Shalom Ormsby Images | Fine Art, Beauty, & Fashion Photography from San Francisco » Creative Advertising

The Magazine of the Future… Happening Now

Shalom — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:38:02 +0000

VIV Magazine unleashes the power of Apple’s iPad to give us a visually striking example of the future of magazines and interactive, cross-platform, multimedia presentations. Here’s their breathtaking new film-noir piece, which showcases amazing, cinematic production value (a la Frank Miller’s “Sin City”):

Impressed and intrigued? I certainly was. Content creators and distributors are taking note of this game-changing piece, and others like it.

Fortunately, VIV offers us a peek behind the curtain of their beautiful production:

The questions that bubble up in my mind, which I’ll guess are probably presenting to you as well are, “How can I take my productions to the next level, given the resources at my disposal? How can I make use of emerging technologies to supercharge my creative output? What kind of alliances and collaborations can I form to help make this possible?”

Countless technological innovations have endowed visual artists with virtually unlimited power. If we can dream it up, and if we can muster the resources to support our vision (an important part of the equation), we can create it. Even the sky isn’t the limit. Now go make it happen (and when you do, drop me a line, because I love being inspired by fellow creatives, as I was by the VIV crew).

Kanso: The Power of Simplicity

Shalom — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:11:01 +0000

Here’s a great example of the power of simplicity, and an illustration of the Zen term, “kanso,” which means the creation of the maximum effect using the minimum possible means.

This inexpensive public service announcement from the UK (created by the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership) is more beautiful, creative, and emotionally rich than all of the expensive ads I saw on yesterday’s Super Bowl. A helpful reminder it’s not money that makes project great, it’s thought.

How do you use the power of simplicity and conceptual power to supercharge your creative projects? Are there ways to create more impact using fewer elements?

PS – Buckle up!

Michael Gracey’s “Roller Babies”

Shalom — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:03:26 +0000

Ah to be so talented and so young…

Music: “Rapper’s Delight,” by Dan the Automator

It took a village to create this head-bobbin’ piece. Here are the credits:

Director: Michael Gracey
Agency: BETC
Agency Producer: Fabrice Brovelli
Creative: Agnes Cavard & Valerie Chidlovsky
DoP: Alex Barber and Greg Fraser
Production Company: Partizan Midi Minuit
Executive Producer: Jaques Etienne Stein
Post Supervisor: Rahel Makonnen
Editor: Ben Harrex@ Final Cut
Post Production Company: MPC
Executive Post Producer: Vittorio Giannini
Post Producer: Paul Branch,
VFX Supervisors: Dean Robinson and Ludo Fealy
3D VFX Team: James Bailey, Anthony Bloor, Ross Denner, Ali Dixon, Daniel Elliott, Ahmed Gharraph, Andreas Graichen, Lewis Guarniere, Mark Harrison, Robert Hesketh, Jake Mengers, Alexandre Millet, Jorge Montiel, Jordi Onate, Vicky Osborn, Emanuele Pavarotti, Simon Payne, Dean Robinson, Wayne Simmons, Charlotte Tyson, Grant Walker
2D VFX Team: Dan Adams, Chrys Aldred, Mark Beardall, Mike Brazelton, Kelly Bruce, Stuart Bullen, Hayley Collins, Miodrag Colombo, Ludo Fealy, Olivier Jezequel, Vaibhav Marathe, Alasdair McNeill, Mikael Pettersson, Yourick Van Impe
Telecine: Paul Harrison and Jean-Clement Soret

Here’s some behind-the-scenes action:

Evian’s “Live Young” microsite features more info about the piece, and even links to some of the babies’ Facebook pages.

The Making of the Prius “Harmony” Commercial

Shalom — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:21:25 +0000

Here’s a brilliant and inspiring example of using special-effects technology to create a magical world, while at the same time retaining a distinctly human quality (because the landscape is made of people). Fascinating to see how they created this world. The complete commercial is shown at the end.

A great visual metaphor for how it feels to drive a Prius…

Martial Arts Meet Commercial Art

Shalom — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:49:58 +0000

This is one of my favorite commercials, starring movement maestro, Duncan Tran. It’s 30 seconds of beautiful, fluid motion.

[The "Me," below, refers to Duncan, BTW, not to me, Shalom. I wish I could move like this!]

A Capoeira maestro I trained with once called “the art of fighting with a smile” – because it’s great fun… and because if you could move like this, I bet you’d be smiling too.