40 is the new 20!

Big thanks to the crew here at the studio for remembering my birthday yesterday. As you can see, my area was all dolled up the in the usual turning 40 accoutrements. The day was capped with a great chocolate cake. Don't feel bad if you didn't get me anything for my birthday, a donation has been made in your honor and you'll be receiving an invoice in the mail.

Trapzilla Case Study: Animatic

Once we had the Trapzilla script approved we moved to the storyboard phase. Storyboards are great to help a client visualize a script and see where our heads are at. The one thing that is hard to get across with storyboards is timing. That's where an animatic comes in. An animatic can be as simple as dropping the storyboard frames into a timeline or we can add movement and camera moves etc. Below is the Trapzilla animatic. We acted out the parts ourselves, so prepare to be a part of a cinematic journey. Compare what you see here to the finished piece and you'll see how close we stick to an animatic once we have approval.

Trapzilla Animatic Final from Out of Our Minds on Vimeo.

Worst Storyboards Ever!

Yes, this is how we spend our days sometimes. If you haven't seen the original inspiration for this, please view it here first. We couldn't pass up the chance at relating it to many creatives' everyday lives. Keith Hobgood, our storyboard artist is on the receiving end of some demanding changes from Rebecca Jones, our project manager. Hope you have as much fun watching as we did making.

Case Study: Trapzilla by Thermaco

How do you make something like grease traps entertaining and informative? That was the question we posed to ourselves when we were approached by Thermaco Inc. Thermaco makes industrial grade grease traps for restaurants, hotels, municipalities etc. They are a fun group that likes to take a tongue-in-cheek approach to what is a groundbreaking product. Thermaco came to Out of Our Minds to produce a video that would extol the benefits of their new Trapzilla brand grease traps in a way not seen in similar industry videos. They wanted something exciting and fun. Below is what we came up with. Over the course of next week, we will break down the process of how we produced this animation from storyboard through to final. We hope you like it, as we plan to do more of these in the near future. For now, enjoy the final piece.

TRAPZILLA FINAL from Out of Our Minds on Vimeo.

Piedmont Federal 2012 Commercial Spots

We were honored to be invited to Piedmont Federal's open house of their new home office yesterday evening. A great party and great food with friends is always something to be enjoyed. Out of Our Minds has worked with Piedmont Federal on their television spots the last two years. For this year's spots we worked with Alderman Company to help bring their creative to life. Out of Our Minds provided pre-vis in the form of animatics as well as post work in the form of editing and post-effects.
Below are the animatics and finished pieces for this year's commercials.


Camping At Home ANIMATIC from Out of Our Minds on Vimeo.

CAMPING AT HOME 30 music cut from Out of Our Minds on Vimeo.

PFSB REALLY HOME ANIMATIC from Out of Our Minds on Vimeo.

Really Home 30 from Out of Our Minds on Vimeo.

Spotted in the wild!

Update: Looks like you can add Target to the list of places to buy "The Little Wizard: yada yada"

And as you can see from the photo, we're clearly outselling the Avengers (SHUT UP!! We know!) But we do need your help to catch up to Lilo and Stitch.

A BLAWWGGGHHH!!!!!

We're partying like it's 2004 here at Out of Our Minds and getting our blog on. In the coming weeks look out for production updates on the latest projects and shorts we're working on. Complete with "making of's" and breakdowns, we hope to educate viewers as to what exactly goes on here at the studio. Also, be prepared for any other fun stuff we feel you guys might find interesting or funny or disturbing. As we start putting out content, please let us know what you think, what you like, what you hate, what you are luke warm about, or what makes you never stop vomiting.

First however, a little business. As many of you may or may not know, Out of Our Minds completed a feature length animated movie back in 2009 called "The Magistical". The movie left its home at 864 W. 4th st. and set out to find itself. Making its way in the big world, we would receive post cards and letters from our movie letting us know it was still alive and ok. Occasionally, it would need money or a care package sent. We worried a lot, but we knew we had raised it right and that it would make good decisions. Well, after a long silence we finally heard from our movie again. It has gone all "Hollywood" on us and changed its name. It is now called "The Little Wizard: Guardian of the Magic Crystals", but it's still the same good hearted movie. It turns out you can now find it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Wal*Mart, Redbox, and a host of other outlets. If you purchase it; first of all, thank you immensely, and secondly, please let us know what you think. Follow the link below or click on the image to see the trailer.

http://www.spotlight-pictures.com/films/THE-LITTLE-WIZARD-3D-GUARDIAN-OF-THE-MAGIC-CRYSTALS/