demo_reel Copy 0135

Michael Szabo’s Demo Reel

This is my demo reel as of August 16th, 2010. As always, I can’t wait to learn something new and make better work to replace the stuff already on there. It runs about 2 minutes and all of the work on it is my own. I give a short breakdown of how I did each piece in my reel guide which you can view right here.

Continue Reading

5 GYF TAXI 070711_convert 438333333

Univision Promo: Taxi Drive By

A lot of questions arise from this Univision Promo and I don’t have the answers. Why are they waiting for a taxi on a bench? Are there taxi benches out there in the world? Why does the taxi refuse to stop for them? What kind of taxi is capable of brining tropical fun and cocktails in coconuts as it speeds past? Is this like the international cousin of the Cash Cab? I just don’t know, I learned a long time ago that sometimes you have to shut off your brain and do your work, because trying to make sense of what you are working on is a fruitless pursuit.

This one was pretty basic, it stars Lili and Raul from El Gordo y La Flaca. I was given a 3D car model and I made it look like a yellow taxi, it goes by so fast that you don’t need to sweat the details. Then I just needed to clean up the image a bit, add a little more style and movement to the sign, and add some leaves to the foreground to make the scene a little deeper.

baseball_field_cg_tuts_title 005

Cinema 4D Tutorial: Baseball Wall Title Sequence Part 2

Here is part 1 of my Baseball Wall Title Sequence tutorial in Cinema 4D, also with compositing and post effects in After Effects. This tutorial shows you how to recreate the titles seen on ESPN this year promoting their baseball broadcasts. All of the elements in the scene are generated in Cinema 4D to create a portion of a stadium in 3D, and then you import this into After Effects and add your own titles onto the wall.

baseball_field_cg_tuts_title 005

Cinema 4D Tutorial: Baseball Wall Title Sequence Part 1

Here is part 1 of my Baseball Wall Title Sequence tutorial in Cinema 4D, also with compositing and post effects in After Effects. This tutorial shows you how to recreate the titles seen on ESPN this year promoting their baseball broadcasts. All of the elements in the scene are generated in Cinema 4D to create a portion of a stadium in 3D, and then you import this into After Effects and add your own titles onto the wall.

spanish_maja_breakdown0139

Univision Promo: Spanish Maja

Here is a new Univision Promo I did with Cinema 4D and After Effects. They needed it done fast earlier this month because they wanted to air this network promo right after the coverage of the World Cup ended, and they were hoping Spain would win and they could air this promo that has an obvious Spanish theme to it. I got it done with a quick turnaround thanks to MoGraph as always. Continue Reading

23184458156

ESPN Style Baseball Promo Titles

I recreated the baseball promos I’ve seen this season on ESPN. I modeled the whole scene in Cinema 4D and did the compositing in After Effects. This scene relies on the camera position being parallel to the wall to recreate the simple and smooth pan along the warning track. I used Mograph to create the wall by cloning the padded panel, and once I modeled one seat I simply used cloners to create the rows. The grass is made with Hair; it really slows the render down but it creates the best looking 3D grass in Cinema 4D. I added the titles that I created in Photoshop to look like they were painted on the wall, and did some color correcting and added some grunge to enhance the scene.

They look very similar to the commercials you see on ESPN, and the best part is that once you create in in Cinema 4D, you can simply swap out the titles to change the teams and games to say whatever you want.

The Red Jays beat the Blue Sox that night 6-4.

299487

Support a Starving Artist/Nerd

I’ve recently added some clips on VideoHive and on 3DOcean. They are marketplaces for graphic artists to upload their work to sell, and I get paid a certain percentage based on the asking price and how many I’ve sold. If you want to support me and my site, feel free to buy a file, clip, project, or whatever I upload, I would really appreciate it. I’ve added a few things so far and I have some other designs in the work. I’m planning on uploading a ton of stuff eventually, whatever comes to mind and I develop. The idea is to create files with a lot of utility and have wide appeal to maximize sales.

Featured on 3D Ocean:

My Acoustic Guitar in Cinema 4D.
acoustic guitar made in cinema 4d

I modeled this guitar from scratch in Cinema 4D. It has a lot of detail and is a very accurate design, I included all the components in a real guitar.

Featured on VideoHive:

An After Effects Project that creates a 3D silhouette concert crowd.
after effects silhouette crowd

This After Effects project lets you control the intensity that the silhouette crowd reacts. They jump up and down like they ere a crowd at a concert or some other event. It is an expression based project, so you can keyframe just one amount to get the right intensity you desire.

Thanks.

15209717082

Some New Examples

I recently did some freelancing in NYC and I worked on some ads for a few Broadway plays. These are technically unfinished I guess, since they weren’t finalized by the clients before I left, but they got to the point where I wanted to include them on my site.

First is La Cage with Kelsey Grammer. The key for this came out really good, I just wish the subjects were chicks instead of dudes.

Continue Reading

curtains

New Tutorial: Revealing Curtains in After Effects

I just posted my newest tutorial, where I demonstrate how to create a set of curtains that spread apart to reveal footage. It’s like a theater stage or a movie theater style set of curtains that parts in the middle, and you can place your footage behind it and have it be revealed. I’m thinking of a new welcome video for my site based on this, but I’m not sure yet. So check it out on the tutorials page.

curtains

After Effects: Moving Curtains Reveal

This tutorial shows you how to make a set of curtains that part in the middle, and reveal any footage you desire behind it. All is a few effects (mostly fractal noise) and some keyframes before you get a nice animation. If you render this out with an alpha channel, you will have a clip of these curtains that you can just drop into any composition and you won’t have to mess with the keyframes again. It could be a cool way to reveal a movie trailer or a demo reel.