Google Ident Shoot - Making of

Over the course of the weekend we managed to get both videos shot. This took 2 15 hour days as loads of stuff kept going wrong. We had trouble overloading the power which kept short circuiting the whole building which was a major pain. When we arrived at the studio we had to completely paint it white to keep everything clean and clinical so that there is a nice contrast between the back ground and the objects. We shot the lanterns video on the first day. I acted in this video as the guine pig test subject pedaling the bike all day in front of boiling lighting.

The original edit of the lantern video had a lot of talking, we shot it like a science experiment using a professor and a subject i.e me. This turned out to be not what the client wanted so we had to re shoot parts of it afterwards as they didn't want an talking.

This was a really intense few days full of hard work, it was a really enjoyable experience and gave me an insight into what making a film is like in some respects, there is allot to consider, the lighting needed to be perfect, the positioning needed to be accurate, there were many factors to consider. We ran into many problems over the weekend but we managed to battle through. I also did a pretty good job at acting in the videos which was a bit odd at first as being in front of a camera doesn't really do it for me, but b the end of the weekend I found it pretty fun.

Making of Lanterns Video

Making of Powder Paint Video

Stills

Google Ident Shoot Preperation

Once we had everything good to go we rented out a studio in Bradford and some lighting equipment for the weekend. We also rented out an amazing camera which could shoot in slow motion for the powder paint video. There was a lot of pressure on at this point as we had eaten away at the budget quite allot with all the equipment and supplies for the film, we only had this weekend to produce the videos as the deadline was creeping up,we needed to save time for the edditing and had another meeting on Monday to show Google the progress.

Google Preperation - Testing

 Designing the Boxes for Lanterns

In order to display the logo we had to make boxes to slip over the top of the light bulbs, I created simple boxes on illustrator which would then be cut out on the laser cutter. We would then stick acetate over the gaps to make sure we can stick the letter forms counters back in the right place.

We also needed bases for the boxes so that the crocodile clips can sit nicely and also to make the whole set up look more professional and well thought out. I designed the structure and made sure it fit with theboxes and accommodated for the Jars.

We spent a few evenings staying up glueing everything together making sure to leave one of every object to film properly for the shoot. We had to test the electrics to make sure everything worked in advance so that nothing went wrong on the day of the shoot.

 Painting

In order to keep in tune with the Google brand me and Emily went into town to source spray paint which matched the colour scheme, we had to go to several shops until we had the right paint.

I then spent the afternoon painting all the boxes and the other bits and pieces for the shoot. Here are the black boxes to slip over the lanterns.

We decided to spray the bike the Google colours aswell to keep everything in tune with the brand.

Google Initial Video Script Ideas

Light Bulb Idea

1. first test homemade light bulb, going wrong, getting it right

close-up, hands making, practicing a stop motion set-up

2. stop motion of construction and development of the build of the light-bulb (no hands or human interaction involved) wire wrapping and winding its way around, components coming together in self-assembly…

3. assembling black boxes for the light bulb casing, laser-cutting, painting and putting together all pieces, close-ups, hands…

4. testing out light bulb inside a box, how bright is it, how much colour comes through in a black room

5. bike-generator development, testing out how much power is produced to power light bulbs etc. spray painting the bike into Google colours (time lapse?)

6. neat row of light bulbs, black boxes (pop, pop, pop….) appearing in sequence and then the lights turning off, everything in darkness

7. nothing to be seen, no music, just whirring bicycle sound starting up in the background

8. lights in box slowly turning on until at full glow/brightness

Powder Paint

1. set-up of studio space, the wall with Create logo on, positioning and prepping materials and spray mounting the surface - contrast camera shot of WHITE space against tubs of coloured powder (calm before the storm…)

2. making of slingshots, lots of people all assembling and preparing for battle, dipping finger in their colour paint and smearing across face for battle stripes, tension and build-up

3. close-up shots of facial expressions, calm before the storm, preparing to aim

4. CHAOS. slow-mo shots of colour paint clouds, floating, exploding, splattering against the wall etc. colour chaos people everywhere etc.

5. Colours, clouds and dust all settles to reveal the wall covered in paint (google colours) with the logo still in white gradually clearing up

Google Idea Story Boards - Pitch

 Home Made Lanterns

Magnets & Iron Filings

Powder Paint

After sending off out story boards to Brandfuel we received the news that Google had decided to choose 2 of our ideas to put into practice. They picked the powder paint concept and also the home made lightbulbs, unfortunately the iron filings version was was too close to an idea Brandfuel had come up with and they preferred theirs. This was awesome and we were really excited to go ahead and get making.

Initial Ideas / Feedback

We brainstormed various ideas for the idents, and researched different creative ways to produce the logo using various different things, The idents needed to emphasize the message of think learn do, this entailed research into science experiments, crafting, art and other categories. The idents need to be quite ambiguous in the sense that the video should keep the viewer guessing whats going on right until the end, building up to the big reveal.

We wrote a massive list of our ideas and research and sent them over to Brandfuel to whittle out the weaker ones. From our list they chose the 3 best ones. From here we were instructed to test out the concepts and create story boards to be presented to google in a pitch the following Monday. This would be left up to me and Emily as we were in charge of all the designing & crafting.

GOOGLE CREATE - BRIEF / ABOUT THE EVENT

The Event Overview - What is Google Create

Create is an event that takes the best of the events we know our target audience likes to attend ­ great speakers, great insights, and great interactions ­ and builds on that. And do this in an environment that feels like an exclusive retreat with peers. 

Create will be a 2 day event that feels like a festival of ideas. Inspiring content, a chance to learn from some of the top academics in the world, and partner with creative technologists and filmmakers to just get making.

zeitgeist CREATE 

 

a think, learn and do event.

The Thinking:
 
The event would kick off with Zeitgeist calibre speakers to get our guests thinking big. Sir Bob Geldof could open the event with an inspirational talk, concluding with a challenge for our audience (some of the best creative and marketing minds in the world) to address on Day 2.

The Learning:
 
The modern CMO needs to be a polymath. To help them along, we’ll bring some of the world’s leading thinkers in the fields they need to understand ­ Hal Varian on statistics and data, Alain de Botton on the human mind

The Doing:
 
The real difference in this event is the doing, and moving from thinking to doing quickly. Guests may leave Zeitgeist inspired, but this can easily be forgotten when returning to pressures of work. And at events like TED, rather than being empowered to do something themselves, guests are more likely to be pressured to support other projects.

Zeitgeist CREATE will get our guests doing things themselves, but we’ll give them the tools to get started. IDEO founder David Kelley will kick off our doing portion of the event with insights on how to think creatively, and will help to facilitate groups of CMOs, Creative Directors and other guests in addressing some of the challenges set by big thinkers such as Bob Geldof. 

The very nature of this event, with a focus on doing as much as listening, naturally allows for more bonding and relationship building.

BRIEF

This brief was under taken by a team of 4, Myself Emily Ball and 2 camera guys / editors Pieter Snyman and Jamie Merchant. They were looking for short idents which some up the concept of the event, think learn do!. They needed to be in tune with the brand and also innovative and original. These idents will be played on screens and projected around the event.

We managed to get to work on this brief because of Emilys Dad's business Brandfuel who are a top events organization company. They were basically putting on an event for Google, and one of the aspects they had pitched to them was to create idents for the event. We were fortunate enough to get involved on the project. They wanted us to come up with ideas for the idents. Once we had come up with different ideas we had to send them to Brand Fuel, who then picked the ones they liked to push further.


The Event Overview - What is Google Create

Create is an event that takes the best of the events we know our target audience likes to attend ­ great speakers, great insights, and great interactions ­ and builds on that. And do this in an environment that feels like an exclusive retreat with peers. 

Create will be a 2 day event that feels like a festival of ideas. Inspiring content, a chance to learn from some of the top academics in the world, and partner with creative technologists and filmmakers to just get making.

zeitgeist CREATE 

 

a think, learn and do event.

The Thinking:
 
The event would kick off with Zeitgeist calibre speakers to get our guests thinking big. Sir Bob Geldof could open the event with an inspirational talk, concluding with a challenge for our audience (some of the best creative and marketing minds in the world) to address on Day 2.

The Learning:
 
The modern CMO needs to be a polymath. To help them along, we’ll bring some of the world’s leading thinkers in the fields they need to understand ­ Hal Varian on statistics and data, Alain de Botton on the human mind

The Doing:
 
The real difference in this event is the doing, and moving from thinking to doing quickly. Guests may leave Zeitgeist inspired, but this can easily be forgotten when returning to pressures of work. And at events like TED, rather than being empowered to do something themselves, guests are more likely to be pressured to support other projects.

Zeitgeist CREATE will get our guests doing things themselves, but we’ll give them the tools to get started. IDEO founder David Kelley will kick off our doing portion of the event with insights on how to think creatively, and will help to facilitate groups of CMOs, Creative Directors and other guests in addressing some of the challenges set by big thinkers such as Bob Geldof. 

The very nature of this event, with a focus on doing as much as listening, naturally allows for more bonding and relationship building.

BRIEF

This brief was under taken by a team of 4, Myself Emily Ball and 2 camera guys / editors Pieter Snyman and Jamie Merchant. They were looking for short idents which some up the concept of the event, think learn do!. They needed to be in tune with the brand and also innovative and original. These idents will be played on screens and projected around the event.

We managed to get to work on this brief because of Emilys Dad's business Brandfuel who are a top events organization company. They were basically putting on an event for Google, and one of the aspects they had pitched to them was to create idents for the event. We were fortunate enough to get involved on the project. They wanted us to come up with ideas for the idents. Once we had come up with different ideas we had to send them to Brand Fuel, who then picked the ones they liked to push further.

We wish to create some video “Idents” about 30 seconds to one minute long.  Ideally they could be “loopable”. The idea is to provide a taster – a flavour of whats to come in the event.  The identity of the event has a subtext – “Think, Learn and Do”.  This is important because for example a CGI ident is not in keeping because it “doesn’t get its hands dirty” i.e. Do!

The test I sent you shows some of the planning, some of thinking and tests, some of the heavy lifting off the work such as dyeing the string etc and then the final creation of the ident itself which is the easy bit!

So, we would like to create a ‘suite’ of “Create” idents – they should always be around creating the logo itself and preferably as close as possible to the type-style of the logo. They should be relevant – to a certain extent – Art, technology, food, foraging are all examples of what the delegates will be experiencing.  We are working with good chefs, we have speakers on “Mindfulness like Dan Ariely”, we have a partnership with “Technology will save us” where delegates will make small electronic kits.

Our ident ideas so far:-

The String Art

Making Jelly letters (from your idea!) the process, the cutting and shaping, and then melting them back to liquid)

Growing cress in the shape of the logo (macro close ups of growth, white washing the finished cress, colouring the letters and then washing them back to green)

Making the logo out of dough (watching it rise, slicing it in half and spreading different coloured stuff on top!)

A mash-up of different mini electronics kits, soldered together and finishing with a switch turning on the logo in LEDs

The planning and execution of filming the logo made with coloured screens of Nexus 10 devices at night.

Music is the other thing to keep in mind, ideally we would like to have license free music – could even be classical but wouldn’t rule out a good track that fits the film.

(BrandFuel)

DUST INTERVIEW / PLACEMENT

After talking to Dust at Leeds Print Festival I managed to sort out an interview for a potential placement. This was awesome news and showed that all my networking and hard work had payed off. After hearing the good news I organized to meet up at the studio. I made a small portfolio of the work I had produced this year and took it with me to Sheffield. It took me a while to find the studio when I got to Sheffield as it was rather hidden away. On arrival I was greeted by one of the girls I had met at the print festival. We sat down for a good hour or so talking through m y portfolio and the ideas I had come up with. this was a really great experience. I was fairly nervous to begin with but fairly soon I felt relaxed and spoke through my work. Dust were really happy with the work I had produced and at the end of it invited me back in summer to carry out a work placement. I am looking forward to going back to the studio and seeing what its like to be part of the team. This success has spurred me on to try and get some more experience over summer. I hope to try out as many things as possible in order to find my direction in life. I still feel a bit lost in my career path at the moment and hopefully by trying a breadth of things I will find my feet.