Archives
« October 2007
December 2007 »
November 28, 2007: November 28, 2007
links for 2007-11-28
-
awesome video about the guys who capture and train father chrismases
-
follow up to the father chrismases trainers...
-
yugops new company site
November 27, 2007: November 27, 2007
10 Year Highschool Reunion
On Saturday I went to my highschool's 10 year reunion. I flew up to the Gold Coast for the event.
There was around 80 or so people which is a lot more than I expected. Initially it was all the guys which is weird I thought they would have been the least inclined to go.
I got to catch up with pretty much everyone. Even people I wouldn't donate blood for I had good chat to. My crew (the guys I ate lunch with everyday, talked about Simpsons with and played handball with) didn;t really turn up. Only one of them who was a newcomer to our click.
Peter, Daniel, Dale, Mark & the two Nathans (sounds like a Biblical role call) didn't turn up. The other guy who I can't remember his name (the amercian guy with glasses and always wore a hat) was one of the few who actually died. Hit in the head with a baseball. Which makes sense as he was a keen baseball player.
Even the girl I had a mad crush on was there alway the sparkle has worn off considerably. Nothing on her, she still looks cute as, I just have something better now.
That said many of the girls have aged well. Although we did have a pretty good line up of talent in our year to start with.
There were a few noticeable characters that didn't turn up (Robert Botkos, Kris Dolinko, Grant Hacket, Chad Walsh, Sam But, Azra, Sumi) which is a shame but there was enough there to make it a really interesting night. People seemed to recognize me more than I recognized them. There was a couple I would not have picked out in a police line that remembered me but I couldn't put a memory to the face or name.
There were three marriages that stemmed from highschool, two from relationships from highschool, which is pretty amazing. But I guess I've been with Ervi since 1998 so that's almost as long.
I'm not sure I'd be so interested in a 15 year reunion. 5 years just isn't long enough for much to change but we'll see. Thanks to facebook I'm able to contact a few more of my highschool friends. It's nice being able to throw a "hey" to people once in a while.
November 26, 2007: November 26, 2007
November 24, 2007: November 24, 2007
Recent Soap work
I came back to work after two weeks holidays and two new projects were launching on that day. We've also got a few more great projects launching in the next few weeks and some even bigger ones early next year. We had a dry patch at Soap Creative for a few months with not many projects launching. Mainly due to the large Seeker project that took up everyone's time and pitches for new business. One big one we lost and a bigger one we won.
Here's a brief overview of three new projects we just launched in November.
Ever wanted to see what you'd sound like as a chipmunk? Now you can with Munkyourself with Alvin and the Chipmunks. In theaters December and January worldwide. We created this using Oddcast Technology. The record by phone feature is pretty amazing. This was created for 20th Century Fox US. The site is being rolled out across 9 languages and 12 regions and is already going pretty well with little media support. The media is due to start one every language is complete.
The geometry of the chipmunk 3D model was supplied but due to the Rhythm and Hues using proprietary software. They couldn't just export the model for us. We had to extensively remodel and tweak the character in house. We also modeled and textured the 30+ clothing items for the chipmunk. Patrick our 3D guy did a great job getting it to look close to the Alvin models in the movie. Rhythm and Hues have a huge team working on this. We just had one guy so I think we did pretty good.
A smaller project we just launched is the Hitman Challenge. This time for 20th Century Fox Australia. Fox had partnered with In The Mix and suggested a Hitman Shooting School game type game. Funny we had suggested a Hitman Training Academy game and git knocked back :)
The basic idea is you have 10 games a day in which to train. Your score accumulates over each game. The more times you play the bigger your score and the better chance you have of winning a trip to any music festival in Australia.
We team feature was built to allow people to start teams. Initially we tried to remove the teams feature from the brief as the deadline was tight and this was the largest component of the project. So I'm happy to be humbled as the team feature seems to be going off and a really good feature. It did take the longest to build. The game itself was a few days work while the team feature, with all it's complex user flows and the like, took over a week I think to fully bug fix.
There's also prizes for who has the biggest team. Right now it's close between the Queensland Gamers League and DDB Sydney teams. The only downside to a promotion like this for the user is that people who hear about it early have the best chance of winning. Anyone starting now is a week behind in scores and at a massive disadvantage.
The disadvantage for us is the In The Mix URL means that after the promotion ends we have little control over the page. Archived links for our portfolio will need to change. But this is a small issue I guess.
We had a little over 2 weeks to put together this Toy Creator for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. A new Fox Walden family film.
Luckily we could reuse our Design Tool Engine so the code was no worries. We had Ron illustrating the items right away from a set list of toy parts and Rob designing it.
This launched November 2 and has since had 90,000 134,000 toys submitted. I'm blown away by the response as it's our most successful "Design Your Own" promotion yet. 32% of people who started a toy submitted one which compared to our previous high of 15% is amazing. (although to the same level as our Design Your Own Weaon and Build Your Own Robot apps.
Also the quality of submissions is fantastic especially seeing as there is no prize or incentive for users to submit anything. They are just doing it because it's fun.
Over the next two weeks we're also launching a game for Vivendi Universal Games, another Zipper game for National Geographic Kids, a slick site for Samsung. 2008 will see two large promotions for Unilever launch. So we're going to finish off 2007 with a influx of new work and start 2008 with a bang.
Sales Pitch
We're actually looking to expand our team by several people in 2008 (designers, animators, flash coders, producers, creative folk) with roles to start in early Feb 08.
If you want to work in Sydney, Australia, have a passion for online and the will to do kick ass work then check out our site and email us at jobs at soap.com.au
USA Trip 2
This year ive made three international trips, two to the USA and one to Singapore and Indonesia.
The US trips were part business. I would not have gone over if it not for the business side of them although I was able to fit in a fair bit of touristy stuff in the second trip.
Here's the Flickr set for my second trip. I took about 700 photos which is quite low for me. THe first tip I only took around 200 of which I've organized only about 20.
I borrowed Ron's 10.5m Fisheye lens for the Nikon, which is an awesome travel lens. It's small, fast and great for a city like NY. The photos below just wouldn't have been possible with a normal wide lens.
I've finally got my stomach back to normal after eating so much cheesy food in the US and over any jet lag (ie waking up at 5am!)
November 22, 2007: November 22, 2007
November 20, 2007: November 20, 2007
November 19, 2007: November 19, 2007
November 18, 2007: November 18, 2007
links for 2007-11-18
-
Marks latest stuff for optus
-
awesome blog of one upping a super hero
-
cool blog for US based illustrator
November 15, 2007: November 15, 2007
November 12, 2007: November 12, 2007
links for 2007-11-12
-
'make new images from old' by placing album covers together
-
radiohead video using clips from the head in a box scene in seven
November 07, 2007: November 7, 2007
links for 2007-11-07
-
dutch online store - Chain reaction animation using the items on sale, very very cool