99% of the work I create nowadays is car commercials. Compared to anything and everything else you see on TV, they set the quality bar pretty low. You know exactly what I mean.

I’ve done hundreds of them. My work tends to look better than those extreme examples, but nonetheless, most car commercials are doomed before I even get to edit one thing.  I can only imagine that most people who see car commercials on TV either:

a. Tune it out completely, rendering the advertising message useless.

b. Change the channel.

c. Groan/roll eyes/ sigh/other symptom of aggravation.

d. Some combination of a, b, and c.

They are what they are: cheap and quick. I sometimes make 3 commercials in one day from start to finish. The deadlines are tough sometimes, as I work furiously to try and crank something out that is so subpar. Occasionally my attempts to add a bit of style to the car spot are vanquished. Plenty of times I’ve been told to change a commercial I worked on to severely downgrade its overall quality simply because the owner of John Smith Cars wants it that way. Nevermind that I am the artist, I just have to give the client what he wants. 

BUT! Occasionally I get to do something creative, something that can showcase more of my skills. This is part of a commercial I made that is a bit nicer than any of the harsh reality I spewed proceeding this clip.

Intentionally Annoying Car Commercial from Michael Szabo on Vimeo.

I actually had a lot of fun making that acid-trip-intense-fake-commercial. It’s mostly a combination of various After Effects expressions to make the objects wiggle, vibrate, and dance in the most obnoxious ways possible. It was a challenge to make a mockery of some of the annoying attention grabbing gimmicks I sometimes am asked to pull.

Here’s my take on car commercials:

Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: Car Commercials!!1!1!!!, Look what I made, My Work

I added my website to coolhomepages.com. It’s a good reference for web designers; it provides inspiration and examples of all sorts of designs. So when you submit your site to their database and they think it’s cool, YOU WIN AN AWARD!!!!!

 

So yeah, my site is one of the top few hundred thousand or so web sites listed on coolhomepages.com. Yea, kinda of a big deal. In other link news, I have removed ColorPrintUSA from the blogroll because the guy who emailed me about offering me work in exchange for a link never sent me one single thing to work on.

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Tags: Blogroll, Check This Out, my site

So here is a clip form a commercial I did that had to do with UCF Athletics. Instead of just using regular-old text, I constantly try to think of different methods to present title work. In this sports themed commercial I added the title work onto a material in Cinema 4D and created a waving pennant using the cloth tag.

I would recommend using the cloth tag to create any sort of waving flag like this rather than the wind deformer. The Cloth tag is very easy to set up and with some trial and error you can create a much more natural looking movement than with the simple wind deformer. Don’t forget to make it a child of a hyperNURBS object to make it even smoother.

There are several tutorials on this subject already out there, including this one.

I’d really like to get more in depth with the cloth tag to better understand how the settings can alter the movement and reaction of your object. I haven;t been able to find an in depth review of what certain things like flexion, global intersection analysis, global drag, etc. actually “do” when changed. If anyone has a breakdown of this to link to or would perhaps put it in writing please let me know.

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Tags: Car Commercials!!1!1!!!, Cinema 4D, Look what I made, My Work

My oh my they grow up so fast…my blog is turns 1 today. I first posted on it last year at this time.

Since then I have graduated and been hired. I’ve probably made over 100 commercials that have been on TV all over the country.  At this point last year I knew nothing about Cinema 4D or pretty much all 3D animation in general, and now I can hold my own with it. I look forward to another year of personal and professional growth.

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Tags: Sup

So I had to come up with a design relatively quickly (That’s like 6 hours or so) that conveyed how owning a Ford vehicle already can save you a lot of money if you really want to buy a gas-guzzling F-150 that Ford is practically giving away.

Money Mailbox from Michael Szabo on Vimeo.

I modeled the mailbox in Cinema 4D and made it fully functional with a door and a flag. The money particle was easy to make, with a wind deformer modifying a plane object with both sides of a $100 bill as the materials. The emitter works well, but it lacks collision detection so the particles tend to intersect and overlap in ways a giant stream of money flying out of a mailbox wouldn’t here in the real world. Without using Xpresso and Thinking Particles I couldn’t get it to react properly, but the bills are moving fast with a motion blur and rotating so you really can’t tell. And thats what it’s all about, getting it done ASAP by finding corners to cut.

Thinking Particles is something I want to get good at, but there are no great books or resources I have been able to find to teach me. 

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Tags: After Effects, Car Commercials!!1!1!!!, Cinema 4D

I updated my demo reel by adding and subtracting a few things. I added a few clips like my Adobe Contest Entry and my Paper Stacking Desk. Most of the stuff remained the same, I just added a few more things I have done in Cinema 4D.

Overall, I tweaked the rest of my site as well. I removed the links page off of the main part of the site, because it was pretty much useless. All the pertinent links are on the Blogroll to the left. I adjusted some of the formatting of my blog, updated my resumè, all sorts of exciting stuff.

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Tags: Demo reel, My Work

I felt my home page was in need of a bit of a makeover, so I created a new welcome video. I consulted my Xbox for inspiration and decided to create a Guitar Hero style video for my site. After doing tons of interactive research while observing the details and nuances of the game, I did my best to recreate the look and feel of the game with Cinema 4D, Photoshop, Motion, and After Effects. If you’ve never seen or played Guitar Hero (or even more awesomer, Rockband) then I suggest you head down to somewhere like Best Buy and take the floor sample for a spin.

Motion Graphics Hero: Guitar Hero Style Intro from Michael Szabo on Vimeo. 

I’m pleased with the way this came out. It’s good to know that all of my research and hard work payed off.

I’m planning on doing more welcome videos to the site every so often. I’ll either have them play randomly if I can figure out how or I will have a way to cycle between them. 

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Tags: After Effects, Cinema 4D, Look what I made, Motion, My Work, Site Updates, Sup, Welcome Video

Head over to www.colorprintusa.com if you need just about anything printed or designed.

I’m looking to freelance as a designer for the services they provide, so contact me or them to get started with any print design you need.

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Tags: Blogroll, Check This Out

I finally got on FLICKR and to upload some of my photos. I’ve always liked photography, which lends itself to many motion graphics and 3D design related techniques I use. I’m not too great at it yet, but I always keep my camera handy ready to capture that unforgettable moment…

Like when a tortoise wanders into your backyard.

Originally uploaded by bigmikedesign

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Tags: Check This Out, flickr, My Work, photography

I used to have a Mitsubishi Galant, I wonder if it was made by these robots.

 

The ad agency that developed the Idea was BBDO in Toronto and the visual effects were done by The Mill.

I have not located the whereabouts of any basketball-playing-robots generator/plugins that I can get for Cinema 4D, have any of you?

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Tags: Check This Out, Goods Ads, Work that I wish was mine, wow, yea I don't know how to do that