Client: Agua Trip

My Role(s): Image-sourcer, Video Editor, Musician

There is just so much footage available on the web these days, and a lot of it is free to use, given by internet users everywhere into the stream of open media. I went to archive.org and found several clips of people dancing in various settings and put it to music, specifically the song “Happy to Change” by my band Agua Trip.

I didn’t do any sort of manipulation to make it match the music, I just threw them on there and let the music match it as it may. I felt there was a sort of analog look to a lot of the footage, so I tried to match that feeling with the type for the titles and end credits.All the footage is attributed and credited at the video’s Youtube page.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w9C__D0iP4

Client: Personal

My Role(s): Designer, Developer

One day when looking at traffic cameras online, I realized that there must be innumerable live image feeds on the internet and the voyeur in me decided to take a sort of survey of what I could find. I eventually found a set of National Parks webcams that gave me a surprising feeling of peace, as if I were actually there. This video shows a series of image sequences obtained through a simple PHP script written to download images from three of those U.S. National Park web-cameras every 30 minutes. The script ran for a few weeks in late June and early July 2010 and captured a sequence of images from Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Point Reyes National Seashore. Nights were removed from the sequences along with any damaged images from camera errors (the Point Reyes camera was offline for several days).

I also separated out the audio tracks from the music and used certain tracks to populate actions in the video. The dot and ring in the upper left corner, the lines in the bottom right and the yellow/blue color filters over the whole video all reflect the audio tracks. Frame blending was used to smooth over the jerkiness.

The music is “Venus Moonrise” from Agua Trip’s album “Genetics”. The earth image is from the famous images taken from the Galileo space probe as it sped away from Earth on its way out into the unknown.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNpEq0tGmjU

Will has been strengthening his storytelling skills in the form of a sprite comic called Simple Pixel, writing and designing over 100 episodes so far. He uses a pencil and paper and Paint.Net for all the effects. I asked Will for a couple of sentences about the project, eliciting this response:

I like to think that Simple Pixel is a “wanna-be movie”. I put most of the work into the scripting and storyline, and the graphic design is sort of my way of making a “film” out of it. The idea that a tale can be expressed through visuals, be it comic or cinema, is very fascinating to me. And as long as I lack a video camera, comics have been a great way for me to show the stories I come up with.

While I have to admit that I have a hard time connecting with much of the story (it has Pokemon in it for example and i know nothing about those), I do enjoy his clever application of  various techniques (blur, focus, lighting and shadow, position, etc) to help him illustrate his story. I have included a selection of some of my favorite panels below.

The world needs growing designers, writers and storyboardists and I believe that if he chooses to keep improving his skills, he has potential to become a successful professional in the graphic arts.

I will be on the lookout for other young designers having fun and stretching their wings and I will post them here when I find them.

I also collaborated on a video for a part of Shell Shocked not shown in the Vimeo excerpt called Resonant Imaging. I already posted it on this site under Work, check out the post here if you missed it.

Barkin/Selissen Project have numerous events scheduled, so if you want to check them out live, visit their blogspot site for information.

Though Jackson has used burlap and sometimes tarp as materials in previous work, and has been known to be quite adept at clothing design, this is the first example of using them together. He is usually working in even more organic materials like grasses and trees and continues the tradition with another recent project called It Will Continue To Grow, No Matter What I Do, which antagonizes Giuseppe Penone‘s piece Continuerà a crescere tranne che in quel punto. I love the statement.

I suggest checking out some of Jackson’s work, the photography alone is beautifully done.

Client: Barkin/Selissen Project

My Role(s): Motion Designer, Audio Designer, Musician

This was a motion graphic video made by Chris Johnson and myself to be performed as video scenery projected behind a solo dancer in Resonant Imaging by Barkin/Selissen Project, a NYC-based dance group.

Chis and I both came up with scenes, building upon images  and video both harvested from the internet and self-taken, with the goal of representing a sort of dreamlike free association. We also wanted to experiment with the effect the video would have on the audience in the room, paying attention to spacial movement in the video.

Chris and I also collaborated on the sound design and Ginger Burden joined us to record all the music except for the intro song, which is by Tones from the Underground.

This was very much an experiment to see what we could do. I hope you enjoy. You can watch the video by itself and in context of the performance itself at Barkin/Selissen Project’s Vimeo page.

Link:

Client: Jacob Gossett

My Role(s): Developer

Jacob Gossett is a painter/sculptor currently working in New York City. Jacob has collaborated with me in numerous other projects and I was happy to work on his website.

This is the second design. The visual design of the header, navigation and subheaders is by Esther L Kim. I built a custom CMS so that Jacob could easily add gallery items, links and make general edits to the rest of the pages.

Link: http://www.jacobgossett.com

Client: Agua Trip

My Role(s): Creative Director, Designer, Developer

This is an update to the Agua Trip Website that related to the release of Agua Trip’s album Genetics. For the release, Agua Trip threw a release concert which included an online auction, where users could buy an original work of art from Genetics: A Visual Songbook. We also did a redesign of the homepage, featuring modules for the most important aspects of Agua Trip’s online presence.

*Note: Some of these pages have been removed, because they corresponded with time-specific events.

Link: http://www.aguatrip.com

Client: The Battery Conservancy

My Role(s): Designer, Developer

This was a small event series at The Battery in Lower Manhattan, featuring local musicians. I like the logo, which I designed to both look like a root structure under the tree, or a quasi-reflection of its shape. The “microsite” displayed the schedule and a photos from the performances.

Link:

Client: Jackson Martin

My Role(s): Creative Director, Designer, Developer

Jackson Martin is a long-time friend of mine. He is also an extraordinarily driven and imaginative artist. When he came to me to design his website, I was honored and thrilled.

As with almost all of my web projects, my goal was to create a page navigation that receded into the background as the content came out at the user. The color scheme was based on Jackson’s trend to dress in blue and brown, almost all of the time.

In addition to a custom CMS I developed for the rest of the site’s content, I used WordPress to drive his news page, using a very stripped down theme template, removing comments and other blog features (search, tags, etc).

Jackson is learning HTML and now maintains the site.

Link: http://www.jacksonmartin.com

Client: Agua Trip

My Role(s): Editor, Cameraman, Songwriter, Musician

This video is composed of footage of Aaron Coleman and William Gentry I filmed when in Clarksville, Tennessee in June of 2008. I used generic default text animations from After Effects.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9L0fvMKZf4

Client: Ajewelation

My Role(s): Designer, Developer

My mother designs custom jewelry under the business name of Ajewelation. She came to me looking for an open, happy feeling site with a simple structure. I also threw together a custom CMS for her, so she could update her portfolio and text.

Link: http://www.ajewelation.com

Client: Agua Trip

My Role(s): Editor, Musician

This video is composed of footage from archive.org and other various and sundry sources. The idea was simple; to have the gas pump pump a liquid mask revealing a natural antidote to our culture’s familiar hypnotic affair with cars.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVEYgHuiilg

Client: Agua Trip

My Role(s): Editor, Cameraman, Musician, Songwriter

This video is composed of footage of Agua Trip performing at Pangea in the Lower East Side of New York City, filmed by James Guastaferro along with footage I filmed of an undisclosed sheet hanging from a building being constructed. I edited the video in After Effects. I basically just moved through transparency modes, overlaying the footage.

The audio at the beginning is Bill Carrasco reporting to me when he came up with the song.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpJ-aidgkEg

Client: Music City Mystique

My Role(s): Designer, Developer

Music City Mystique is a nonprofit organization which brings music (specifically percussion) education and training to youth in the Middle Tennessee area. They are world champions, literally.

This was a site redesign, starting basically from scratch. I used a slimmed-down version of WordPress to drive their news items. We built forums and mailing lists and created areas for video, downloads of music exercises, audition forms and galleries.

We used their color scheme of teal, white and black. I really enjoyed creating the header banner, using the drummers and the stadium seating to give a feeling of power and impact. That year the performers were wearing blood-orange costumes, which really stand out from the teal.

The MCM Productions Page is a subsite for one of their fundraising arms.

*Note: It has been many a year since I touched the code on this site, so I am not sure how much of my original coding is untouched.

Link: http://www.musiccitymystique.org

Client: Agua Trip

My Role(s): Creative Director, Designer, Developer

My friend Bill Carrasco and I began writing, recording and performing music under the name of Agua Trip in 2001. This is the fourth version of the site since then. This version of the site has numerous different subdesigns. A few are shown here.

*Note: This website has since changed and some of these pages are no longer online.

Link: http://www.aguatrip.com

Client: Union Street Sound

My Role(s): Designer, Developer

Union Street Sound is a studio in Brandon, Vermont run by my father, Mike Boise. This was a fun project because I got to use fun textures, taken from photos of his audio equipment. Also, I love horizontal scrolling on websites, which I used here. I also set him up with pages listing audio samples, equipment specs, and images of the studio.

The logo was designed by Earl Provin.

Link:

Client: The Moveable Feast

My Role(s): Designer, Developer

The Moveable Feast is an art party that some friends of mine and I created and directed in New York City.

In addition to a simple homepage and video and gallery pages, I also designed a project database where artists could post potential projects, list the roles needed (i.e. director, photographer, actor, musician, costume designer, writer, etc) recruit people to the project, etc.

The TMF logo was designed by Esther L Kim.

Link: