J. McKinney GR DES 71

I choose Psyop because I liked that their very versatile with the ads they create. I watched the making of an ad they did for Smith and Nephew and then watched the actual ad. I was a little confused about what was being done in the making of the ad but when I watched the actual ad it was crazy how they used certain elements to create the outcome of the ad. http://vimeo.com/1238406 and http://vimeo.com/1510012

Then I came across an ad they did for Coca Cola’s Happiness Factory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CulBzEPOEJA. I’ve been to the Worl of Coca Cola in Ga and their tour includes a 4D movie about what happens when you put a quarter in a Coke machine. Their ad reminded me of a spin off from the movie which I thought was pretty cool. I tried searching to see if Psyop was responsible for the movie as well and they were.

The Coke commercial would be categorize as mostly vector. 

1. Structures and Composition

Since the commercial had very little dialog the screen space was used to create the mood and implied certain meanings. For instance, the poor guy delivering the coke to the dispenser having to travel through the woods and the snow. Then in the beginning and the end of the video its clear that the guy is on a date at the movies. The screen space was used very well in convoying the commercials message.

2. Image and Image Type

The images convoyed an imaginative journey inside a coke machine. I thought this was a cool approach. 

3. Symbols and Symbol types

The commercial shows what happens behind the scenes when you buy a coke from a vending machine. 

4. Time

The commercial’s transitions were very smooth and the parts that had cuts made sense and flowed nicely with the theme of the commercial.

5. Sound

The voices use for characters in the coke machine tell the viewer what type of mood their in, since there was no dialog. The music also set the mood of the commercial. When the guy approaches the coke machine u hear a nice upbeat tune. Then once you follow the quarter into the machine and the machine runs out of coke u hear a hazard siren. This is carried out throughout the commercial.    

6. Intent/Meaning

To show what happens when the Happiness Factory runs out of Coke. It also shows the uplift factor of Coca Cola and how it revitalizes the guy from the Happiness Factory. 

Other projects they’ve worked on:http://www.psyop.tv/

Dry Fish Critic

Hand-drawn and Fluid

The screen space was used very well. It helped create the atmosphere of the video theme.Some of the images reminded me of illustrations from Dr. Seuss’ landscape. This gave me the impression that something weird was going on, along with the random choice of characters (panda, birds, eyes with limbs, and things coming out of trees).It also had a nice color palette. Time was used in an effective manner. When the scenario was getting kind of old the creator made the time of day switch to reengage the viewers. He also used good transitions making the movie feel fluid and smooth. Some of the type was to small or the typeface needs to be changed. The sound at first was hard to understand with the auto-tune voice changer on. Other than that the voice did a good job at expressing what was going on in the video by expressing his feelings through the lyrics. The intent of all the visual, sound, and pacing elements is to create the feeling of being disorientated, intimidated, and a bit frightened. The meaning of all the visual, sound, and pacing elements is to explain the times when you find yourself in a place that you can’t explain and sometimes it worries you. 

Since I’ve taking InDesign and I’m currently in the Typography class I know the basics of typography. So I went through all 25 sites and to pick out new information.

Some techniques and tips I found interesting:

• That in order to make white text more legible on a black background you can increase the leading, tracking, and decrease your font-weight.
• The standard type sizes:

8pt.-many people cannot comfortably read text is small

10pt.-this is a bit better

12pt.-this size is standard for traditional publishing but still too small for some people.

14pt.-this is the minimum size for some people with limited vision.

16pt.-this is the recommended size for “Large Print” publications.

18pt.-recommended minimum size for Display Typefaces.

• The tool used to determined the type size and line spacing of already printed material is called a galaxy gauge.
• Ligatures weren’t created of just a cool design but to control letter spacing in places where two or more letters took up too much space and have uncomfortable feeling to the viewer.
• The interesting histories of glyphs
• The difference between a widow (a single word or very short line left at the end of a column) and an orphan (a single word or very short line left at the top of the following column).
• Way to combine typefaces in an effective manner. Don’t use fonts in the same type classification: Helvetica w Humanistic. Instead try Helvetica with a slab serif like Courier.   

Smokin’ Aces