4th of July Photos

I used to come to Boston with the whole fam in my younger days for the 4th, and we'd hang out on the blanket all day waiting for the fireworks. So there was some reminiscent familiarity while walking through it all, but mostly after cruising through i was good to leave and stay away from all of it. Above is Storrow drive, closed for traffic, open to walking.


Although this makes perfect sense to advertise, too see it written out is kinda funny/odd...


The hatch shell is the hive of the nest/festivities. I ended up walking to it, and walking back subsequently after, wondering the whole time why i walked to see it in the first place. The journey was more the point of the trip, but I get anxious when I feel like human cattle, all moving at the same pace. There was a lot of interesting human activity going on that was worth photographing, but it was too busy to stop all that cattle and take photos.


Generally people find places next to the river and camp out for the day, roping off their sections and leaving one or two people there to hold down the spot while the others join the cattle in walking around. This rare section where no one was sitting was because the long stretch of porta-potties were next to this area. Who wants to watch fireworks and listen to 50+ people go to the bathroom?


But truthfully I was just killing time down there with my photo journey- my real aim was to meet up with my old college roomate Pooba and his wife Melissa. They were on a east coast bus roadtrip with the whole clan- both her and his families. They must all be very close and enjoy each others companies- how many people could swing that trip? I think the bus ride in itself is a lot to ask. So the graveyard above is in the Common, and it had always been locked in the past when I was taking classes down there, and I knew hundreds of people who were dug up when they built the subways through there had been buried in a mass grave in there, along with a lot of other wealthier denizens of old Boston. So I wasted some time here taking photos...


Eventually I met up with Pooba and Melissa, but we pretty much just went out to eat a lot and their trip was short, so no photos of all of us. Maybe next time- no, till next time....

Fresh Animations

Random Animations from ben russell on Vimeo.

Working freelance provides both money and work in lumps at a time. On the flipside, there's the times, that also come in lumps, where you don't work, and money doesn't come in for awhile. That's how it goes, I suppose.

What do I do with myself during these off times? Well, I've found that some people use their time to get their business cards in order to better market themselves to potential job opportunities. I have no such interest in doing that kind of stuff, so I read tutorials online, and make animations, to get better at what I do...

Here's a random assortment of animations I've made in the last few weeks. Some were from tutorials, and there's a few random things I did for work in there- some roto jobs I did- the one at the end was a back to the future knock-off for some internal video, and the other is a car hitting a wall, but the walls/floor were the incorrect color.

I'll post more of these as they come up. Maybe eventually I can post some of the larger projects I've done, when they actually go public....

Happy Fathers Day

It was nice to be around yesterday for Fathers Day, first time I have been in years...
Above is the card I gave to him, made it the morning before. Sometimes we work best under pressure...

Roadtrip Animation- Mass to Montana 2005

Roadtrip 2005- Mass to Montana from ben russell on Vimeo.

Like a bird, I suppose, I used to seasonally migrate between summers out east in Mass and NYC to live out in Montana in the winter times. The drive used to be an endurance test, and generally I enjoyed them for the most part. I would go alone, drive straight from Mass to Chicago, which was around 24 hours, then hang out there for a few days. Then I'd go straight from Chicago to Montana, which is also around 24 hours. During the voyage, I would sleep in the back of my car at rest stops when I needed a couple hours of rest, but never in motels, because I knew I wouldn't sleep long anyways.

Those trips used to give me a chance to reconnect with old friends across the country twice a year, which was something I really enjoyed about them. Around here you can read my original post(s) about the trip.

The technique I used in animating these photos is the same one I used in the Morphing Hands video, using the pixel motion frame blending technique in after effects.

Mr. Lee comes for a Visit

The last time I'd seen Mr. Lee was in Montana two years ago. He flew into Boston, a place he'd never been before, and we made the usual New England Tour. This is him on the cliff walk in Newport, RI.

Here's Mr. Lee again, taking a photo of a duck I think, or maybe it was a Canadian Geese?

We walked by the Museum of Fine Arts, but didn't stop in, because there's a really cool museum a little further down, that was unfortunately closed that day. Here is a massive baby head that's out front.

This is the two of us down in Newport. Lee was taking a photo of some thing, probably a boat, and I'm imitating his camera face. Everybody puts out their camera face when taking photos, I'm trying to bring attention to that with this photo.

The Barking Crab is such a cool name, I really wanted Lee to get a piece of memorabilia from this establishment, but he wasn't budging. Seafood really became the item of choice for consumption on Lee's trip, and I'm good with not eating any of it for awhile now that he's gone.

Two more shots of Newport here, one is of a mansion on the cliff walk, and the other is some random one that says "Lobsta & Crabs". I couldn't pass it up.

The Celtics were playing the night we got back from Newport, and while we were discussing which restaurant we wanted to go to to watch the game, we decided to just take a stroll down to the Bank North Garden and see if we could get tickets. The whole time we were doubtful, but there was still seats available. So the two of us got to sit with some seriously die hard Boston fans (who probably weren't even paying attention to basketball a few years ago) and eat some cheese dogs+drink some beers way above watching some NBA finals Bball. Too bad they lost the series, but not that game!



I unfortunately didn't get any pics from when the nyc crew came through at the beginning of Lee's trip, however I don't think photos or words could summarize that whole experience....

Search Bar

"Search Bar: Imagine a not-too-distant future, where a person’s movements can be accessed via a search bar, and illustrated with current public mapping technologies."

This was a project I recently finished for my studies in digital media class. I was interested in topics surrounding surveillance.

East Coast Snowboarding

It pales in comparison regarding number of days on the hill, but I've had a pretty good winter this year, taking my new location into account. Yesterday was my fifth day out this season, and all of the days have been fun ones out there. It's been a great mix of fun people to ride with and decent mountains. Nothing has compared to Big Sky in size or pow days, but I've had some fresh snow days out east here, along with some great warm sunny ones too.
Work has been busy. Every day I've been creating new projects at work that will be used either internally in the company or will get used on television at some point. Skills have been increasing, so work has stayed challenging + exciting.

These two photos are from a few weeks ago up at Jay Peak with a two co-workers and my lil cousin. I'd love to ride Jay on a pow day because they have a lot of tree runs, but this day out was pretty fun, aside from the packed bus ride up there.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future I'll post up another video- maybe something combining a few different small pieces I've been doing at home, and maybe even a few things I've done at work with that.

Camera Flies Around Lone Peak

Big Sky- Camera Fly Around from ben russell on Vimeo.
This is the first installment of my work in computer animation for a class I'm taking right now. I built Lone Peak in Maya, then added the sky and intro titles at home in After Effects. Later versions of this project will include more of the mountains in the area.

Morphing Hands

Morphing Hands from ben russell on Vimeo.

Late last night I was looking around online and came across this site and liked some of the hand gesture illustrations. I liked not only the gestures but the textures, and how they looked quickly drawn. Then I remembered this tutorial and wanted to see how fast I could complete this, sorta like a challenge for myself. Here's the results from my Morphing Hands project. After I morphed them, I looped it 6 times so it runs 12 seconds long, and also threw a starglow effect on it, but not too much...

Zero Gravity Terrain Park Video- Snippet

Zero Gravity Terrain Park- Snippet from ben russell on Vimeo.
Earlier this past summer I posted an edit with some footage from the Zero Gravity Terrain Park at Moonlight Basin, in Big Sky Montana. Since I've been pushing my knowledge of motion graphics and I still had all that footage, I decided to contact the parks designer and re-use some of that footage to create...well...something like this.

This is just the end snippet, like 10 seconds long, but it's along the lines of what I'm doing for the video.

Mapping Project for Studies in Digital Media

Studies in Digital Media is a class I'm taking this semester, and the group assignment is one utilizing google maps, where we pick an aspect of city life to map and then all compile the results. Our project is for public art, and on the map we're going to differentiate between active/passive sites where activity/participation is occurring with the sites.

One thing I realized while walking around taking these photos this morning is that summer may be a better time to really diagnose these sites as they are, since the winter/spring in which we're in may be a more dormant time for catching people interacting with these pieces.

Some are definitely corporate by nature/location, and others seem more forgotten about. That's the aspect of this project I'm really interested in- forgotten public arts that have awkward placement, or just seem to have been forgotten about. There are a lot of murals I can think of around the vicinity that are such that, but traveling to them requires a vehicle, so I hope to get those in before Thursday nights class.

After I add these into our google map I'll post an edit that links to the project.

Umbrellas In The Snow

Transplanting from a mountain/resort town culture to an urban one has dealt a lot of curiosities my way this winter, especially in regards to snow. Big Sky Montana, to my knowledge, has never seen the likes of a city-goer using an umbrella as if it would assist in any way during a snow storm, yet around Boston this is a fairly common occurrence.

In searching for an appropriate image for this post, I also realized that other cities have this phenomenon occur as well, and even the new york times (where i found this image actually) wrote an article about this here.

Last night an umbrella would have served a solid purpose, however, since it was more of an ice-rain than anything else, and all the sidewalks were streams with frozen underbelly's. Treacherous, soaked walking was something similar to hiking in the spring time out in Montana...

More as things develop...

The Check is in the Mail!

There's been a lot of downtime, with the holiday season going on. A lot of waiting for emails, waiting for phone calls, and waiting at the mailbox. This downtime has been increasingly productive, as I just now fixed the bathroom door so it won't creep shut slowly all the time. Other various things I'm occupied with also, like watching the snow fall, and the people digging their cars out.

It's been a pretty low-key holiday season in these parts. Not what I'm used too...

2008: Motion Graphics Reel

2008 Reel: Motion Graphics from ben russell on Vimeo.
As 2008 draws to a conclusion, I put together a demo reel of the best couple seconds of a lot of projects i've done over the past few months. It's pretty amazing where I was a year ago, compared to now.

EDIT: On the last few days of the year I took suggestions to change the intro part to my reel. Same piece, new beginning+music.

The Tree Of Life

Tree Of Life from ben russell on Vimeo.
This piece is along a thread of interest that began sometime in my undergraduate years and has carried through. I always knew I wanted to make some work that involved some of the metaphysical/spiritual aspects of religion, but with all the material it's hard to focus on one aspect. I did this piece, at this moment because I kind of wanted to get it off my chest in order to move forward and do some different things, but for now this will be what I'll submit as my final version for my motion graphics class.

1999-2008: Reel, 2 Minutes

It's crazy, editing down pieces of longer works, then patching them all together. This version is about half the size of the one I originally posted here last week, and in truth it feels better, but still kind of dated. A lot of things I incorporated in this piece were done a long time ago, but aspects of which I still like. I think a better reel will be compiled after I get some of the things I've done at Hasbro on there, as well as projects I'm working on now.

Til then, here's a highlighted demo reel of what I've done over the last 9 years in motion graphics....

it's a new day

Two nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night kinda hungry, and I also couldn't stop thinking about how I didn't like the demo/reel I came up with and posted here the day before. So I'm back to square one with it- cutting it down, and playing with different ways of presenting it all in a context that makes it come across the most appropriate way. Maybe I need to amass a little more recent material to put into it, also combining some pieces I've done at Hasbro. We'll see. So I deleted the video from the last post. In return, here is a little thing I made before I went to lunch today- about 7 seconds long, so it goes by quick, and the quality/colors on the web don't do the piece justice- it's very pretty to look at. When asked by co-workers: "weird- what are you going to do with that?" I told them I'd put it in the background of a dvd menu. "Oh! That's cool then...."

Quiet Nights

The quality of this online is low unfortunately. This project was for a titling assignment in my motion graphics class.

My mom thinks this video is 'romantic', but maybe that's from the donald byrd song playing in the background.

For my next project, I'm working with ideas about myths- either illustrating one, or some type of narrative similar to myths. I found a craft book at borders for cheap, so i'm scanning those in and re-painting them. Then I'll lay them out in 3D and take it from there. We'll see how it turns out. I'm learning that good assets from the beginning really make a project that much better when it gets completed, and trying to backtrack later to clean them up isn't as successful- plus its a waste of time already spent.

And that's all I got.

visual (nouns)

this was a class assignment i recently completed, minus the audio, which i will do at some point.
+more motion graphics to come...

"your mind may be somewhere else, but you are definitely here"

new things

new things are everywhere!