We often have clients call us up because they've come up with an ingenious product or a new way of doing business, and they want to show it off to the world... but are a bit unsure on how to best proceed. That's where we come in. We work with our clients briefs (even if they don't really have one quite yet) to develop a script, sketch out ideas on creative direction and put all of our effort to produce a stellar spot. It can be a pretty thorough process, and we’re often faced with challenges in how best to convey a wealth of information, while making it easy to understand and at the root of it all engaging and entertaining.

Animation is a great tool to convey complex or even abstract ideas because your not limited by any constraints. Want to see a product morph into the new version - Animation to the rescue! Want to take an intricate service you offer and make it easy to understand for everyone - Animation's got your back! We've been doing this for years, but recently we've had clients use a specific term: The Explainer Video. Now why didn't we think of that (...and register the domain name?!)

For the uninitiated, explainer videos are a quick way to effectively communicate concepts, products or services, using entertaining visuals and succinct language. Usually under 2 minutes in length, they are often animated and can be fun, serious, silly or just cool looking. The point is to engage quickly, and keep the audience locked in, while giving them key information about what the message, and why it is important. We all know that it's difficult to keep people's attention these days, especially online - 90 seconds of clever animation, professional voice over and a well-written script will engage people much better than a website, email mailer or traditional print marketing.

Explainer videos also have the chance to cross-polinate throughout the web, meaning they don't have to just live on one website. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, as well as countless other blogging sites, can easily host the message. Explainer videos can also be used internally within larger corporations, to help educate staff on a change in policy or if a new product is rolling out.

We love doing these videos as each one poses it’s own set of unique challenges and of course a variety of ways to execute them. We've had more than one client report back to us that they've seen a spike in sales after implememting their explainer videos, which is great to hear - it means we're doing something right! And at the end of the day it feels good to know we know we’ve helped our clients achieve success in demonstrating their new products and/or services. And to be honest, they can be a lot more fun than doing a music video, just don't tell our rockstar friends.

Here are a few we've produced recently:

1. Don't fail the hot sauce test

When you brag about how much you love hot sauce, don't back down when the bosses call you on your bluff and pour you a spoonful of naga jolokia hot sauce. You can scrunch and distort your face into whatever shape you need to - you can even tear up a bit - but if you start whimpering and moaning and running to the kitchen for milk, you've lost a significant portion of your superiors' respect (remember The Oatmeal's "Dear Sriracha" comic? Pain is weakness leaving the body.)

2. Don't over-light your 3D scenes

School may have taught you one way to light your 3D environments - and it's a great way - but it certainly isn't the only way. Hot spots on the ground may look awesome in animation, but when you're trying to add live action footage into your environment, light it as if it were a real space, with real limitations. Fluorescent tubes are your friend. Otherwise, you'll have to forcibly-smile your way through your supervisor's cringes.

3. Don't forget the makeup artist in the bathroom

If you're on the set of a commercial and you've been given the title of Talent Wrangler, don't realize after leaving the studio that you've left one of your Talents behind. She'll be annoyed with you (but not for very long.) Also, don't do caricatures of her in your sketchbook.

4. Don't microwave broccoli for lunch.

Seriously. If the microwave is in a communal space, and you waft broccoli's pungent fumes all throughout the studio, your colleagues will hate you for it (but they'll forgive you in about half a day - once they're done teasing you.)

5. Don't set off the alarm before anyone who knows the code arrives at work.

If you do - don't panic, and stay outside the building lest you look like an actual burglar. Call your supervisor or a colleague who should have the code - that will stop the horrible noises. Explain the situation to the security company who will then phone the studio. Wrap things up by calling your supervisor and telling them to expect a phone call from said security company, where they'll have to explain: false alarm - stupid intern - disaster avoided. Also - expect teasing.

With all levity aside, every one of Jody's points really are wonderful pieces of advice, and I tried my best to follow all of his keys throughout my three-month stay at 3:AM Design. If I were to choose three (it's a powerful number here) which were what I felt to be the most important, they would be:

Ask for Clarification - don't be afraid to look stupid; you may have to ask the same question twice. If you aren't comprehending what they're asking you to do, politely request that they clarify their instructions. Only when you have a clear understanding of what is expected from you and your project, will everyone get the results that are needed.

Take Notes Regarding Revisions - your supervisor doesn't have time to constantly remind you of what needs to be fixed in your scene, so write down everything they say, the first time they say it. This is just another reason to carry a sketchbook with you at all times - as they say, the best memory is not as good as even terrible ink... or something like that.

Say "Thank You" - whenever you're given compliments or criticism, and really mean it (even if you have to take a deep breath beforehand.) Remind yourself that criticism is the only thing that will make your work better. Who wouldn't be thankful for something like that?

In hindsight, writing this post is a rather poetic and suitable gesture to wrap up my internship with the very patient and very talented people at 3:AM. As it happened, it was only after reading Jody's post that I found the courage to cold-email the studio asking them to take a look at my work. With a rather bold subject line of "So, is 3am the usual hour for the end of a working day - or the beginning...?" and a good-natured joke that they work either like bartenders or bakers, it was my email - with that touch of cheekiness - that stood out from the dozens received every day. As they say, fortune favours the bold, and the brave, and the fortunate are those whom are lucky, and also those prepared for when opportunity arrives, or knocks, and those lucky few whom are met with... ahhh screw it. Thanks for everything, 3:AM - you've got a friend in me.

Intern, out!
-Brit

You can follow the lovely and talented Britney at her blog: http://britneycoates.blogspot.ca/

It looks to be a nice self contained product, that is light and easy to add to your arsenal of on-set gear. I love the fact that they've tied it into the iphone seeing as I'm an iphone owners (an android version would be smart to add) , but the tech specs are a bit light in regards to resolution etc. It doesn't look like it has any manual controls which is shame. Still I'd love to try it out and see how it works in a real world environment.

Check it out here: https://theta360.com/en/about/theta/

In our initial development we had planned on showing a decent amount of live action which we thought would best convey a real sense of emotional connectivity. As much as we knew it was to be a bit of a product walk through we also knew that this was the first time people would be experiencing this new product and we wanted the images on screen to be relatable.

1. Red raw is frikin awesome!!! Seriously this codec is revolutionary and once you work in a raw workflow you won't want to go back

I know there's a ton of hype about the new BlackMagic camera and I think it deserves it, but one thing that people are going to get surprised with is how big their uncompressed black magic files are and how much this affects all aspects of their workflow. Red raw is raw, but compressed for the uninitiated and that is major. 8-1 compression is decent for all around work, but if you're doing VFX work you might want to ramp up to as high as 3-1 or so and if you're doing field documentary work I think you could get away 12-1. You're still working with raw files, but having compression options is a major plus.

File management becomes a real issue as even your smallish projects quickly balloon into terabyte size monstrosities. Let's say you shoot 30 min at 6-1 you've probably filled 100 gigs. Not too bad, but then you want to have a duplicate backup set - you do make dupes don't you? You might have to render out some dpx sequences for VFX, test renders, final outputs for broadcast, etc. and of course archiving.... You can see how quickly it adds up.

2. While Red Raw is fantastic it can be a bit of a love/hate relationship. We recently switched from FCP into premiere and it's not without it's headache. It's fantastic that you can work directly with red files without transcoding, but we've had lots of minor headaches with crashing software and the back and forth with AE has had it's problems. Personally I'd be wary of editing something with clients sitting in - that being said I have been a FCP user since day one and I remember the initial growing pains switching from Avid. I love the direction that Adobe is taking here.... it's just a little rough around the edges. It might be a mac/adobe thing it might be. It might be apple's lack of support for any decent new graphic cards it might just be that 4k files are just taxing your computer's resources, but the experience has it's ups and downs.

3. The physical design of the camera is impressive and disappointing at the same time. Do you realize how much technology their cramming in this thing? It's nutso. Imagine fitting all of this: into this:

That being said have you ever said to yourself I wish my current camera resembled a cinder block both in weight and appearance. Yeah me neither. I get that red was really thinking about being modular, but couldn't they made something somewhat ergonomic? It's heavy and unwieldy. You will spend good money on accessories to make this thing into something you can put on your shoulder. There are tons of companies to choose from. Choose wisely as you will spend more money than you think and a lot of times these companies don't play well together. Personally I like a lot of the Wooden Camera products, but there are some great other companies making good products as well.

4. The company philosophy. Not a lot of people really talk about this, but in my humble opinion this is what separates Red and every single other camera manufacturer out there. When buy into RED you're drinking the koolaid. There are some great aspects to this. You are part of a community and if you have the money your camera will constantly be upgradeable. Great in theory, but it takes some patience in practice. To a certain extent you're almost always using a bit of a beta product. Also Jannard's tagline of everything changes isn't just sly marketing. It can be maddening at time. The scarlet was initially sold as 3k for 3k - admittedly it developed into a much more powerful camera, but by the time you're all in you're probably dropping 18k possibly more. That is a lot of scratch. is it worth it? As long as you're getting paid to use it then yes.

5. Remember when I said Red wants you to drink the Koolaid - well that Koolaid isn't only pennies a glass. The new dragon upgrade is like buying a drinks at your local strip club. Sure the booze is tasty, but it's the unpleasant aftertaste when you open your wallet the next morning that gets you.

The new dragon upgrade sounds fantastic, more than fantastic. Brilliant really. I highly recommend you watch these camera tests. They are impressive.

Ok, I'm in - where do I sign up? But this is not a cheap upgrade. You're either updating to a Scarlet Dragon or trading your Scarlet in for an Epic then upgrading that Epic into and Epic Dragon. We are not a large company and the price tag to upgrade is about 10 grand to go Scarlet Dragon or 10 Grand to go to Epic and then another 10 for the Epic to Epic Dragon upgrade. Wowzers! One of the key ideologies of buying into the Red family is to be able to constantly upgrade rather than own obsolete gear - to abuse the quote they use "Obsolescence Obsolete". But now if you upgrade the Scarlet into the Scarlet Dragon you are stuck with what you got and as any technology user will attest to is that camera evolve and what's bright and shiny now may quickly feel outdated - I'm looking at you 720p!

I guess what I'm saying is that somewhere along the way we lost the 3k for 3k concept and arrived at the 5 (or 6)K for 40k. I respect Red's right to change, but in an industry where every dollar counts. This hurts.

Some final notes - I find the image a bit noisy, but it's not unflattering noise. With Red Raw you can definitely denoise the image to a certain extent, but it's something to be aware of. The dynamic range is impressive. Really impressive. If you've shot video with a dlsr and you switch to a red camera you will be excited. What's really crazy is the dragon upgrade is going to expand the range significantly. I love the quality of image that this camera produces, but I don't think it's quite in line with actual film... I might change my mind with the new sensor - early reports look very promising. Lastly Red cinepro is a wicked basic grading tool with a lot of potential - I'd love them to realize that potential and make it into a full on colour grade tool. At this point it is a total tease - like that stripper in Tijuana - what do you mean no touching in the champagne room? I'd just like to see it become more than a first grade tool.

I'll probably write more about the camera as we use it in the studio and in the field. If you're thinking of purchasing a camera I hope this helps in your decision. If you own a scarlet I'd love to hear your thoughts.

In our initial development we had planned on showing a decent amount of live action which we thought would best convey a real sense of emotional connectivity. As much as we knew it was to be a bit of a product walk through we also knew that this was the first time people would be experiencing this new product and we wanted the images on screen to be relatable.

The spot would eventually become more of a mash-up between stock, live action and CGI than we had initially pitched, but that's the nature of the business and this was a case of client pushing creative in a different direction than we had hoped for. At the end of the day it was produced in a tight schedule, came in on time and on budget, but best of all well received by both the client and the audience.

Henry is great at getting a beautiful, natural look that never feels like it's contrived. We wanted it to feel like a bright downtown loft - having a giant source doesn't hurt. Here he's set up 2 kino Flatheads to fill in the strong, ambient source of the window. A 2 bank lowell flo provides a touch of eye light.

and the final result

It's tough being the director and be forced to hang out at a bar with the lovely and talented Delia.

Setting up in at the bar. Henry keeps the lighting minimal with a splash of warmth on our actors to make them pop. This location oozed ambience and we wanted to underlight the scene to keep the mood intimate.

And the final result.

A glimpse into the eternal life of Edward the super melancholy vampire before he met what's her name cat lady. What if Cronenberg is a secret Twihard? And this was his open letter to all the Twihard fans? For all those on Team Edward? Seriously, watch Cosmopolis with that in your back pocket and your mind will be blown!

Now that got me thinking about the new Carrie remake coming out. Check out the trailer for Carrie starring the awesome Chloë Grace Moretz in the title role:

But before you do imagine that it's the origin story for Jean Grey AKA Phoenix from the X-Men. The movie just got awesome!

And don't even get me going on the Evil Dead remake actually being the pilot episode of Suburgatory explaining why Tessa and George Altman moved to the burbs....

Ot's a dream within a dream within a dream! Inception! Great movie! Chris Nolan is the boss!