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 »

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.

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.

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. 

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

Judging by the date of my last post, I really haven’t done much on here lately. I have been doing plenty of motion graphics work while I’m actually at work, so I haven’t been chomping at the bit to work on extra stuff for this site when I get home. I’ve been playing plenty of Grand Theft Auto IV instead.

A demo reel update is in order…soon.

Anyway… I recently did this in a commercial for a company that builds swimming pools. I used Trapcode Form and this preset by Harry Frank. I tweaked a few things and thought it came out pretty cool. Swimming Pool Commercial Clip from Michael Szabo on Vimeo

I added the ripple transition using the aptly named “Ripple” effect in After Effects. By masking on and off the titles along with animating the width, height, and radius of the Ripple, the water appears to wash the titles away.

I like the widescreen shape I made, the slight bend in it is something a little different, and the spark that traces along the edge adds a little something to it. Expect me to use this element entirely in too much of my work.  

It took me awhile to come up with exactly what I wanted to do for this contest. The theme was Compose an engaging animation or motion graphic video incorporating the Photoshop brand logo that illustrates the theme of “See What’s Possible.”  I ended up taking the design of my web site and animating it, hence the similar look of the random elements coming out of the computer.

 “See What’s Possible” Contest Entry from Michael Szabo on Vimeo.

The bulk of the work was done in After Effects, with some Photoshop, and I even managed to use a little CInema 4D in there, I couldn’t resist. The color spectrum look comes from the “Color” blending mode (shocker). The steps are shown after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a little clip just in time for tax season. I used mograph to create a scene where someone’s bills are getting out of control. All I used was a cloner object to clone multiple types of bills and a randomize effector to vary the positions and angles of the individual papers that make up the stack. I also modeled all the objects in the scene, even the seagull painting in the background was a vacation picture of mine.Eventually it will be in various car commercials here and there.***Safari 3 is having problems playing these embedded videos, but they work fine in Firefox. You can try that browser or click here to use a different page to view them.*** 

 Mograph: Stacking Bills from Michael Szabo on Vimeo. 

I made a new page where I will start uploading animations that I create in MoGraph. I find myself constantly messing around with MoGraph’s cloners and effectors, and I just wanted a spot where I can put anything cool I design.

Here’s a spot I did that shows off the toughness of the Toyota Tundra. It came out pretty cool, but unfortunately the compression knocks the visual quality down a notch. I used Apple Motion, After Effects and some Photoshop. The last 5 seconds are where you insert a dealer’s logo and location information.

***Safari 3 is having problems playing these embedded videos, but they work fine in Firefox. You can try that browser or click here to use a different page to view them.***

Toyota Tundra Rough Cut from Michael Szabo and Vimeo.