If you’re the type of creative that enjoys strategizing and interacting with people as well as jamming with your headphones on, it’s important you incorporate copywriting skills into your arsenal. Here’s why:

If you want your career to evolve into something outside of pure production work, you need to gradually take steps toward incorporating creative strategy into your role, assuming you have the mind for it.

The most obvious way to develop and showcase your ability to think creatively is through copywriting and from what I can tell, it’s also the quickest avenue for a creative to contribute more than the visual expression of the idea, but also help shape the idea itself and ultimately incorporate ideation into their role. While coming up with the supporting verbiage of a campaign, you’ll be evolving the big idea for the campaign itself.

The good news is, as a creative you’ve been exposed to digital marketing & culture your entire career by personally producing it with your own two hands – giving you the strongest possible foundation to become a strategic thinker because a good creative leader will always have at least one foot in the trenches at all times. Digital trends are constantly changing so being a part of that is worth 100 x the experience any marketing degree could have gotten you years ago.

My current role at Red is ideal for me as it’s about a 70/30 mix of production work to creative strategy. This makes the maximum use of my experience and core skill-set,while allowing me to evolve my expertise in a broad sense.

As one of three agencies sponsoring this years event, RED had a significant presence at Adobe Max ‘09. A group of us spent a couple days soaking up the inspiration.

I pulled my Flip out from time to time and caught some nice moments that were later stitched together into a little montage.

Highlights:

• I enjoyed the SODA session Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch video Burn After Reading movie immensely and spent a lot of time listening to the discussions in their UnConference area.
• The Vasava session was fantastic, they demonstrated their process from beginning to end, including sketches, storyboards, everything. Really spoke to the artist within me.
• RED session kicked ass as expected, led by Donny Makower and Aaron Buchanon.
• Mark Hammill (Luke Skywalker) presented the MAX awards, which was super fun because, he’s just… a trip.
• The food was great and Adobe were smart enough to keep a modest amount of alcoholic beverages flowing, lending nicely to a social vibe.

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Working with a client like The UFC is fun because of our long standing relationship with them. Their trust in us to create a unique site that promotes their event in the most immersive way possible, creates positive-pressure in the design team and fuels our desire to push the limitations of what we can produce. All the projects we do at Red are extremely collaborative but this one in particular felt like an absolute creative mesh. 

UFC 100 created by Red Interactive, 2009

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The lead creative team consisted of Christian Harden (Chief-Developer), J.R Fabrito (Designer & Papervision-Stud) and a host of other superstars. If any one of them had been swapped out for another equally talented Creative, who-knows how different the project may have turned out. Once the design and tone of the campaign had been set, each member took that styling and ran with it to build individual pieces that each had their unique touch, but collectively worked in the overall unit.

Choose an Effect and Let it Ride

A general rule of thumb I’ve used for years now is to find a cool animation style and use it as the theme for the transitions and button rollovers, which dictate all the other animation in the site. This aspect of the process has become such a staple for me that I ‘ve amassed a library of animation effects that are always on hand just waiting for the right project. For UFC 100 it was what I call, the “force glitch”. I bought an After Effects plugin from VideoCopilot about a year ago called Twitch, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to bust it out.

A Few Design Tips for Papervision

• 3 Layers. In developing this navigation we remembered that Papervision always looks coolest with at least three levels of depth. We placed imagery in the foreground (splotches), middleground (nav) and background (wall). We would’ve like to have added more elements, like the swirly graphics behind the fighters you see in other sections of the site, but we were already walking the performance line by then.
• Handheld Camera. We attempted to re-create the reality camera style that’s currently dominating movies and television. We kept the camera randomly moving to give the feeling that someone’s actually holding it rather than it being part of a pristine digital world.
• Figures Facing Camera. Subtle but important is to ensure that all images containing figures should always remain facing the camera, no matter how the user rotates the scene. When the images don’t face the camera they look like paper cut-outs, which reveals the simplicity of the 3d environment.

Take Inspiration

I’m constantly inspired by the media around me – I think it’s a real talent to allow your work to be shaped by art that moved you. For UFC 100 we were directly inspired by the teaser trailer for one of our favorite video games, Modern Warfare 2. This simple trailer inspired the foundation of the Art Direction. Another good example would be UFC 94, designed and developed by Jared Kroff and Adam DeVincent. They payed homage to the Artwork of Sin City to create a fresh design with its own individual creativity.

Do you come home from work tired and stressed? You may be feeling pressure that you’re not even aware of. Below I’ve outlined several problems I’ve observed myself and my colleagues encounter in a typical work day – then I’ve given you suggestions on how to deal with them.

Problem:

• Low energy, can’t concentrate. Keep trying to focus on one thing only to find a few minutes later you’ve lost your train of thought. Usually after lunch.

Solution:

• Start your day be deciding what you want to accomplish and hammer each task out in order of importance. Take short breaks to keep yourself in the zone. If you want energy that lasts throughout your workday, get enough sleep and eat nutrient-rich foods in small amounts. Take a Green-Liquid-Multi-Vitamin as part of your late morning routine. If you need a boost, try a natural product like 5-hour-energy or have a FRS energy drink, just remember to only consume one – or you’ll experience hi’s and low’s throughout the day which is ultimately not good.

Problem:

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• Dragging your ass into work hungry and tired. Takes you 45 minutes just to get into a consistent groove.

Solution:

• Get started early and develop a morning routine. I recommend jogging or stretching. First thing in the morning is a great time to deal with bills and personal tasks. You start your day on the right foot when you’ve already done something productive for yourself before your day begins. If you hate coming into work, then your only priority in life should be to find a new job.

Problem:

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• Constantly interrupted with work-related issues. Can’t make headway on one particular task because you’re being pulled in different directions.

Solution:

• Keep your desk uncluttered. Turn off phones, email notification, instant messaging, anything that will break into your focus and make you jump from one thing to another. Don’t constantly switch between tasks. Focus on one task at a time and really lose yourself in it – then move on to the next.

Problem:

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• Bored. Not feeling passionate about the project you’re currently working on. Client feedback has you stressed and overwhelmed.

Solution:

• Take breaks to go for a walk or mini-meditate. It breaks up the day, calms the mind and gets the blood circulating. Putting out occasional fires is part of your job, how you handle it says a lot about you. Make a conscious effort not to allow yourself to be irritated. The process is always changing, what’s important is how your react to it. Acknowledge what’s happened and make calm decisions about next steps. Whatever you do, don’t allow other peoples stress to affect you.

Also known as Single Point of Truth, is an OOP philosophy intended to remove the process of repeatedly writing the same code. The theory is that duplication decreases clarity and increases the chances of inconsistency through interpretation.

Also kind of seems like a decent life philosophy as well, in terms of the company you keep. I find the more I have to repeat myself, or explain what I mean to someone, the less likely we’re on the same level.

When the DRY principle is applied successfully, a modification of any single element of a system (like a specific function within an AS3 class), doesn’t change other logically-unrelated elements. Additionally, elements that are logically related all change predictably and uniformly, and are thus kept in sync.

If you’re like me, you probably have a lot of personal passion projects that are in your mental queue. Time goes by without you ever executing these ambitions. The reason is because there’s more than one step. When you consider investing your spare time toward these creative ventures, the sheer volume of work needed to reach your goals dissuades you from beginning and you opt to start it another time.

If you’ve read books like “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” by David Allen… you know,  the road to achievement is by defining long term goals comprised of short term goals.

I recently researched a variety of Task Management Software for OSX, my operating system of choice – and I like “Things“. It’s simple and intuitive and does the job that’s needed to bridge the gap between idea and execution. It gives you the opportunity to create a project, then slice it up into individual tasks. Tasks that you can complete in a 2-4 hours period, like say… an evening.

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We use a very detailed and effective process at my work – why not employ the same strategy to my personal projects?

I’ll give you an example of why I’m so pumped about this software.

My original talent is that of an illustrator. I felt like quite the little protege and once thought was one of the top of my class at a school world-renowned for it’s illustration program. However with my career in full swing, interactive, motion graphics design and 3d – very rarely do I spend any time drawing or painting anymore.

For a few years now I’ve been meaning to tap into my talents to compose an animated, illustrated narrative. Some cool, motion graphics piece with an intense storyline that creates an emotional reaction because of the compelling idea and execution. I feel like I’m part of a small majority that can write it, illustrate, design and animate it front to back myself and compete at the highest level. Yet year after year… I don’t.

Once I downloaded and installed Things, the first project I put together was this Illustrated Narrative that’s been circling around in the back of my mind for a while – and I very quickly got the satisfaction of discovering exactly why I haven’t begun it, even though it’s been calling my name for so long – which was a lack of process – I wasn’t sure where to start and how long it would take.

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Design and Animate an Illustrated Narrative

• Seek Inspiration - Find a magazine article or a news topic that speaks to you. Use it as your idea source and build a concept around that.
• Write a Script – Create a context by writing some sort of storyline. Make decisions around whether you want it to be more dramatic or humorous.
• Define a Style - Research and find illustration and design styles you’d like to emulate, log and refer to them.
• Find Reference Material - Find a photo shoot with the right kind of images to use as reference, or if possible take the pictures yourself.
• Sketch Your Characters – Start drawing out a style and lead characters to focus on. Take your time and get this down.
• Build a Storyboard – Draw out your animation loosely on paper so that you can plan the flow and vibe. Complete the story through images.
• Sketch Detailed Screens – Draw each screen. Do as many drawing as needed to get each screen right.
• Create the Screens in Photoshop – Paint / Design the screens that need to be imported from Photoshop into After Effects. Do them one at a time.
• Animate in After Effects – Import your screens and build the narrative through animation.
• Publish and Post – Render out the animation and post in your portfolio. Perhaps submit to some film festival.

Above is what my project looks like. I broke the beginning stage down into very detailed steps that I could accomplish in an evening or more. Now I can march my way through this task at my leisure, with the fulfillment of knowing where I’m at in the process, which I think was the missing link.

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I don’t watch a lot of music video channels anymore… I’m not sure if they got younger or I got older but, I just can’t relate to the general vibe of today’s popular artists. Every so often though, I stumble across a real piece of art.

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A good example would be Beyonce’s “If I were a Boy

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“, which I totally judged as not-my-cup-of-tea, based on it’s childish title.

• American Psycho II: All American Girl video

Great song of course, but the video was beautifully acted, art directed and even had a message that was kind of insightful. Made me wonder how many other masterpieces I may have missed since Jay-Z’s “99 Problems

“

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One part frustration and one part fascination. CS4’s motion Editor and 3d capabilities are both exciting and annoying at the same time.

My colleagues and I have been playing with our copies of Flash CS4 the past week and the developers and designers alike seem to have a general consensus. Our over-all attitude is a combination of both, pumped and confused.

Z Property

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This is kind of like a dream for me on some level. Being able to manipulate a movieclip in 3d space really suits my animation and interactive style. More importantly it means I can execute my 3d Flash ideas myself, rather than relying on a developer to build them in Papervision.

I’ve begun animating the Z property both in code and on the timeline and have found some unexpected results. Sometimes I’ll push a clip straight backward into space then when I publish, it’s moving from a different point on the stage. I’m sure this has to do with setting the vanishing point of the parent clip or something simple like that, but in my preliminary work I’m yet to detect an obvious pattern.

Z Property: Update 11.27.08

I’ve gotten the hang of working with Flash’ Z property and while it’s definitely got potential, I have to warn you it’s clearly in its baby stages. Adobe released this functionality way too early, I’d use it sparingly and not on any client work until you learn the in’s and out’s. For starters you can’t use a mask within a movieclip that uses Z depth, nor a blend mode. But that’s nothing. More concerning is the never ending issues I’ve run into working with clips that have a Z depth… inexplicable results with basic code and timeline animation forcing me to formulate new methods to accomplish simple tasks in order to workaround these odd behaviors. The Z property is as limiting as it is freeing.

Motion Editor

I’m reserving judgement on this newly developed aspect of Flash. While it seems to be more complex and powerful It doesn’t feel intuitive at all, at this point. It seems you can control the easing of an entire layer of animation with one long bezier curve that you add keyframes to manipulate. Once I’m more familiar it’ll feel logical, but for now, it feels buggy and weird.

I have high hopes the Motion Editors brilliance will shine through soon because I’ve been doing all my animation purely with code for years now and while I’ve gotten really fast, it’s still sometimes faster to do things on the timeline, it just feels limiting when you get used to the power of animating with code. I’m excited about the prospect of using the timeline to animate more often.

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Motion Editor: Update 11.27.08

The new way of tweening on the timeline in Flash is not so much more-powerful as it is, just… different. Little bit more like After Effects. It’s renewed my interest in timeline animation but I’m not certain I can do anything now that I couldn’t before.

I don’t want to bag on Adobe because I obviously love their products and a good friend of mine works for them but… I feel like this release was rushed – likely due to a mandate from Adobes marketing department that they release new-and-improved software every couple years. Since they’re not making any new products, that would be how they make their money. I for one would have preferred if they waited another year before releasing CS4 and sorted out some of the Z property issues so it wouldn’t be so bitter-sweet.

With the cross promotion of Movies, Television Shows and Video Games – we’re collectively watching the maturing of what I call the Adventure-Experience site. I’ve noticed many of these types of sites have been popping up lately on The FWA and such. They’re going to become more common and keep getting better, so I’ve made them the subject of today’s post.

An Adventure Experience site, is one that leads the user through a story either in a linear manner, or in a style that allows the user to choose their own path. The intention is for the user to feel as though they’re traveling their way through a custom adventure. We recently finished an Adventure-Experience site for Paramount, below I’ve share some of what I learned along the way.

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Eagle Eye Experience created by Red Interactive Agency, 2008

Examples of ass-kicking adventure experience sites:

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• Breaking Bad, tv show
  
• Haze, video game
• Assasins Creed, video game
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Elements that every Experience site should have to successfully engage the user:

Compelling script.

• All the smoke and mirrors in the world can’t hide a weak story. If the user isn’t interested in what’s happening next, they’ll click away mighty quick. Either retell the beginning of the story for the movie, show or game being promoted, or create a new script that mirrors but isn’t identical, so the user can play a parallel reality.

The illusion of user control.

• It’s far too much work to create a handful of different storylines so the user can choose their own path to the end. The best balance is to create a linear experience with options along the way for the user to diverge slightly, giving them the feeling of a custom experience.

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Rewards.

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• The user needs an incentive to play. Challenge a friend, unlock content, special downloads, etc. Something to keep them pushing forward when their focus starts to waver.

Map and/or percentage done.

• Users always need to have some sense of completion, so that they feel oriented and can decide whether it’s worth it to continue playing.

Intense audio.

• Good Sound Effects are key in every site but especially so in an Experience site. Make them intense and constantly changing with the pace and mood of the adventure.
• Instead of bringing every sound effect into Flash and syncing them up separately, use software like Adobe Soundbooth to mix a loop of ambience containing multiple subtle sfx. There should be peaks and valleys.
• Try using a new soundtrack for each change of scene. Each one should suit what you suspect the users reaction will be.
• Use a voice-over, it will add so much. There will always be parts where the user has to read – having the script narrated can make the difference between a boring and engaging site.

Video/motion

• If the Adventure Experience is for a video game, you’ve got your work cut out for you because you can use gameplay footage. If not then you need to get video assets or find excuses to create motion yourself. In the case of Eagle Eye, we created a 3d map for the user to traverse between each transition and we scripted a shaky parallax in each scene so the characters and background would never be perfectly static. Small efforts like this will make all the difference.

Pacing.

• Make sure there are build-ups and climaxes. The user should be kept guessing as to what will take place next.
• While the user is engaging in one scene, ensure the next one is pre-loading in the background. Keep them moving forward with as little load time as possible.

Snappy graphics and animation.

• One of the biggest challenges you’ll face with the Adventure-Experience site is keeping it exciting. Usability is always your top priority but, a good portion of the users will only partially be paying attention to the storyline, so you need to give them more reasons to hang out.

It’s been said that ones mental attitude and ability to communicate are key to their success. I’m going to outline the aspects of an Executive (Sales, Project Manager, Producer), mind-set and how these traits can be combined with your Creative talent to potentially chart your path quicker.

When I was 19 I studied Entrepreneurship at UVic. I chose Business for the same reason everyone else does – I didn’t know what I wanted to do, just that I wanted to make money. After a year, my father reminded me of the option to pursue a career making use of my creative talent.

A year later, while studying Illustration at the Sheridan Institute, I noticed subtle differences between myself and the bulk of my fellow students. While I was focused on building a portfolio and mapping out my future, they all seemed to be judging their personal development based on their grades, satisfied to just ’see what happens’, after graduation. So odd.

Traits of the Executive mind-set every Creative should incorporate:

• Ensure success. Clients base a lot of their decisions on what they consider to be ‘proof’. If you work in a manner that demonstrates results at intervals, you’re more likely to retain creative control.

• Break everything down into goals.

  From individual projects to your entire career, every work related aspect of your life will evolve quicker if you have milestones and a final destination in mind.

• Become incredibly organized. Your desktop and folder structure are a direct reflection of your mental dexterity.

• Be passively ambitious. Don’t do what’s asked for and hope for the best. Make sure your work covers every angle before you present it. The less the client has to manage you, the happier they are.

• Focus on the client. Each project should have two main goals, equally aligned, (a): An extremely positive experience for the client and (b): Creating a totally unique interactive piece.

• Be cool. If you grew up playing video games in your parents basement rather than competing in sports or talking to girls, that’s fine – but it’s the real world now. Learn to enjoy intense discussions and key decision making with clients and co-workers. Make developing your inter-personal skills one of your favorite hobbies.

Top executives are motivated, goal-oriented winners – there’s no reason why you can’t leverage the same attitude.