Here's a demo of my livefont - FUTURA ANIMATED. You can't go wrong with a bit of Johnny Cash. Designing the animations of each glyph so they More

Here's a demo of my livefont - FUTURA ANIMATED. You can't go wrong with a bit of Johnny Cash. Designing the animations of each glyph so they referenced and respected the principles of Futura was great fun. This was initially created for a corporate video job at Cobra Creative- when all of the titles were laid out, we struck upon the idea of animating each letter in AE and then typing with the animated movies assigned to the glyphs. This proved a bit more difficult then I initially assumed- after some research, it seemed as though Apple's Motion could use "LiveFonts" but you had to create them in LiveType. So, I installed Livetype, and it creates livefonts with an XML-like format and quicktime references. If you want to use FUTURA ANIMATED, here's the livefont. It loads in both Motion and LiveType. movecraft.com/clients/movecraft/Futura_animated.zip For the real job, I just placed precomps in AE. Bran Dougherty-Johnson @psst3 on twitter asked how to get it working in AE, so we whipped up (with the super crazy support of Kevin, our developer) something that pretty closely matches the functionality of LiveType in AE. The alphabet is laid out on a timeline, then precomped. The precomp is time remapped and then the remap values are driven by the charAt values of a type layer... So, type in what you want in the type driver layer, dupe the precomps, and it should map accordingly, although you have to manually do the kerning adjustments. There is a slider to control time offset and some variables for individual animation duration for holds and outros- all handy if you want to sub in your own glyph animations! Check it- movecraft.com/clients/movecraft/livefont_expressions.zip I'm building another livefont based on Gaudy Sans Hairline for a video remix pack for electronic musician Moldover, which will have speak & spell audio baked into it. Check out a little sneak peak here- vimeo.com/7421467 Thanks to Cobra Creative for letting me mess around with this stuff for a few days instead of dragging and dropping an AE type preset on the titles. High fives to Ryan and Jake for finishing up some of the glyphs. cobracreative.com movecraft.com @colin_movecraft
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Inspired by the DIY photo gear building sites (my favorite of which is CheesyCam.com—so many ideas for projects buried in there. Oh man), More

Inspired by the DIY photo gear building sites (my favorite of which is CheesyCam.com—so many ideas for projects buried in there. Oh man), anyway, I set out to put together a cheaper alternative to my linear motion-based camera slider. While I like it (the "real" slider, that is), it’s a little complex, and by the time you get it to work properly you’re in it for at least $100. The motion system alone will cost you at least $80, then you need something to mount it on, and some way to mount your camera on it. Do it right, however, and you’re rewarded with exceptionally smooth moves. But the kind of stuff that make my pants tight is when you can get 98% of the effectiveness for 28% of the cost (or even less if you shop well and improvise a little), and that’s where this rig comes in. It uses a small trolley built from angled aluminum (or steel, or some other metal) and held together with threaded rod so you can adjust the track width for different track surfaces. Wheels are mounted at perpendicular angles to each other to lock the carriage on the track side to side and create a smooth rolling platform. We used skateboard wheels for our rollers, mounted on 5/16-in. bolts with short pieces of bushing material spacing them out for proper clearance. A piece of scrap plastic purchased from a marine salvage yard serves as the deck, and attaches to the threaded rod crosspieces with zip ties. Enough room was left for the width to be adjusted to accommodate a variety of “tracks.” Our “track” consists of a Harbor Freight brand adjustable sawhorse. The top is a nice, wide and square steel channel that makes a smooth and sturdy base for the roller. The legs are even adjustable individually, and it folds completely flat for use right on the ground. The entire assembly, including the sawhorse (which is currently on sale for $22) would probably cost under $50 to duplicate if you were a truly awful shopper and had absolutely nothing to start with. Ours is made almost entirely from scrap from around the garage, and if you do any light fabrication, you probably have at least a few items laying around to save you some money. FYI, here’s some links to the stuff we actually bought, or at least similar stuff, since some of it has been around for a while: Harbor Freight saw horse: harborfreight.com/​foldable-adjustable-sawhorse-96506.html Ball head mount: cgi.ebay.com/​1-Hot-shoe-1-4-3-8-Swivel-Umbrella-Holder-Mount-Tripod-/​370405895178?pt=Digital_Camera_Accessories&hash=item563de96c0a Skateboard wheels and bearing sets: shop.ebay.com/​i.html?_nkw=skateboard+wheels+bearings+&_cqr=true&_nkwusc=skateboard+wheels+bearnings&_rdc=1 Here’s the marine surplus place I get a lot of bits and pieces. They list inventory on their website, but there’s nothing like going out back to pick through the true surplus and wonder what to build next: surplusunlimited.com Talking head stuff shot on a Canon HF S100 with a Rode Videomic. Slider stuff shot with a Canon T2i with a 50mm f/1.8. Various LED lights gave me the healthy, almost Nordic pallor.
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