I've noticed a huge surge in work from the USA recently - I think the weak pound has actually done me a huge favour! I've always got a buzz out of knowing that my work is being seen by hundreds of thousands of people every week around the UK, so to know that it's also being seen across the pond is another huge buzz for me!
Speaking of ponds, my stock footage on Pond5.com has also seen a huge increase in sales over the last couple of months, and as the footage is sold in dollars I'm benefitting from the weak pound that way too!
With the media contstantly doom-mongering about the recession, I think it's vital not to get sucked in to all that, and focus on the positive things - the above is a great example of how it's not all bad news!
Friday, 27 March 2009
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Forthcoming DVD releases
I'm currently working on 4 DVD titles which will be released over the next few months:
* Nineties - Nineties themed visuals to compliment the existing 70s and 80s titles.
* Kids Party - Designed primarily for mobile discos who cater for kids parties, featuring clowns, balloons, cakes, etc. This title will hopefully also appeal to parents holding parties for their kids.
* Pride - A collection of cool rainbow-themed visuals aimed at gay pride events
And one other title which I'm keeping under wraps :-)
* Nineties - Nineties themed visuals to compliment the existing 70s and 80s titles.
* Kids Party - Designed primarily for mobile discos who cater for kids parties, featuring clowns, balloons, cakes, etc. This title will hopefully also appeal to parents holding parties for their kids.
* Pride - A collection of cool rainbow-themed visuals aimed at gay pride events
And one other title which I'm keeping under wraps :-)
Sunday, 1 March 2009
Upgraded to CS4
I've finally got around to upgrading my Adobe suite of software to the latest version - CS4.
I skipped the last release (CS3) so there's big differences in all of the applications.
It's great to finally have a working version of Adobe Bridge (the version included with Production Studio Premium was just hopelessly buggy). With thousands of stock footage and backgrounds to wade through it's going to be a massive time saver to be able to index it all in Bridge.
All of the apps are looking very neat - the user interfaces are much slicker and compact making better use of the available screen space.
I've just been playing with the Puppet Tool in After Effects and can see that's going to be very useful. Character animation is something I've always shyed away from in the past, but the puppet tool will allow me to tackle this in the future.
The Layer Styles and Shape Layers (which were introduced in AE CS3) are also going to be incredibly useful (although I find it unbelievable that it took this long to implement these very obvious features!)
It's a shame GridIron haven't released an update to allow Nucleo Pro to run in CS4, although I can understand them focusing their efforts on getting GridIron Flow released as I believe this will be a truly groundbreaking piece of software.
Adobe's aquisition of Macromedia has meant that Flash is included with the Creative Suite which will be very useful to have on hand, as I'm being asked to produce more and more video for the web, and whilst After Effects can produce FLV files, you need Flash to be able to produce a SWF file which is what clients expect.
The OnLocation video capture software which is included looks useful, particularly as I'm planning to invest in an HD camera later in the year.
I haven't had a chance to play with Soundbooth yet, so am looking forward to trying that out - I've been using a very out of date version of Wavelab for audio editing for far too long now and hope Soundbooth will provide an better alternative!
I skipped the last release (CS3) so there's big differences in all of the applications.
It's great to finally have a working version of Adobe Bridge (the version included with Production Studio Premium was just hopelessly buggy). With thousands of stock footage and backgrounds to wade through it's going to be a massive time saver to be able to index it all in Bridge.
All of the apps are looking very neat - the user interfaces are much slicker and compact making better use of the available screen space.
I've just been playing with the Puppet Tool in After Effects and can see that's going to be very useful. Character animation is something I've always shyed away from in the past, but the puppet tool will allow me to tackle this in the future.
The Layer Styles and Shape Layers (which were introduced in AE CS3) are also going to be incredibly useful (although I find it unbelievable that it took this long to implement these very obvious features!)
It's a shame GridIron haven't released an update to allow Nucleo Pro to run in CS4, although I can understand them focusing their efforts on getting GridIron Flow released as I believe this will be a truly groundbreaking piece of software.
Adobe's aquisition of Macromedia has meant that Flash is included with the Creative Suite which will be very useful to have on hand, as I'm being asked to produce more and more video for the web, and whilst After Effects can produce FLV files, you need Flash to be able to produce a SWF file which is what clients expect.
The OnLocation video capture software which is included looks useful, particularly as I'm planning to invest in an HD camera later in the year.
I haven't had a chance to play with Soundbooth yet, so am looking forward to trying that out - I've been using a very out of date version of Wavelab for audio editing for far too long now and hope Soundbooth will provide an better alternative!
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Tip for all After Effects users!
If the save dialogue box pops up randomly, for gods sake use it to save a backup copy of your project!
I've often found that if AE crashes unexpectedly it will pop up the save window without necessarily warning you that it has crashed (which it usually does when it crashes) - if you close the window it will usually be followed by some evil Runtime error and AE disappearing!
(The first few times this happened, I crossed off the window, only to lose my work! Needless to say, I've learned to always save a backup copy when this happens!)
I've often found that if AE crashes unexpectedly it will pop up the save window without necessarily warning you that it has crashed (which it usually does when it crashes) - if you close the window it will usually be followed by some evil Runtime error and AE disappearing!
(The first few times this happened, I crossed off the window, only to lose my work! Needless to say, I've learned to always save a backup copy when this happens!)
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
What's in a name?
Something that continues to niggle me is my company name, "Phil Bearman Creative Media Solutions" - here's the story/explanation/excuse for it!:
The name started out in my freelance lighting designer days as "Phil Bearman Lighting Designer" which was fair enough (the only problem being that it didn't fit on my bank cards which had to read Phil Bearman LD!)
So when I moved into motion graphics I need to change the name. This was the perfect opportunity to come up with something a bit original, but despite hours of brainstorming and suggestions from friends and family I just couldn't find a name that I liked that wasn't already in use by somebody else. So I accepted defeat and carried on using my own name. The trouble was, at the time I was trying to do website design, motion graphics, graphic design work and more, so I needed a name that would encompass all of that, and that's where the dreadful 'Creative Media Solutions' came from!
Now I've streamlined my business it would be more accurate to change it to Phil Bearman Motion Graphics or similar, but the hassle and cost of changing the company name outweighs any benefit. Plus, as a friend pointed out to me, the company name is actually well established and known (some people know the company as just 'Creative Media Solutions'), and as the old saying goes 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'.
So, for now at least, the company continues to be Phil Bearman Creative Media Solutions (and continues to be abbreviated on the bank cards - to Phil Bearman CMS!)
The name started out in my freelance lighting designer days as "Phil Bearman Lighting Designer" which was fair enough (the only problem being that it didn't fit on my bank cards which had to read Phil Bearman LD!)
So when I moved into motion graphics I need to change the name. This was the perfect opportunity to come up with something a bit original, but despite hours of brainstorming and suggestions from friends and family I just couldn't find a name that I liked that wasn't already in use by somebody else. So I accepted defeat and carried on using my own name. The trouble was, at the time I was trying to do website design, motion graphics, graphic design work and more, so I needed a name that would encompass all of that, and that's where the dreadful 'Creative Media Solutions' came from!
Now I've streamlined my business it would be more accurate to change it to Phil Bearman Motion Graphics or similar, but the hassle and cost of changing the company name outweighs any benefit. Plus, as a friend pointed out to me, the company name is actually well established and known (some people know the company as just 'Creative Media Solutions'), and as the old saying goes 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'.
So, for now at least, the company continues to be Phil Bearman Creative Media Solutions (and continues to be abbreviated on the bank cards - to Phil Bearman CMS!)
Saturday, 7 February 2009
Night Magazine
I've spent today putting together a magazine advert to go in February's NIGHT Magazine - it will be going with an article about my business, so if you read NIGHT, keep an eye out for it! I'll post a link to the article once it goes online.
One of my friends is a sales and marketing guru, so as usual I've had his input on the design which is always very helpful.
It's easy to get tunnel vision when you're running a business and I think it's essential to ask for, and act on other people's ideas and opinions, particularly when they are more experienced than you in an area - it's SO important to act on the advice rather than just acknowledging it and then convincing yourself that you know better!
One of my friends is a sales and marketing guru, so as usual I've had his input on the design which is always very helpful.
It's easy to get tunnel vision when you're running a business and I think it's essential to ask for, and act on other people's ideas and opinions, particularly when they are more experienced than you in an area - it's SO important to act on the advice rather than just acknowledging it and then convincing yourself that you know better!
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Early Spring Clean
Ok, so it's not Spring, but I'm always pleased to see the back of January - it's just such a depressing month, particularly so this year with the constant doom-mongering of the media over the so-called 'Credit Crunch'!
So feeling all upbeat and positive, I decided it was time for another big sort-out of my PCs, and have spent the day tidying up files (it's amazing how much crap you can collect in 'My Documents'!), organising Internet bookmarks, defragging, removing unused software, archiving old work, and fixing little niggling problems such as my DVD printer taking forever to start printing.
I've long been of the opinion that it's better to leave PCs on permanently. Ok, it's not very 'green', and some would argue that it puts a lot of unnecessary wear on components, but my PCs are set up to run scheduled house-keeping tasks such as virus scanning overnight meaning that they are always ready to roll each morning. It also means Emails are downloaded instantly preventing my inbox filling up with large files that clients have sent).
My oldest PC is still running fast and flawlessly after 5 years, so I think that speaks for itself!
UPDATE
Mentioning my 'green-ness' prompted me to take the WWF Eco Footprint test which I saw on Not Easy Being Green earlier this week... To be honest I thought I'd score really badly, but I came out at 2.22 planets, which is apparantly below the UK average! I don't feel so bad about leaving those PCs on now :-)
So feeling all upbeat and positive, I decided it was time for another big sort-out of my PCs, and have spent the day tidying up files (it's amazing how much crap you can collect in 'My Documents'!), organising Internet bookmarks, defragging, removing unused software, archiving old work, and fixing little niggling problems such as my DVD printer taking forever to start printing.
I've long been of the opinion that it's better to leave PCs on permanently. Ok, it's not very 'green', and some would argue that it puts a lot of unnecessary wear on components, but my PCs are set up to run scheduled house-keeping tasks such as virus scanning overnight meaning that they are always ready to roll each morning. It also means Emails are downloaded instantly preventing my inbox filling up with large files that clients have sent).
My oldest PC is still running fast and flawlessly after 5 years, so I think that speaks for itself!
UPDATE
Mentioning my 'green-ness' prompted me to take the WWF Eco Footprint test which I saw on Not Easy Being Green earlier this week... To be honest I thought I'd score really badly, but I came out at 2.22 planets, which is apparantly below the UK average! I don't feel so bad about leaving those PCs on now :-)
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