GERIK

Let’s jump right in, shall we?

 

GOOD READS

Erik Spiekermann on breathing new life into unfinished fonts, not working for assholes and how nothing comes for free

“Having fewer choices is refreshing. So is slowing down. It’s like making your own food rather than eating from a cardboard box. It’s also quite romantic to make something by hand that didn’t exist before.”

Don’t Be Scared of Being Repetitive.

“Sometimes, our ideas might fail, simply because we haven’t gotten them across in the right way.”

4 Daily Habits For Creatives To Stay Inspired At All Times

Creative magic happens when you stop fearing the fear

The most important skill nobody taught you

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

The Scientific Method For Sparking And Growing Your Kid’s Imagination

‘Conan,’ ‘2 Dope Queens’ Editor Meaghan Wilbur Brews Up Laughs

5 Lessons in Creativity From Maurice Sendak

TECH

Get better audio for your iPhone with RØDE’s new VideoMic Me-L

Thinking about picking one of these up for myself.

 

COOL MOGRAPH

 

READ A BOOK

Current book I’m reading is “Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity” by Hugh MacLeod

I just cracked it open, but so far I’m really enjoying it. I’ve enjoyed Hugh’s artwork for a long time too on social media.
Check out his website.

 

AMAZING SHORT DOCUMENTARY

 

HERE’S MY PREMIERE PRO TIP OF THE WEEK

 

Hold down the Option+Command keys then click and drag your clip to swap it with another clip in your timeline.

 

GOOD STUFF VIA EMAIL?

So far I’ve had a few people express interest in getting this vial an email newsletter. THANK YOU! If you’re interested in joining them let me know by filling out the form below. Once I see that a significant number of people have signed up I’ll get started!

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It’s been a meh kind of week as far as collecting good stuff. But here it is anyway, my list of stuff that tripped my trigger over the past 7 days.

I finished a big project this week. I eluded to it last Friday. We shortened the deadline so what normally I take a week to edit I edited realtime as we were shooting and then had an extra day to finish it up. So compared to what I normally produce from this event it’s not my best effort I feel. But it all worked out. Here’s the final product.

Here’s a quote I’ve been pondering.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” ~Mark Twain

It reminded me of something I had written on a notebook in college during a year of adjusting. It was a time of hard classes, struggling with some learning disabilities, being newly married, and working a couple of jobs. I wrote on my notebook:

“If you are not ahead, you’re behind.”

Music Inspiration

I just watched a doc on Netflix the other night called “808” — I didn’t find it to be a particularly great documentary but it was fun if you grew up in the ’70s and ’80s and hearing the music evolve.

So because of that, I’ve been diving back into some old but new to me music. In particular Felix Da Housecat:

and 808 State:

The Don’ts of Film Editing

You should follow film editor Vashi Nedomansky (@vashikoo) on twitter. He posts great stuff.

 

Speaking of working as a professional

Motionographer has a really good article called “A Quick Reflection on Professionalism”

Here’s some other great articles I came across this week that I found worthy of a read, I hope you do too.

How the Instagram Algorithm Works in 2018: Everything You Need to Know

‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’: What is Marion Ravenwood Holding When Indiana Jones Shows Up?

‘Be the bucket that catches the rain’: Ed Morris on why creatives should embrace coincidence

Dealing With Impostor Syndrome When You’re Treated as an Impostor

 

Here’s an Adobe After Effects tip I picked up not long ago

Did you know 120×120 pixels divides evenly between 1920 and 1080?

If you use Adobe After Effects at all, at some point, you’ll appreciate that little tidbit of info.

 

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I’ve been in the midst of a big project at work which involves about 850 kids and 750 adults. All week we’ve been turning out photos, videos, and social media updates. It’s been fun and exhausting. My next hurdle is taking the whole week and distilling it down to a 90-second highlight reel. Wish me luck.

And now. . . The Good Stuff

Sir Don McCullin In Kolkata

I’ve been a fan of Don McCullin’s work for a long time. It’s inspiring to see a man at his age still producing and creating work that gets him excited. Despite this video being basically an ad for Canon gear I still loved watching it.

 

Why a “perfect” ending isn’t always the best option

I really liked hearing this storytelling flow breakdown of following an external journey and the internal journey.
1. A sequence of events

2. It made me feel like this

3. Which meant . . .

 

Hold up!!

The mograph community is all abuzz about Hold Frame. This is a site that provides a “highly curated collection of project files to purchase for educational purposes from some of the best in the animation and motion design community.” It’s pretty amazing.

 

Here are some things that are inspiring me this week

The work of Molly Scannell

Jill Senft’s “Treemendous” zine about trees and puns

Eleanor Shakespeare reveals how she creates photomontages on a tight deadline

 

Bookmarkable

Here’s a couple of articles I made sure to save in my bookmarks, you might want to do the same.

Public Speaking is Terrifying—6 Ways to Deliver Like a Pro

The 4 Phases Of Developing Your Creative Voice

 

Premiere Pro Tip of the Week

I’ve been on a tight deadline this week cutting the aforementioned highlight reel as footage is coming in. There’s a lot of footage. I found that once I placed a clip in a sequence somewhere sometimes I often would want to go back and find that clip in the project folder. I was doing this numerous times during each edit session. I got tired of Right-Clicking the clip in the sequence to activate the drop-down menu to find the “Reveal in Project”. So I went in and created a Keyboard Shortcut for it. For me, I just made it “Option+R”

 

 

Ok, that’s it for me this week. Time to put the equipment away.

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Welcome back to The Good Stuff. I was able to make it another week. I’ve kept track of all the great stuff I’ve come across this last week and I’m sharing it with you, here, right now. But first, here’s a joke my daughter left for me on my desk. “A ham sandwich walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, ‘Sorry, we don’t serve food here.'”

These Opening Titles are Delicious

Here’s a break down on how they were made. I’ll be going back to this for inspiration a lot.

Let’s Read Some Stuff

Every story in the world has one of these six basic plots

Here’s a deep dive into what Film Editors do

Made in Frame: The Conan O’Brien Show – this is a great behind the scenes of what it takes to edit together a travel segment on a tight deadline.

A Peek Inside the Extraordinary Life of Fred Beckey – A look at how a documentary utilizes Adobe Creative Cloud in post-production.

 

Here’s my Premiere Pro Tip of the week

Hold down the Option (alt) key and click a tool in your toolbar to cycle through the various options. Because sometimes I have trouble clicking just right to get the dropdown to work.

 

Freebie Font

This week I grabbed this font for free. MD Tall is a “unique font that features elongated condensed letters, making it perfect for titles, marketing & advertising.”

Mac Hack

How to Add an Airdrop Shortcut to Your Mac’s Doc – I love this so much. I use Airdrop all the time and this will make things a little easier.

 

My Desk

I recently cleaned my desk up at home. Here’s a picture of it. What’s yours look like? Tweet me a photo to @gerik

 

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