Tedvid | Motion Design | Motionography | Videography | Film » Typography

Psalms 122 and 123

Ted — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 02:30:09 +0000

Above is a video I put together for our Prayer Awakening weekend at FWCM. The theme was “Psalms of Ascent” which is a name given to Psalms 120-134. I also did the artwork for it as well which you can check out below.

I actually started work on a very different style of video and after getting about halfway through decided to scrap it and start over. I much prefer what resulted….

The video needed to be subdued so that people could absorb and meditate on it (the scripture in the video, not the video itself obviously) as it was being watched. It also needed to capture in some manner what is happening in the scripture. I made use of the repeated “LORD” and built the mountains around it to play with the figure-ground relationship. Also, it’s just a voice over in the clip, but there was some synth over the top of it live. Both have unique feels. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Typography is.

Ted — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:38:25 +0000

Skip to the third paragraph if typography bores you

I have come to recently understand how important type is not only in design, but in video. As a consequence, I am currently reading The Elements of Typographic Style. I have heard it is a “must read” for anyone seeking good type in their creations.

I have already made a couple adjustments to tedvid.com based on what I have been reading. Unfortunately I have not read the entire thing, which means I’m certain that though I may have corrected myself in one or two areas, it probably has created other issues elsewhere. Nevertheless, I hope to eventually have a solid enough grasp on typography that I can hold a decently intelligent conversation over the matter.

Now for the life-type connection

This new interest in typography is more of a life transition than anything. All of high school up through your general education courses in college, you are hit over the head repeatedly with a broad base of potential life skills. Yes, you begin to formulate what you are going to do as early as the day you could say a combination of the words “fire” and “man” but you are at such risk of changing your mind five or six hundred times that the educators and purveyors (I just wanted to say purveyors) of our world find it necessary that you simply learn a little about a lot until you figure things out.

However, I am done with the bulk of my general education courses, I only have a year and a half of school left and life is coming at me fast. And to be honest, I’m excited. Now that I have been doing what I love for some time and realize that video and the web are (to use a very early 2000s buzz word) converging, I can begin to hone my skills in all of the unnoticeably noticeable aspects of videography and motionography. To clarify: those parts of a video that make it excellent, reputable and set apart but are not readily apparent to the average viewer.

Also, just as I have begun to focus on these “unnoticeably noticeable” aspects of video-making, I have also began to work on these things in my personal life. As most of you know, I am a Christian. And for those of you who didn’t know – I’m not afraid of your initial reaction to that statement. Everyone has a different response to that word based on their experiences with people – good or bad. I have grown up in the church (I’m even the son of a minister), seen absolutely ridiculous things happen and while I think most people see this as a way to discredit Christianity, I have had just the opposite reaction. I believe it affirms Christianity. And if you want to ask more about why I believe this, you can email me: ted@tedvid.com or comment. I can promise an honest, gentle response.

So as I work on letting God correct my imperfections by being made more fully aware that the imperfections of man are only made complete in Christ, I will also be letting Robert Bringhurst bring to light my typographic mistakes. *Note: these two things are in the same sentence, but no on the same plane of importance ; ) haha!

Thanks for reading.

Ted

Modern Glitch

Ted — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:25:50 +0000

Everything I’ve seen from people who are attending/have attended the Vancouver Film School Foundation has been intriguing. I told you yesterday that I’d feature another Ryan Smith video today so here you have it. My friend, Brad Ulrich, pointed out to me when I showed this to him yesterday that it has some semblance of this piece and I definitely agree that there is some inspiration drawn from it.

Digging the old billboards in this one a ton.

- Ted

Vampire Weekend and Typography

Ted — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:00:46 +0000

Although there are parts of this I think could be improved upon. The idea from June Harrild is just wonderful. I would love it if bands actually commissioned someone to do this to correspond with the song and the standard music video because I think it really helps bring clarity out of songs like Vampire Weekend’s typical stuff. Plus, it also more clearly lays out the specific lyrics for those of us who have a tendency to not realize they’ve been singing a song wrong for years (notice I did not fully admit anything there). Anyway, motion typography + Vampire Weekend = a good start to your Wednesday morning, am I right?

(Best sequence is from 2:40-2:45 in my opinion)

- Ted

Know God // Know Life

Ted — Wed, 26 May 2010 18:30:16 +0000

I stumbled across this Photomotion Video from Benjamin Dowie last night while browsing through Vimeo. It’s amazing what you can come upon sometimes. This not only is beautifully shot (with a Canon 40D according to the Vimeo description) it was well organized. Proof that planning is essential in good video of any kind. Plus, I like the message. Enjoy!

- Ted

Papyrus

Ted — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:18:10 +0000

So I’ve been doing a little work lately: taking the time to come up with a script, developing shot sequencing, and etc.

Shocked? Me too.

Anyway, all of this is going to be coming out in the form of the digital short, Papyrus, shortly. (how’s that for odd sentence structure?)

It’s a little poking of fun at many things: the typeface Papyrus (which is truly horrid), the documentary Helvetica (well done, but an hour and 20 minutes worth?) and the general obsessions people have over the oddest of things.

Click this little image below to see the preview!