Ezra Istiroti

Final Project is behind us now here at VFS and now it’s time to get ready for the next step.

This is our final term, and it’s not as easy as you might think. Even after our final delivery. We still have to create our demo reel, a sizzle demo, our brand and portfolio sites. On top of that, some of us are working on the Project SpaceSquid, which is intended to create an interactive magazine, mixing both a written magazine and an interactive experience. In my case, I’m creating the transitions for the interactive part in one of the stories that this whole piece is going to contain.
All of this, we have to achieve it in less than 26 days, time when our graduation takes place.

Right now, I’m trying to figure out how to migrate my blog to a new location to be able to keep track of both my new portfolio site and blog without loosing anything in between. All this while doing the demo and SpaceSquid at the same time. And let’s not forget our regular mandatory classes for this term.

Well, this sounds a lot to do in so many little time, but this is how this industry moves, a blazing fast paced schedule that in my opinion, is one of the best things to do.

I though on keeping you updated, so stay tuned to my next post, and hopefully, the link to my new site.

As always… I hope you Enjoy.

This is it.

This is our final step here at VFS, our final project is done and now it’s time to create our own brand, our image and portfolio so we can get out there and start working.

If you’ve been following me up to this point, you know all that has been put on this project. Over 330 hours of research, work and effort were put on the creation of this spot.

My idea was to create a T.V. Spot for a very well know performing arts school based in NYC. I can’t use their name in any publication I make, but they were really helpful while giving me their permission for using their name for any document printed at the school.

This theoretical rebrand for them gave me the ability to explore more on branding and motion design. Right now I’m just finishing up some details to be able to publish my case study here on the blog, as well as to show them what I’ve created.

These videos are the ones I delivered as my final project. I did three different variations to the main black and white version to show how the brand guide would apply to this same medium. All of the videos where created in both 24 and 60 frames per second and delivered in both compressions ready to be broadcasted in either T.V. or web based broadcast.

On my next post you’ll be able to see both my case study for this project, as well as the new videos with the final adjustments. Again, as I can’t publish their name so there won’t be any confusion about this being a reel rebrand for them, I need to make the necessary adjustments to my documents.

For now, this is what I created.

As always, I hope you Enjoy…

Black and White

Project J – Main Version Black&White from Ezra Istiroti on Vimeo.

Paper and Purple

Project J Paper&Purple from Ezra Istiroti on Vimeo.

Silver and Blue

Project J Silver&Blue from Ezra Istiroti on Vimeo.

Red and Green

Project J Red&Green from Ezra Istiroti on Vimeo.

As you may know, my project started on term 4 and now we are about to start term 6 here at VFS. Our last term.

My project is a student theoretical rebrand for a NYC based performing arts school. Their brand, as in my humble opinion, lacks the movement, the joy and passion that the arts are able to transmit. They are one of the greatest names in performing arts and I think that their Image, very sober and classical, could use a little more of movement so it can carry their mission and message to the new generations. I’ve almost finished my style guide for the new image brand and their “new” logo and now I’m on the production side of the TV Commercial.

Right now I’m on the postproduction of the video, as well as the sound design, creating the music wising different loops and special effects to enhance the experience.

Here are some images of my process in two of the main softwares I’m using, Adobe’s After Effects and Apple’s Logic Studio Pro.

Here is the After Effects screen capture image.

This image shows my composition on Adobe’s AE, in which because of the nature of the sequences, effects I’m using and the result I’m looking for I have to edit everything using two different timelines, and two different comp windows.

Here are the Logic screen capture Images.

This image shows some of the track layers and mixer that I’m using in Apple’s Logic. This is version six of the sound design for this project, I’ve been playing for almost 30 or 35 hours on the sound, and I still need to get the extra mile to get it where I want it to be.

As always… I hope you Enjoy.

A while ago, back in term 3 we created a video info graphic called “Terms & Conditions” which we started promoting it everywhere we could. It was the winner of the VFS impact awards on the Public Enlightenment category and it is now on contesting for the Adobe Design Achievement Awards. This info graphic is about Digital Rights Management and was featured on Michael Geist’s blog, one of the greatest names in Canada on this subject.

This little piece, created with a great team and support from the school staff is now winner of the Applied Arts Magazine Student Award and it’s featured on the AETuts+ page, in which also feature two other videos of mine, “Mrs. Eaves” and “Messing with Typo”

Here’s the link to the AETuts page, and here are all three pieces for you to watch them again.

As always… I hope you Enjoy.

Terms & Conditions from Ezra Istiroti on Vimeo.

Mrs. Eaves from Ezra Istiroti on Vimeo.

Messing With Typo from Ezra Istiroti on Vimeo.

Yesterday we had our last day of Term 5… and things start to get scary now. We have so much stuff to do and so little time.

We have two major projects now, our final project, which we have all of term 5 and the first two weeks into term 6 for production and delivery, and one School wide project with a code name of SpaceSquid; I know, it sounds strange, but hey, the name was not my idea. Project SpaceSquid is to create an interactive magazine for mobile devices, such as the iPad or the HP Tablet, other decision that is not ours to make.
This project involves several VFS departments such as Sound Design, VFS and 3D, Makeup, Digital Design and EBM which are the head of this whole thing. For everyone in the school this project was optional to take, and in two flavors, either as a final project or just as a side project, which is my case. I have to create the transitions between the interactions on the final product. So far, we’ve worked with some really great talent from different specialties, we have some great UI designer, Graphic designers and amazing Programers.

As for my final, I decided to go with my own idea. I want to create a 30 seconds TV commercial for the new image I created on term 4, all of this, to my “Client” which is a NYC Based performing arts academy.

This project involves a different approach to a brand identity. it has always been the idea that the brand should flow from top to bottom on the organization, but after talking with my mentor, Sergio Toporek, he pointed out a brand identity created by the great Stefan Sagmeister for Portugal’s “Casa Da Musica”. This brand is a dynamic brand, always changing and evolving, while keeping it’s foundation; we decided to do the same concept, applied to this specific project.

We had a lot of people helping us with this new idea, with the creation of several pieces that would be part of this brand. Here you can see some images from that day, which I thank all of that were there for their help and cooperation.

Right now I’m far advanced with the production of the TV Spot, and I’ll be posting some images from the shooting, the motion tests and final comps… and I hope you can understand my process ad I’ll try to share it with you.

Well, I’ll keep you posted as I move along the project. And I’ll do it more often as with all that’s been happening in both my personal and “professional” life… I’ve been kind of away from this.

As always, I hope you enjoy…

Well, we are almost done for term 5 here at VFS and I haven’t had time to upload anything to keep my blog up.

Term 4 was pretty easy going compared to other terms, we got a lot of good works done and some side projects going on.
I’ll talk about some of them here and some other on my next post regarding Term 5.

For Term 4 we had two major projects, one for Motion Design and one for Branding, which I’ll start with that one.

The Branding project consisted in either creating a new brand or choosing an existing one that we could make it better, in my case, I took the second one. Now, I’m not allowed to say their name yet, but they agreed to let me use their name for school, so this great performing arts schooled based in NYC is my client.

Their name is probably the biggest in the performing arts academic world, and their image is just bland… I personally feel that it lacks the movement, the music and passion that the arts evoke and provoke in people’s minds and hearts. And that’s why I decided to embark on this journey.  Which I’ll explain in further detail on my next post.

Also, for that term, we had the opportunity to create a title sequence for a real client, our teacher, Bienvenido Cruz, gave us 6 different projects that we could work on. The idea was to create the title sequence based on different productions that were on their initial state. “The producers” gave us the information about their projects, there were some different movies and one T.V. show that we could choose from. We got the production’s One Sheet for each movie to use that as our main inspiration.
This was a real challenge for us, as we had to create the whole concept out of a single page, and in some cases from just a couple of paragraphs.

Here you can take a look to the original document I used to pitch my idea as where I wanted to take this title sequence.

You can see the whole document here.

And after this whole process, here is the final result, showing what I got from that one sheet and what I thought would be the best treatment for this project, and finally, to carry the movie’s message right from the beginning.

John Doe Title Sequence from Ezra Istiroti on Vimeo.

As always, I hope you enjoy…

It’s been a while from my last post… and it’s been 8 months since my first post, when we started the Digital Design program at VFS, and time has gone flying without even a hint of what happened in the middle.

But that’s not all of it; right now I’m on term 5 out of 6 here at VFS, and time is starting to get as pressure on our shoulders. Not only from school, but also to decide what are we going to do after school, are we going to be able to find jobs? Are we going to still be in touch with our peers from DD16?

Regarding my projects, I’m still doing some research and finalizing the Re branding project for a school, which will be the outline for my final project. I know I mentioned this before but with the help of my mentor, Sergio Toporek, we are coming with a lot of great ideas for this project.

And you may also remember my Term 3 Motion Infographic project called “Terms & Conditions” which I worked with a great team, Ehab Kamal, Ana Mendez and Jordan Scott; well, this little piece won the VFS Impact awards on the “Public Enlightenment” category. Which you can watch it by Clicking Here.

These awards were created and fully organized by the Entertainment Business Management students at VFS and they did a really amazing job, thanx to them too.

You can find more information about the awards by going to their  Facebook page

Well, right now is time to keep working, and go back to a 3D render that I’m doing, which it’s been rendering for about 8 hours and it’s still calculating the caustics and irradiance cache.

I know this post has been a little bit of a mess and with no particular structure, but… that’s how things are right now.

As always, I hope you Enjoy…

Today was my first meeting with my mentor for the final project here at VFS. And to be honest, I never expected this.

As I mentioned on my last post, I’m working on the new image for a school, and I thought I was doing fine, I was happy with the outcomes and I was getting very excited about it. But I knew there was something missing about this whole new image, and it’s what’s missing for that brand.

I did some more research about my mentor, and even I already knew him, today, I was totally amazed by his skills; he basically said he didn’t like what I had so far and why the new image I was working on wouldn’t work. And I agreed with him, I knew there was something missing and after some brainstorming we got a completely new idea on a very different path from my original one.

Even if my final project is not about branding, it relies on this new brand image entirely. I pretend to create a TV commercial as well as the whole image package for their video content, both TV and web. I know I’ve been rambling about something missing about the image and all that, but you’ll get the idea on my next post… when you’ll have to help me with this project to.

Also this video showed me a lot today and it’s part of what we are trying to achieve. It’s a bit long, but it’s totally worth it.

For now that’s all I can say, and thanks to Sergio Toporek who helped me out with this amazing new concept.

I hope you’ll Enjoy…

The power of Time off

Well, Term 4 is about to finish and I haven’t upload much to my blog actually. Time has been flying so fast we haven’t had time to enjoy what this term had to offer. So here are some thought about this last term, more of a recap than anything else…

This term we were able to pick some elective courses which was something new to us… at least new at VFS were we got our schedules  with all the courses as mandatory ones. This gave us the opportunity  to get more into details about what we wanted to do.

Also, in this term we had to pitch the idea for our final project, which in my case, I want to create 2 commercial videos for a branding project.  The Idea is to create a compelling content using the new image I’m creating for a very know school in NYC. Of course, this is only a theoretical project and is not something they asked or wanted, but they have been really helpful and open to this new ideas. Although they have agreed to let me use their name to create this theoretical scenario, I rather not state their name yet… at least not until I have the release form and/or I’m done with this project.In which case I’ll present it to them to see their opinion.

On other subjects such as the Motion Design course, they gave us six different movies or projects that are in a development stage for which we had to create the title sequence… So stay tuned to see the final results.
Here’s an image for you to see on how the sequence is coming along so far. I still have to finish the color correction and treatment; but the Idea is there.

Finally, after pitching our ideas in front of several teachers and mentors, they decided who they are going to work with. We’ve been waiting for almost a week to know who our advisors are, and some information was leaking over the week, so we knew who was mentoring whom. Today I found who my mentor is, and I have to say that I’m really happy with him, as I know I can learn a lot from him… so I hope my final project is gonna be as good as I have it on my mind.

Well… I’ll keep posting more often, but for now… I hope you Enjoy.

Well, I’m still working on my Case study for last term’s info graphic, so here is another final project. This one it was for our print class and we were given the opportunity to create a poster for a new Aretha’s concert here in vancouver…
Here is the final image I did for the poster. I got some great feedback from the teacher regarding the typography, but I didn’t want to show you the final version yet… I’m still doing some changes.

Also, here is the Design Document for this project. Just click on the link to view it.

As always, I hope you Enjoy…