nelsdrums

A friend alerted me today that there is a promo for the upcoming Lexus Innovation Website on the Imaginary Forces homepage (where I snaked this video).

The Beach Boys song came on the radio during dinner, and Lars surprised me by jumping up and doing this routine that he was rehearsing for a school show. So I grabbed my laptop and camera. We looked up the lyrics, so I could sing the song, and Lars performed so we could show it to mommy – who was out of town on business. Miles just wanted in on the action.

What did you think of the show?

In these stylized expanding banners for Lexus Innovation, you can attempt to park the car. Good luck with that! (nod, nod, wink, wink).

Don’t forget to mouseover to expand.

A little while ago, I did some interactive expanding ad banners for XM Nav Traffic with live traffic updating on the latest Lexus vehicles. You might run into the ads on some car enthusiast sites, or you can check out the message board, lederboard or skyscraper here. When the banner expands you can play with the sonar map to control the speed of travel. Some really cool randomizer programming makes the pretty shapes fly by. Fun stuff.

Wish I had XM Nav Traffic with live traffic updating on my car!

Today I completed one of the most rewarding projects this year. A Gap Ad-like art project featuring all of my son’s first grade classmates. Exactly one week ago, my brother-in-law and I took photos of all of the kids wearing their winter gear. I explained my job as an art director for advertising, and told them that they were all “Talent” or “Models” for my project.

Today I went back to unveil the final product via a bigscreen projection complete with music. I described the “client presentation” process, and told them they were the clients. They were very good clients, since they liked everything. I gave them all “leave behinds” of a poster print and a DVD rom with images and the presentation movie. And also one giant poster mounted on foamcore for the classroom. They were really psyched.

Here are some larger files, and a little quicktime movie with commentary.

To save the image above, right-click and choose “save link as…” or “open in new window”.

What do you think? (make a comment below)

On Friday, Nov 9, Gabrielle Weinman (Interactive Creative Director, Team One) and I presented the AFI Players Project website and mobile application demo that I designed for the AFI Digifest at the Linnwood Dunn theater in Hollywood. The entire crowd went “Oooooh” when we opened the video cloud module (upper right hand corner).

This project was a collaboration between Team One, AFI, MTV, Sony, GoTV, Mekanism and several other smaller companies. Our objective: to come up with a digital delivery vehicle for the new Players documentary about video gamers. Now that the project has gone public, I can finally post something to this blog! In my portfolio player, there are some larger screenshots of the application as it was presented for the festival.

There is also a huge video of the demo with commentary.

I just completed a grueling marathon shoot of the new LS Hybrid with Aussie (by way of London) photographer Anton Watts (shown below with coffee all over him). Something like 28 shots in 12 days. Many in the studio, and some on location. A new world record! More images after you click.

Oh yeah, I did the retouching myself while on location. See the rest of the photos.

If you happen to visit ABC to view re-runs of Lost using their amazing Streaming Player, you may happen upon some of the new Lexus branding ads I designed for Team One Advertising. Or you can TURN YOUR SOUND UP and use the following links:

1) Dominoes
2) Molecules
3) Soundwaves
4) Spectrum

My favorite part of the project was working with brilliant electronic composer Kasson Crooker on the scoring/sound design. Its not often I get to have sound on internet advertising, and working with Kasson was sheer pleasure.

If you do find yourself looking at these ads on the ABC site, please make sure to interact with them for a bit before you resume your television show!

The Lexus 2008 LS Hybrid Overlay Launch Site that I art directed for Team One finally launched this week. It features beautiful still photography from my shoot with Anton Watts last month. I have also included some of the new photography in my portfolio above.

I also designed some cool interactive ad banners: LSh 336×280 Message Board , LSh 728×90 Lederboard & LSh 160×600 Skyscraper. that drive traffic to this site from popular automotive portals.

I just posted this cool video of “Break It Down” from our last show the UFD Site. Kicking ass Chicago style horn ending written by Mike Rotondi! Click here to check it out!.

Oh yeah, that is me on drums. If you want a version for your iPod Video, click UFD-BreakItDown-02.23.2007.mp4. Or you can just watch it on YouTube.