visual madness

Music: “Run” by Air (iTunes)

History:

I made this video to demonstrate an application of the Visa Switch from Smooth Operations. While the method for this effect isn’t very practical in and of itself (you’ll know why – I accidentally flash in the video at one point), I hope the visual nature of the routine will inspire some of you to come up with a better, alternative approach.

Special thanks to Allan Hagen for helping me out with the video export settings. Click here to watch it in HD.

Music: “In the Bath” by Lemon Jelly (iTunes)

While a trailer for a book might seem an absurd concept, we felt that it would demonstrate the visual nature of the book’s material enough for people to want to buy it. Originally, we set out to film the trailer at the Disney Concert Hall (the same place they shot the trailer for Surfaced), but weather conditions led to us abandoning that idea. Instead, we ended up shooting it Dave’s room on a maroon tablecloth – one of the reasons the video was rendered in black and white.

Smooth Operations is available in both book form and PDF, so grab your copy if you haven’t already!

-Kev

Music: “Black Tambourine” by Beck (iTunes)

History:

Admittedly, there’s nothing really new in this tutorial. So while the actual technical aspects of this flourish aren’t anything ground-breaking, what I still hope to communicate by teaching it was the idea of combining several different moves to create one, flowing motion.

Special thanks to my friend Ryan Ramirez for lending me his camera to shoot this.

-Kev

Music: “Brother Down” by Sam Roberts (iTunes)

History:

As previously mentioned, Lunch wif Dan would not be the last of my encounters with the Brothers Buck. In November of 2007, the twins were in LA for the weekend, and asked if I wanted to meet up with them for a little session of sorts. We ended up going to The Getty, and in addition to showing each other what we’d come up with in the past year, we also got to look around at some of the sweet galleries there.

On our way out of the museum, I mentioned that I brought my camera, and the brothers suggested that we film something for the media section of their site. Dave and I took turns filming each other, and we ended up with about an hour of footage altogether. All in all it was a fun day, and it’s a shame that some of the funniest events weren’t captured on tape.

The editing process for the video took way longer than expected. Not that it was difficult, necessarily – I just didn’t have time to do it while finishing up my first semester in college. Finally, during my winter break in Singapore, I went over to Daren‘s house for the night to get the thing done and over with. Starting at 9pm at night, we stocked ourselves full of instant noodles and caffeine and finally finished at about 11 in the morning. So even though I walked around like a zombie for the rest of the day, it was worth it to finally see it all come together.

Fun Fact: The vanish during the credits isn’t a camera trick.

-Kev

Music: “Believe” by The Bravery (iTunes)

History:

I first came up with this move in 2004 in an attempt at minimalistic flourishing: I wanted to see how much action I could squeeze out of just two packets. The move got featured in my video HFFH, and for a while after that I kind of forgot about it.

Sometime in 2007 I came up with a more flowing way to end it than the original TG Deck Flip method. Although I had come up with the move independently, after showing it to my friend Huron it turns out that he had come up with the same thing before. With his permission, I published this tutorial along with the new ‘Swivel’ closer.

-Kev