share

Retrospective #11: Blowing in the Wind

PSWE logo, designed by Bruce

This week, (cue: dramatic music) as the winds of time sweep away the winter and bring in the spring – and soon, summer – vibes, I got to thinking about the Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble.

The PSWE is a group of amateur musicians who perform high-level concerts of repertoire from the last 100 years. I got to thinking about the group mostly because our own Bruce is one part of the 50-piece ensemble (He plays the tuba!)

I thought it entertaining to share this unique side of our Creative Director’s life, because it really shows the wide range of artistry and skills that we have at our fingertips in the studio.

Plus, it ties back to part of the work we do at Global Mechanic – that is, print design work: Bruce also redesigned the PSWE logo.

They needed an updated look (the previous logo was an out-of-the-box serif [...]

April 16th, 2012 | Category: #GMretrospective, #TransparentFridays, behind the scenes, Canadiana, design, GM updates, music | Leave a comment

Flaming Tubas and Other Hot Ideas

I asked Bruce a little bit about his musical career and he shared with me what I think is one of the coolest images of someone playing a tuba:

Bruce plays a flaming tuba – that's a tuba that's aflame.

It all started when Bruce’s friend Cheryl (of i.e. creative) asked him to be a guinea pig for a new idea that she had brewing for the Vancouver winter Olympics. While the project unfortunately never took off, what was left was this sweet instrument – and Bruce using it! Bruce tells me that the flame went crazy high and he barely even knew it while he played it.

 

Tidbit: i.e. creative actually made the drawer set in Global Mechanic’s (co-produced with the NFB) film, Vive la Rose. (They also made the famous ball sculpture at Granville Island).

Check out a behind-the-scenes look at how the drawer was rigged.

 

April 16th, 2012 | Category: #TransparentFridays, behind the scenes, design, fun, ideas, music | Leave a comment

How It's Made: The Drawer Set for Vive La Rose

Take a look at how the drawer set was rigged (by i.e. creative) for Vive La Rose:

#gallery-1 {
margin: auto;
}
#gallery-1 .gallery-item {
float: left;
margin-top: 10px;
text-align: center;
width: 50%;
}
#gallery-1 img {
border: 2px solid #cfcfcf;
}
#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {
margin-left: 0;
}

What resulted was this:

TidBit: Click to see more behind the scenes stuff !!

April 16th, 2012 | Category: behind the scenes, design, film, GM updates, ideas, sketchbook | Leave a comment

Retrospective #10: Fun! With Ruff Ruffman

Last week, I (re)introduced you to Ruff Ruffman from the 5 season-long PBS show Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman. I promised I’d go on a hunt for some “making-of” footage from when the Global Mechanic crew (Bruce, Andrew, Cliff, and Chez) worked on the show. This week, to keep my word, I present to you…

Meet Murray, the live action star of Season 1 & 2 – and loyal dog of a WGBH's staff member

 

What a cool dog. But not cooler than Ruff, right?

Just havin' a lil fun

April 2nd, 2012 | Category: #GMretrospective, #TransparentFridays, animation, behind the scenes, Canadiana, GM updates, production stills, sketchbook | Leave a comment

Retrospective #9: Meet Ruff Ruffman!

After some rumination on the state of the artistic process in our previous #GMretrospective entries, I thought we’d try on something a little “lighter” for size – by reminiscing about our old friend, Ruff Ruffman.

Meet Ruff Ruffman!

 

Ruff Ruffman is an anthropomorphic dog and host of PBS’s realty TV game show, Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman. Bruce designed the character and under Cliff‘s direction, Global Mechanic did the animations for each episode of the 5 seasons the show was aired. I spoke to Cliff to get a bit of a back story on how it all went down. It happened like this:

In 2005, our studio got the bid to produce 20 episodes of 6 minutes each after the WGBH loved Bruce’s character designs. Deciding to take a risk with a smaller animation studio by the name of Global Mechanic (then, our studio was still young!), the WGBH gave the team a [...]

March 26th, 2012 | Category: #GMretrospective, animation, behind the scenes, fun, GM updates, news | 2 comments
Older Entries »  
  « Newer Entries