ANgiE tAYLoR 🧷

Tag: Creative

  • Creative After Effects 7 Reviews

    Creative After Effects 7 Reviews

    “Today’s software is so creative and seductive that it is easy to think that’s all there is to creating engaging content. Angie Taylor’s book shows the other side of the story: the visual techniques and design principles that underpin digital moving image making. In this comprehensive guide she has assembled a wealth of tips and exercises in topics such as drawing, composition and typography that will be required reading for all up-and-coming motion media artists.”

    Birgitta Hosea, Artist and Course Director of MA Character Animation, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London.

    “Of all the After Effects books I looked at whilst trying to learn it, I found Angie’s was the most user friendly and creative.”

    Chris Cunningham, Director of music videos, commercials and video art.

    “…a worthwhile investment for animators and artists who want to
    focus on creating their designs and not get bogged down in
    technical jargon… Angie has a knack for demystifying the intricacies
    of After Effects and coming up with creative uses of the features.”

    Steve Kilisky, Senior Product Manager, After Effects, Adobe Systems Inc.

    “Angie Taylor’s work is inspired. She is a highly creative animator – inventive, witty and naturally sympathetic to individual programme styles”.

    Carys Edwards, Director, Children’s BBC

    “Angie Taylor is the best After Effects teacher I know. She goes beyond technical descriptions of features, and shows you how to best use them in real world projects.”

    Bruce Bullis, Senior API Engineer, Adobe Dynamic Media, Adobe Systems Inc.

    “This book takes you on a rollercoaster ride through the world of creating animation and special effects with Adobe After Effects. It is much more than just a software manual, Angie Taylor seeks to stimulate the creative use of computer animation. Complex technical issues are clearly and concisely explained, making it suitable for beginners as well as the more advanced users”.

    Birgitta Hosea, Course Director, London Animation Studio, Central St. Martins College of Art and Design, London.

    “…one of my favorite demo artists in the industry. Her tutorials
    are always compelling, well-designed, and worthwhile.”

    Brian Maffit, Creative Director, Total Training

    “Angie is an outstanding guru of After Effects…her seminars
    brings gasps of awe from seasoned and beginner audiences
    alike… you will enjoy this book immensely.”

    John Keedwell, GBCT, GTC. British Cinematographer

  • Creative Constipation:

    Creative Constipation:

    I was describing a friend ofWaiting for ideas mine as suffering from creative constipation recently. It’s a common complaint, many designers suffer from it and it can be the result of multifarious causes; tight deadlines, the distractions of every-day life, worrying about friends and families, an untidy desk. All of these have been my obstructions at one time or another, preventing my creative juices from running freely.

    Fear of failure is the main culprit though, not just failure in the eyes of others but more importantly, failure to oneself. As a creative I’m cursed by the desire to create, it’s a necessary ablution – required to purge my brain of the incessant busy-ness it experiences on a daily basis. I have important things to say, I need to communicate!

    But it’s not just a simple case of drawing, designing or writing just any-old-thing, it has to be good, to mean something, to make sense and, most importantly, to inspire and evoke reaction. This pressure I place upon myself is enormous, it’s enough to make me seize up into a foetal ball – like a anally-retentive hedgehog.

    Luckily I’ve discovered ways of dealing with this potentially crippling condition. When  a bad case of CC kicks in, the natural response is to sit in front of a computer screen in a frozen state of panic, waiting for that elusive “idea” to formulate. This will never happen. OK, I lied, it might happen but chances are that, if it does, it will be a crappy idea.

    In order to free your mind and to come up with the best ideas you just need to get working. If you are a writer, just start writing! Any old rubbish that comes to your mind will do, whether it’s related to the subject or not. The exercise of writing will free you up and you’ll find that eventually you will start to incorporate the subject at hand and little gems will appear amongst the sentences. Once this happens, go over it again, delete the rubbish, elaborate on the good stuff and craft it into something positive.

    If you’re a designer or artist, get away from the computer! Pick up  a sketchbook and start drawing. If you can’t draw then go out and take some photographs or even Google images for inspiration by typing in key words. Drag what you find into a a document to create a mood board (I use Curio for this as it maintains links to the original files).

    If you’re working on a design think about the individual components separately as this can be less intimidating than thinking about the job as one, huge, insurmountable project. Spend an hour playing with fonts, not just fonts on your computer but looking around at shop signs, magazines, anywhere you see type. Tracing letter-forms from magazines can be a great way of “feeling” a font instead of just liking it. Spend another hour with some paint, playing with it, experimenting to find color combinations that please you or convey the feeling you want to get across.

    From these experiments your ideas will grow, some will be awful but elements will shine through that you can use in the current, or future projects. The ideal is find time to do creative exercises like these on a regular basis, even when there’s no deadline. Modern life and work pressures make this very difficult but a good employer knows that to get the best out of creative talent, employees need inspiration and time for experimentation. Most creative agencies make sure their staff are looked after fairly well with generous time off (compared to other industries) and a good working environment. (Why do you think most production companies have fridges full of wholesome food, drinks and the odd bit of alcohol?) 🙂

    If you’re a freelancer, remember that you are your own employer so don’t be too hard on yourself. Allow time for experimentation and inspiration. Avoid stress, look after yourself and don’t forget to have the odd bit of fun. Finally, once the ideas start coming, enjoy it but don’t get too cocky or over-confident. You want to be freed up by these exercises but not to the extent where you’re producing nothing but a vast quantity of digital diarrhea!

    Angie’s track of the day – Free Your Mind – En Vogue

  • Creative Video Workflow

    Angie TaylorI’m busy preparing to leave on a mammoth journey to San Fransisco to speak at the Macworld 2010 conference for the first time.

    I’ll be talking about production workflow, specifically broadcast production as that’s where I spent 12 years of my life freelancing as a motion graphic designer/ animator.

    I’ll also share some of the challenges I’ve faced in the transition from designer to creative director, and my methods for overcoming those hurdles.

    The talk is part of the users conference (session code: US964) and is titled “Creative Video Workflow – From Storyboard to Completion“. It’s taking place on Friday February 12th, between 15:00  – 16:15.

    Of course I’ll be talking about the software I use in my everday work, and will share some top tips and tricks. But my main focus will be on my creative processes. How do I come up with ideas? What do I do to make sure my skills are up to date? How to I collaborate with others and manage remote working?

    If you’re interested in finding out more use the priority code TWEETMW when you register to get a $15 Expo pass or 15% off of any conference package. Onsite expo passes are $45, so it’s a great deal!

    I hope to see you there!

  • Decoupling Production

    I’m interested in the trend of decoupling going on in the world of TV and film production companies. It’s the world that I used to live in so it’s close to my heart. Decoupling refers to the process of reducing costs to the client by outsourcing some of the work to freelancers or external services, rather than providing them in house. Decoupling offers big opportunities to everyone in our industry from company directors to freelancers and runners, if we can be brave enough to embrace it.

    Increasingly, over the past 20 years, production companies have been expected to be flexible, pressurised to increase their skills, enabling them to deliver every possible service and format to their clients. This entails increasing staff to cover all areas of production, extending the capabilities of the company so they can also generate content for new and emerging mediums (web, mobile devices, games etc). The result is increased costs due to wages and also investment in bigger studio spaces.

    The inevitable has happened, the work that was plentiful during these times of development has somewhat dried up. Production companies are competing even harder for the same jobs and clients find it harder to differentiate between companies as they all offer essentially the same services. Frustrated freelancers who weren’t finding the right amount of work (or satisfaction from it) started to create their own collectives which for a while injected some new life into the industry but they too have suffered from what I call the “jack of all trades syndrome”. Feeling that they must offer all services in-house, often stretching the capabilities of their employees and making the work suffer as a result.

    Of course there are pros and cons with everything in life, this is no exception. On a positive note, decoupling could provide the opportunity to return to an industry where craft specialization matters. Instead of all production companies offering essentially the same services and competing for every scrap of work, each could become king of a particular area, passing work onto other companies when the work is more suited to their specific skill-field. A certain amount of this already goes on within Soho but I really believe this could be extended. It would improve the quality of work, employee morale and confidence within individual companies.

    By letting some of their in house designers go and instead using freelancers, companies could open up to diversity, calling on different specialist skills appropriate for each job. It could create healthy competition between freelance creatives but also opportunity to create alliances and a network for swapping skills. In house designers can sometimes find it hard to maintain focus and motivation, so those more suited to a freelance lifestyle could benefit greatly here.

    However, I worked as a freelancer in the industry for over 12 years so I know, only too well the challenges that can be faced. Remote working is not easy, you need to be motivated, focused, pro-active and willing to network. Ideas can be harder to develop on your own, it’s amazing how much creative development goes on during breaks around the coffee machine or meetings in the pub after work for production companies. Get rid of your in house team and you risk losing the teamwork that’s so valuable for the development of ideas and a sense of company identity. It can also be hard to find the right people at the right time to work on a production, they may be busy with another company.

    On the whole though I see decoupling as an exciting prospect. It increases the unknown to the equation. Risk and uncertainty can be scary but embrace them and you often find new exciting challenges that, combined with a bit of initiative, can be the impetus to creativity in it’s truest sense. I’d love to hear the thoughts of other design professionals about the whole debate associated with decoupling, and also any stories about the challenges associated with remote working. What are these difficulties and how can we find ways of making it work?

  • MacWorld 2010 – Are you going to San Fransisco?

    I’m hoping to see a few of you at MacWorld 2010 where I’ll be speaking next year. I love San Fransisco so will be taking a little extra time out to hang out with my old friends, Amacker and Nina at the Lucky 13 bar on Castro. I also hope to catch up with all my other SF buddies, it’s always hard to fit everything in as there are so many people I love in the bay area!

    If you’d like to attend you can click on the banner to the left to get a discount. Click on the Register button and then just use my personal priority code, ATAYLOR when you register.
    Below are details about the talk I’ll be delivering;

    Users Conference US964: Creative Video Workflow – From Storyboard to Completion – Feb. 12, 2010    3:00 PM – 4:15 PM

    Angie Taylor will take you on a journey through a typical video project, showing the entire process including the creation of sketches, brainstorms and storyboards, audio production and clean up, editing, and producing the final project. Angie will also discuss how creative professionals can bring unity and clarity to complex creative projects. Aspects of automating time sheets, liaising with clients, auditing jobs and packaging final files for delivery will be explored within this session.

    Anyone with personal or professional interests in creating digital videos and working with tools such as After Effects, Flash, Flow, CS4, Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and Soundbooth, will benefit from this session.

    If you are interested in a streamlined way to look at the digital video process including tips and tricks using various software tools that will help maximize the creative input and minimize the project complexities, then this session is for you!

    Angie’s Shuffle Track of the Day: San Fransisco – Scott McKenzie – listen free on Last FM

  • The influence of Punk

    The influence of Punk

    I was asked on Twitter to write a blog about the early days of Punk in the UK and the influence of Punk on the world of motion graphic design. I am influenced heavily by the punk movement that started in the seventies in New York and London. I was 12 when it all started to kick off in the UK with the Sex Pistols and their entourage, the Bromley Contingent causing joyful havoc in the UK media.

    Before the punk scene things had become very sterile and safe. Politically, the UK was in a mess with regular strikes and power cuts disrupting everyday life. The music scene was drowning in boring “prog rock” and endless, indulgent guitar solos. Something had to give!

    Then along came the idea that you didn’t have to put up with what you were being spoon-fed. The disillusioned youth of Great Britain realized they could make their own music, art, magazines and fashion. Using the influence of the New York underground music scene (Patti Smith, The New York Dolls, Richard Hell, Iggy Pop, Velvet Underground, The Ramones) the kids of the UK took it upon themselves to create a whole new genre and to revolutionize a complete culture in a way that had never been done before (or has ever been done since).

    As you can imagine, this was a really exciting time for a teenager to grow up. It wasn’t really till 1977 that I got hooked into the Punk scene. I loved it! Before then I was an awkward, funny-looking, scruffy, Tom-boyish kid with glasses who didn’t really fit in. I survived at school by being the class clown, and that way avoided any physical abuse from my fellow classmates, but I was regularly ridiculed for being “the outsider”. Suddenly with the Punk scene I could belong! It’s ironic, isn’t it, that the movement that purported to be all about being different, and not caring what other folks thought, became a lifeline of acceptance to kids who didn’t fit in anywhere else. It wasn’t that we wanted to be different, and didn’t care, it’s that we cared and desperately wanted to belong to anyone who’d have us. It’s human nature to want to feel like part of a gang, or a movement.

    Anyway, inevitably, the vultures descended, and what started as a revolutionary, do-it-yourself, creative movement turned into just yet another fashion. Mainstream media quickly gobbled it up and spat it out as a kind of bastardized version of what it one was, and things have never been quite the same again.

    However, the marks and influences of the punk movement are still alive and kicking today. Next week I’ll look at some of the deigns of today that were influenced by this movement.

    Angie’s Punk shuffle Track of the day – Anarchy in the UK – The Sex Pistols, listen free on Last FM

    Part 02