Silk Soy & Almond Milk Is Pretty Good

My family has been drinking soy milk for a while now, so I felt pretty prepared when I had the opportunity to provide the soundtrack for the latest Silk TV ad campaign. A song of mine called Rolling Hills turned out to be just the right fit for this short tale about a Wisconsin family that switched over to Silk for 10 days ("Silk for Milk," as they call it). Check out the commercial below...

So there you go. Job well done. Now comes the quick self-promotion/whoring attempt: 

For anyone interested in licensing my music, please contact me. I have an extensive library of unique and entirely original music available... and I also do custom songs and scoring. Great, thanks.

The Illustrious Todd Hammer

Kevin Larry Throws A Day Away With Todd Hammer. What can I say about this video? Well... we came up with this great idea, and then proceeded to not write anything (aside from backstory) before shooting. We spent days creating the character of Todd Hammer, and planning out every little detail of his strange life... and then we left everything to improv. We shot for one whole day, and beyond that, there was nothing besides editing tricks to save us.

In the end, I think that Jon (Armstrong, Co-Director) and I would both say that this was a fun project to make, and I believe that Kevin and Billy play their characters incredibly well... but the humor is just so dry and specific that, as my wife puts it, she "didn't laugh once." You had better believe that review is going on the back of the DVD case!

And that's my big sell. This is basically a grown-up version of the kind of videos my friends and I used to make back in high school... so I love it. Regardless of my admission that this may not be an utter homerun, I still recommend giving it a watch. I'm definitely proud of the editing. I mean, it's improv, so a lot of the pacing is based on the actors' deliveries, but there's also plenty of conversations that had to be constructed from mismatched, random clips. Also, it's worth watching just to see two of the funniest guys I know trying to out-awkward the other one. There's definitely some real pleasure in watching the subtleties of these two... I guess you could say it's a character piece. Maybe?

It was a fun project to work on... and hey, it's definitely watchable. Actually, I don't care if you like it or not.

The Bloodfest Club: High School Janitor Vs. Evil

My most recently completed website is this concoction for some filmmakers from the area. The Bloodfest Club is their latest film, which is currently in the works. The award-winning, feature-length script (check out the impressive collection of 'laurels' on the homepage) was pulled from in order for them to shoot a short to help raise funds for the full-length... and from what I understand, that short is in post-production now, so keep your eyes out for it.

What I put together for them is an utterly simple, easy to update, Squarespace site. Because this site is mainly meant to promote the short film, we decided to keep it basic and relatively clean for a horror film (well, horror-comedy)... with the intention that the site for the full-length version would be much more action-packed and exciting. Plus, quite frankly, they're raising funds now to shoot that film... it didn't make sense to spend a ton of time and money on this site... but using Squarespace, I was able to make something that feels polished enough to be professional, but still with that sprinkle of fun in there.

No, it's not some mind-blowing, break-all-the-rules design, but it does what it needs to... plus it totally compliments the 80's, right? The red used on the page, instead of being a blood-red, is the red color that 80's horror movie titles were often done in (I did multiple screen-grabs to sample just the right color). It also reminds me of when you see blood in a cheesy horror movie and its just not the right color at all. You know, comically wrong. I think that phrase actually encapsulates everything we were going for with this... comically wrong.

I'm excited to see where this project goes... it's definitely one to watch. I mean, seriously... who wouldn't be stoked about seeing the horror version of The Breakfast Club? I know am.

www.bloodfestclub.com

Montell Jordan Knows How He Does It

I did this album cover more than a year ago, and as far as design goes, it's nothing groundbreaking... but it was fun. This was a digital-only greatest hits album, and although it's a somewhat random job, I think it's kinda cool. I used to jam out to this dude when I was in high school, so this brought back some memories. I put This Is How We Do It on repeat (for a couple times through... didn't want to completely ruin the song) and put together some concepts one night... and what you see to the left, as the final version, is one of those original concepts. The only change I made was swapping out the album name once that decision was finalized. 

Exciting stuff, right? Yeah, thrilling. Sometimes when I under-design something, I feel like my client is going to think I'm being lazy... but a good client gets it, if it works. Montell gets it.

Cofactor: Still Sequencin' DNA All Day

I recently got to create this magazine ad for Cofactor Genomics, which was (for such a scientific company) actually a lot of fun. We initially sat down with a lot of ideas as to what this ad needed to convey, but the big goal was to say it more creatively than most of the other ads they would be competing with in various scientific publications. We settled on this idea of the "cup game" and suggesting that there's an obvious choice. It's not groundbreaking, but it was a fun way to get their message across: better results, faster. If you choose Cofactor first, you'll get what you're looking for (and more) in a fraction of the time.

So, with the idea in-hand, I set out to make it happen. I had an impromptu photo shoot on the coffee table in our living room, which had to look pretty ridiculous. I had several large lights set up to photograph three styrofoam cups. As per usual, my wife thought I was nuts... but as you can see, the end result looks great. 

Whenever I can, I like to take my own photography. Not only am I able to get exactly what I was looking for, but it helps give my projects even more of a custom look. A little creativity and a camera can take you a long way.