Samsung Video: Designing for the Galaxy Note - MultiWindow Apps

The last of the Designing for the Galaxy Note range videos was an interesting one to film. Originally Samsung Developer Platform Evangelist Extrodinaire Keith Bauwise took the reigns and we shot it in Staines while he was a bit under the weather.

Samsung Video: Creating S Pen Apps

Doing our bit from Staines, we carried on from introducing the SDK, looking at actually using some of the S Pen features to create apps. Keith decided to wear a blue shirt, despite being chroma keyed against a blue wall he was happy enough (no-one mention the blue-rinse!)

Samsung Video: Samsung Developers Title Sequence

So this video became a little more complicated when I was asked to update the corporate graphics which had changed since the last time we asked about branding materials. The Samsung Developers brand has a new funky look and feel to it, but no assets from the usual mysterious agency in Korea.

Without further ado, I got busy with some Red Bull and some Motion to make something interesting!

this is what I do: 2011 Test Flash movie

Found this while checking through my YouTube channel and thought I should make it live... The final version (in Flash) was used in the Commerce: Making money with bada video made in 2011.

appsworld 2012 shaped obstacle

So it's been about a month now since my last post, announcing work on the S Pen tutorial video and it's been a good experience so far. After shooting all the direct to camera, we recorded all the audio, leaving me able to go away and start chopping it out into scenes. I was quite happily sailing along, one eye on Motion, one on Final Cut when Apps World 2012 rushed us from a dark alleyway.

Same time every year - Diamond Sponsors 2012

Post vacation content planning

So this is my 2nd day back at work from my week and a half vacation and I've just submitted our most recent technical script for review. This video, looking at the S Pen SDK for the Galaxy Note devices should be a lot quicker to produce than usual, as I'm really pushing to not have any presenters on screen for speed of production. 

The S Pen (S is for SUPERFREAKINGAMAZING)

We've used a technical presentation as a storyboard but I'll create all the animations in Motion to improve the look and feel. I'm looking forward to getting started on this project as Motion is a great tool to play around with.

Samsung Video: The UK Developer Programme

The Brief - Come up with a teaser introduction video to show at events, with no budget ASAP.

I set about writing some scripted lines for everyone, thinking I'd splice them all together in post production, but when we started filming everyone wanted to freestyle it and say something 'like' what had been carefully written for them. Not wanting to cause any offence I let them get to it and we ended up with some good content.

Samsung Video: UI Scalability

Just finished my most recent project, which ended up taking twice as long as normal, although I learnt a hell of a lot about keyframing and 3D camera's in Motion while making this video. We shot the DTC footage in one go, but the battery on the wireless mic ran out, so we had to re-shoot. I did a very rough cut in FCPX, before realising the audio needed producing into false stereo, or dual channel mono via MPEG StreamClip, rather than dual channel mono in FCPX. I muted all the non-voice over audio, then exported just the audio from the whole project. Then I converted that whole track into dual mono with MPEG StreamClip and re-imported it into FCPX. As I carried on editing, some parts fell out of synch, but those were quickly trimmed and lined back up again (slightly laborious but quite fun looking for word shapes on a zoomed in pair of lips...<shudder>)

Evaluating Pixelmator as a Photoshop Replacement

As I'm currently between video projects and our IT department has given away my license for Photoshop, I'm trying out Pixelmator as a very cheap alternative. As most of the image processing I end up doing ends up being used in either Motion or FCPX as video assets, so it needs to be able to handle high quality potentially large files and produce vector based graphics for print.

£10 on the App Store! 

Thoughts so far - The UI is nice, icons expand when selected and the look and feel of the menu system is very similar to Photoshop for all you pro's. There seem to be hundres of effects/filters you can apply (no auto draw for crap artists like me!)

Samsung Video: MWC App Demo Playlist

Just before MWC I was asked to supply some demo content showing off the Wave 3, and a selection of approved apps. This was a fun little project before the bigger show.



As you can see I used a standard 3.5mm male to male headphone lead to capture the audio coming straight out of the device and played through the apps with a camera in front of me recording my movements. The static TapTu, Accuweather and SkyView were screen grabbed right off the device, but TinTin, Asphalt6 and The Sims 3 needed some movement and interaction.

Apparently they broke up the presentation a little and were generally well received, which is always nice to hear :-)

Samsung Video: Using the bada Test Kit

It's always a proud moment when you are asked to make a video for someone. Enthusiasm is high, people involved are energised and your reputation is alive, well and wearing its suit and tie.  



Then you realise, you've got no assets and no light box to create on-device footage.... Still I think in terms of simulation and footage nabbed off the developer site it's not a bad video. I also got to use some of our excellent, but LOCOG un-approved Olympic themes designed by my talented friend Nick over at TwoTrees Graphics & Publishing.

The moral of the story - get the clearance, before you run the interference.

Samsung Video: Commerce:Making money with bada

So I thought it would be a good idea to do a video about in-app advertising and in-app purchasing, as these offer viable long tail realistic revenue streams (if done well, with quality content).

Trouble was, we needed an example app... This time round, in honor of friend/intern we worked with some time ago, we dreamt one up called "KatManDoo". I created the app simulation in Flash (not as hard as I expected), then exported the finished simulation as a movie file. This was then dropped into a blank Samsung Wave Phone picture frame and left to play out/be edited/stretched etc to fit the audio.



I created the title sequence by mocking up some dramatic still images from the fictional app, Photoshopping a layer on them and importing the final TIFF images into Motion to drop the text over. The music used is a GarageBand 8-beat tabla sample from their Keyboard Collection range.

I had good fun making this one!

Samsung Video: Multimedia in bada

One of the earlier FCPX Videos, this one featured infamous Keith Bauwise walking us through the concept of Multimedia in bada.



The audio on this one hasn't held up well. The hiss is frustratingly noticeable and the fade points are too severe. On a good note, my first motion work debuts 0.47 seconds in, transforming a simple UML diagram (courtesy of yuml.me) into a 3D background to conceptually guide you through the bada classes.

We played around with this towards the end, using Photo Booth on the MacBook Pro to simulate the webcam recording that demonstrates recording & playback. We didn't go to the pub, but the thought was there...

Samsung Video: "bada - Familiar Foundations" parts 1 & 2

As I made sure we captured the audio and left a camera running at our highly enjoyable Orange Lab developer event, I was able to create two nice videos featuring Jon Landsell running through a comparison of bada and the other major mobile OS.

Samsung Video: "BuddyFix - A New Way To Get Social'

So we wanted to create an advert for our in-house app "BuddyFix' and as Natasha was happy to help out, we devised a little plot and took the camera into London for a day's filming.. I know the weather wasn't the greatest, but what can you do when you're all there ready to go?


I had to keep the gratuitous bus stop bottom shot in... The music is a standard iLife tune - Would have preferred to create something unique, but we were a little pushed for time in the end. Good fun to shoot though in and around London.