas International Aviation Meet in 1911.

This one is the story of Gottleib Schoellkopf and how he originally came to Dallas and started his saddle and leather goods business, as told by his descendant former Dallas City Council Member John Schoellkopf.

Finally, here’s a story from Tom Simmons about how he got his first by-line in the Dallas Morning News, covering the demise of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde.

These are just a tiny fraction of the interesting stories we helped bring to life for the Old Red Museum. If you’re ever in downtown Dallas, you should treat yourself to a visit to this beautiful jewel of a museum.

This is another example of animations that we’ve done for the BenefitMall home page. Amy Stewart designed the layout and I brought it to life in Flash.

You can see the archived version of the piece by clicking here.

This was a fun little 2D character animation piece that Amy Stewart and I did for BenefitMall. We do a lot of these kinds of pieces for BenefitMall, who keep their home page constantly fresh.

Amy designed the characters and the set, and I animated them to life in After Effects, syncing their movements to the musical background track.

You can see the archived version of the piece by clicking here.

I had the opportunity to present concept ideas for mobile kiosk units for a proposal Slingshot was doing for Jack Daniels. These kiosks were intended to be portable so they could be taken from venue to venue, set up quickly and easily and put into use for a nightly promotion. This is a perfect example of the basic idea being conveyed to me literally sketched out on a scrap of paper, and using 3D to bring it to life.

The concept units featured built-in cameras that would allow for patron’s pictures to be taken and for the patrons to add those images to greeting card templates that they could then email to themselves and/or friends.

Click here to see a simple 3D video of the Desktop unit rotating.

And this one shows the unit opening and closing.

They also had me design a full height model that looked like this.

And you can see a rotational 3D video of that one by clicking here.

Fun project!