Fully Focused and Fully Cold

So normally I enjoy doing work with the TV on because the silence of my house creeps me out. But today I decided to make an exception after taking notice of how long it took me to finish a few simple tasks last night.
And wasting time is a huge thing with me, so once I saw that I didn't want it to happen again. And the results so far have been great. Everything's nice and quiet and I'm fully focused with what I'm workin on: FamBiz's next photo/video shoot; along with a few other things.

I'm jumping between After Effects and Photoshop this time around putting together FamBiz's photoshoot and video shoot together. I figure storyboards helped the Janet Jackson montage go a lot faster last time, I figure why it wouldn't now. As much as I hate doing storyboards because I sometimes get picky in how I want the shot.

I'm finally learning the importance of pre-production and the whole concept of "When You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail." I used to go head first into projects and tend to just go with the flow, I still got the results I wanted for the most part, but I always felt like I could've done MORE.
After reading John Wooden's book, I've really started to embrace the art of preparation and having a plan and going with the flow when things don't always follow through.

I love the concept that we have for both our routine and the video and whatever the outcome, I wanna be able to walk away know I did everything humanly possible to put together a great product.

Well, my short mini break is over. Time to get back on that grind.

Falalala-Tired

So FamBiz has a photo/video shoot coming up soon. And in attempts to put that together, instead, I ended up mixing the music for our Christmas set. I thought that this wouldn't take long at all since most of the songs would be coming from the previous mixes already. Man, was I wrong. I spent parts of the night trying to study the music so it makes sense when I put it together. Along with that, I was also in need of more of a angry christmas song as the break down section; THAT took awhile to find. There were plenty of candidates, but if it didn't strike me with what I was looking for, I didn't want to use it.

I hate how nit-picky I can be sometimes, I was only making a rough cut of the music, but I was editing it like I was making it for final use. I figure that if I do the work early, I wouldn't have to do TOO much when notes to fix it come after. I just didn't want to too much where it feels like I wasted my time.



After all that hoopla, at around 5:30 in the morning. I finally got to starting on the storyboards for our video shoot. I've gotta crank these out as quick as I can so I can send them out to our director. They're really rough, but once I put them together in After Effects in syncopation with the music, it should make more sense. I'm just debating whether or not to shorten the music due to the amount of time it may demand of us if I keep it at the full length of 2:30. I think I might go nuts listening to the video shoot song a million times though... we'll see.

Either way, I think another all nighter (or late nighter) maybe called for. I want the director to see what I see so when the day to film comes. It should be a bit less stressful. =]

Anyways, I've gotta get ready to teach class. Keep an eye out for the Janet Jackson video! It's done and ready for upload!

After Effects Crash #2

After many crashes, and many attempts of trying to figure out a work around in rendering the Icon video. I've resorted to hopefully using one of the machines over here at work later on after I get everything done, OR go to Santa Monica and use the computers from Art Institute.

Either way, this video needs to be rendered with the quickness. Maxt Out is this Saturday and I would much rather have it sent out by tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

And THANK GOD for story boarding. As much as I'm not the hugest fan of story boarding my work, thank God I decided to take the time to. It seriously saved me at least 2 days worth of work.

Here's some images from what I've been workin on so far. It's not much, but hopefully you guys get the idea. =]

Staring At The Screen Too Long

Adobe After Effects just crashed, so I'm currently taking a break working on a motion graphics video montage for Maxt Out's Icon performance. It's an introduction to the icon of this year before the icon performance. 

The process has been pretty fun, it was a bit of a drag in the beginning because I had no idea how I was going to approach it. But once I had planned and story boarded everything out, it's been going fairly smooth. The only real drag about it is how long it takes to render off my laptop. It's not exactly a rendering machine, but it does the job for the most part. I'm actually thinking about stopping by my old college so I can just render it. It would probably only take 20 minutes over there compared to the 3 grueling hours my laptop takes (and that's only about 1 min 30 secs worth, the whole video is about 3 minutes).

Looks like After Effects is back up. Time to get back to work.

Teen Groov Flier

Click For Full Picture

This is the flier design I had made for one of the dance teams I direct. It's for Teen Groov's upcoming audition this December. I had a lot of fun putting this together. I was actually dreading working on this because I was afraid of having a slow start. But once I planned out what I wanted to put on,

A Look Over Old Downtown

So a little while ago when my friends and I went around Downtown LA looking for the spots from (500) Days of Summer so we could route out a plan for our dance crew's photo shoot. For those of you who have seen the movie and have actually been to Angel's Knoll, this is right above it. It looks over the park and views right into Old Downtown LA. I sketched this out as a reflection of the day. Even though we were sort of working to plan out our photo shoot. It was a nice day and it was great just walking around LA and getting to share those places with them. 

Click for Full Size

When I scanned the picture in to Photoshop, however. I knew I had to play around with the picture. I wasn't sure what or how exactly. But I just got my graphire tablet and just started messing around with it right away. Right below is the result of the work. I didn't take too much time on it, just enough to get the idea. I hope you guys like it. Critiques and comments are always welcome! There's always room for improvement!

Click for Full View

Art In Progress....

So I've currently been on the process of uploading new artwork in. I recently scanned some life art I did when I went with my girlfriend to the park. And I have some new T-Shirt designs on the way. I recently tried to get some of the animation work I did off my hard drive when I faced a dilemma. My computer isn't reading my hard drive. It says it is, but for some reason it keeps saying that I have to reformat it. I can't do that without deleting all my work on it. If you guys know any tips or links as to how I can get this thing fixed let me know. In the mean time I'll try to fix it myself before taking it in. Looking forward to sharing the new works with you guys soon!

Proverbs 3:19

Click To Enlarge!

So I was looking through my deviantart earlier today and I found this old design I made back in 2006. I wasn't too sure on how well my design skills were back then. I like how it turned out, and it think it's a a fairly simple design. I kinda think the wording could be bigger. 


What do you think? I enjoy hearing comments and critiques!

Teen Groov Shirt Design

Here's a simple graphic of a shirt I had designed for one of the dance teams I direct, Teen Groov. It was my first year as director at the time and I wanted to try to make sure I capture the feeling and energy these kids were giving me. So I aimed for a bit of a bubbly-ish feel, i added the frame with the white gradient because I felt like the text wasn't popping out enough and I didn't want just bubbles all over the shirt. The shirt came out pretty dope! It's always nice to see people wear something you made yourself. =] The picture on the right is my girlfriend by the way. <33

Fam Biz Audition Flier

The flier I designed when FamBiz was having auditions. Unlike the (500) Nights of FamBiz flier, this one is much closer to the poster of the movie with some slight adjustments here and there. The flier turned out a lot better than I thought. Hope you guys enjoy! Critiques and comments are welcome!

Culture Shock Los Angeles Soul Survivors Intro

CULTURE SHOCK!!!! Hah, this is the video intro I did for Culture Shock Los Angeles'

Benefet Show: Soul Survivors. It was a fairly simple piece to put together. It took me only about two to three days total to put together not including all the reviews and notes that were made to fix it. I had originally put a background for more of a design purpose but was removed because it was too difficult to read due to the fact it was projected on lightly tinted brown walls and not a regular screen. Hope you guys enjoy!

The Rhythm of Life

Some more sketches! Being that I'm a dancer, as much as I enjoy expressing myself

and performing. I just as much love watching dancers during a rehearsal or session.

They're movements, shapes and lines of actions are so dynamic. Whenever I get

to just sit down during a rehearsal and sketch I definitely take advantage of it.

Nostalgia Sketches!

Yee! Just found some old sketches I had made about a year ago and I figured I'd share on here. To be honest I haven't really had the time to just fully color any of the pieces due to my schedule. But I always enjoyed how they looked when they looked rough. You get to sort of see the process the artist put into the drawing. =]

Seeing this made me look at the past sketches I've been laying all over my sketch book. I've gotta scan those soon so you guys can check it out!

Hope you guys enjoy! Critiques and comments welcome!

Nostalgia Sketch I

Nostalgia Sketch II Inked

Nostalgia Sketch II Rough

Nostalgia Sketch III

(500) Nights of Fam Biz

A flier I designed for FamBiz's warehouse party a few months back!

Great times that night. =]

We were playing off our photoshoot which played off (500) Days of Summer.

I based the flier off one of the actual movie posters, but the thing is it was a night event and I wouldn't make sense for it to be a bright poster. So I decided to add a huge moon in the back with fire works. Along with that, I added the picture they used to transition between the days from the movie. I event got the same font that was used for it. Anyways, I hope you guys like it!

FamBiz 2010 Trailer

FamBiz Trailer

A video I put together for my crew of our past performances.
Check out our blog and keep up with us for upcoming performances and events!
http://fambizfb.blogspot.com/

500 Days of FamBiz!

A video I shot with my dance crew during our photo shoot in Downtown Los Angeles. It was definitely a long day since we also came up with the choreography on the spot. This was sort of a test run in terms of how we could use film, theme, and story telling to put together a routine. We are currently in the works of our next photo/video shoot. YEEEEEEE.