The music room

L'heure de l'apéritif

I have been living in the US for a couple of years, but I still haven't figure out how to translate"apéritif". I'm sometimes afraid that the whole concept just doesn't exist here... Anyway, Birthday Party's music and the desire for an early evening drink inspired me that little movie...



For that movie, I prepared the background in Photoshop with several pictures I had taken (my kitchen counter, icebergs in Greenland, a telephone box in London). I then imported them in After Effects and made some color correction. I filmed my torso against a green background and used a chroma key and masks to isolate it.

Another hot Summer day

Today was a really hot day. A ridiculously hot day. That's quite unusual here, in Santa Barbara. Fortunately, we don't have skyscrapers; imagine what might have happened...



This was made in Photoshop and After Effects. I started with a stock image of a skyline (found on stock.xchng and a picture of one my girls holding a watering can. I isolated the buildings in Photoshop and placed them in 3D layers in After effects. I animated the buildings with the puppet tool, and the arm and the hand with keyframes. I followed this tutorial  for the clouds, and played with lights for the shadows and the sky colors variation. Finally, I used Audacity for the music, modifying a short excerpt of "Cripple Creek".

Happy B-day, Bro!

Today is my brother's birthday! Happy birthday, Aurélien!



I used Photoshop for the pictures (transorming a double burger into a taller one, make 22 candles from 20, and isolating a flame), and After Effects for the animation (the flames, the camera move, and the text).
Bon appétit, Aurélien!