Inspiration Series: Fruits + Hot Tub Music

What is the first thing you do when you get into the office in the morning? I'm sure it's a laundry list of things including checking email, pouring a hot cup of coffee, checking out current events from your trusted news source, scrolling through your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feed, eating your favorite bowl of cereal, etc. I'll admit that my routine includes a couple of these steps plus others, but the one thing I have to do in order to get my day started is go through my Vimeo feed. In fact, it is one of the few tabs (plus my email) that is constantly open while others are opening and closing throughout the day. I love starting the day following various artists, seeing what people are currently working on or have recently wrapped up, and breaking down the posted works as much as I can. Most importantly though I'm paying attention to the trends and techniques utilized -what styles are being used? What is being overused? Underused? What kind of content is successful? Are all of the important elements of a story there? What is the story? What is the brand? -and the resulting social response(s) to those trends and techniques.

Today Psyop's Survival of the Fruits Chobani spot caught my immediate attention. I have always been a huge fan of Psyop's work and they never seem to disappoint. Survival of the Fruits displays exceptional design and storytelling skills, and is a brilliantly animated piece. The unique representation of characters is equally entertaining and brings the 'fruit in its natural habitat' theme and brand come to life, too. I definitely hit the favorite button on this one and am adding it to my endless list of inspirations. Watch the video here.

Today is a 2 for 1 deal because not only was I intrigued by the above mentioned video but my good friend, DJ HR Beats, put out a new mix called Hot Tub Music yesterday and it is awesome. Sure, I'm biased because I know Hareesh personally but in all seriousness this guy is good. I mean really good! He knows how to entertain a crowd and how to seamlessly combine different sounds together, and I always enjoy listening to his mash ups. Anyway, this mix definitely put a couple of project ideas in my head, so along with Psyop, I'm putting this on my endless list, too.

Enjoy the links! Caroline

Music is the art of thinking with sounds... DJ HR BEATS gives you HOT TUB MUSIC to help you unwind and relax your soul! So turn the lights down and press play! ************************ Follow DJ HR BEATS Contact For Bookings: hareeshb12@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/djhrbeats Twitter: www.twitter.com/djhrbeats Instagram: www.instagram.com/djhrbeats Tracklist: 1) Zoolander Relax Intro 2) Waited 4 U (ODESZA Remix) - Slow Magic 3) You & Me (Flume Remix) - Disclosure 4) Dog Days Are Over - Florence And The Machine 5) Lisztomania (Parrad Remix) - Phoenix 6) Juicy Diner (ft. The Notorious BIG & Suzanne Vega) - Dr. Fresch 7) Kong - Bonobo 8) West Coast (Stint Remix) - Lana Del Rey 9) I See Fire (Kygo Remix) - Ed Sheeran 10) No Rest For The Wicked (Figgy Remix) - Lykke Li 11) Paradise (On Earth) - Chris Cab

Cheers to 2015!

Usually when I come across someone's blog I notice that it's very popular to write a New Year post and reflect on the good, the bad, and the interesting moments from the past year and goals for the upcoming year. In 2014 I found myself getting asked a lot of questions regarding my career, most of which were questions about what I do for a living, what all of the Hollywood and Broadcast jargon means, questions about the evolution of computer graphics and the programs used to make them, and how I got interested in animation/computer graphics/visual effects in the first place. The latter question is the easiest to answer and you can find a detailed explanation on my About page.

A lot of people, including friends and family, always ask me "what does animation entail?" and I always tell them that that is a pretty broad question. I usually respond with, "Well, what exactly do you mean? Do you mean 2D or 3D animation? Are you curious about my roles and what I contribute on a particular projects? Are you curious about what my day is like at my office? Or do you simply want me to explain the terms animation, visual effects and motion graphics to you?" I try to keep it short, sweet, and relatable so as not to confuse and/or bore my friends, family or peers, but sometimes I end up going into specifics, which may or may not make sense, and I feel like I've talked their ears off without maybe actually answering their original question after all. And because the industry itself is constantly changing (i.e. technology), so do my responses sometimes, and that is another reason why it is a difficult question to answer. However, I'd like to get better at it in 2015.

My intentions for blogging, therefore, are to help answer those types of questions more easily, explain some of the processes involved in creating 2D, 3D and visual effects graphics, give more insight into the work I create both short and long term, describe what goes into both simpler and bigger productions [sorry in advance to those who already know how the pipeline works, but hey!, I'm no expert yet and am always looking to learn new things, so I welcome your comments, too, and hope you chime in to help the conversation along], share my various works in progress including sketches, concept art, style frames and previz animatics, and hopefully share some cool design and technology articles/inspiration from time to time so you can get an idea of what's constantly going on in my head -the resources that ignite some of the concepts for a lot of the pieces you see here on my website.

Every industry has a community and I consider myself to be part of a couple of them -art, design, technology, business, etc. -and I also hope that through blogging I'll be able to add to such communities through sharing various knowledge and information and creativity, connect my peers through such conversation, and inspire fellow artists, technologists, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts of all kinds into cultivating and producing some of their own marvelous work, as well.

To my new and very first blog ever, new artwork, new knowledge, new and exciting experiences, and a wonderful New Year for everyone, here's to 2015 and all that comes with it!

 Enjoy! Caroline