Recent Syracuse University Grad Talks Inspiration for Viral Short Film “Player Two”

*Note: This blog was originally published on the Education Blog of Adobe – 6/14/2014

It’s safe to say that video games have been a major inspiration for recent Syracuse University grad, Zachary Antell. If you managed to catch his award-winning short “Player Two” on the front page of Reddit (featured on “R/Gaming”) about a month ago, this won’t surprise you. Zachary recently chatted with us about what inspired him to pursue a career in motion graphics and animation, and how Adobe Creative Cloud helps him create some truly interesting work.

What have been your major sources of inspiration when if comes to animation and film production?

In terms of films that have inspired me, I got into doing VFX when I was younger thanks to Star Wars. When it comes to my interest in animation, I attribute that to watching every single Knox Claymation by Robert Benfer, and of course following the Pixar classics like my personal favorite, The Incredibles.

Once I finally decided to take a shot at creating my own work, I found a lot of inspiration and guidance from filmmakers on the web, such as Andrew Kramer of Video Copilot and Nick Campbell of Greyscalegorilla. Particularly, I remember seeing someplace that Nick once said that he never was great at drawing. This is something I always remind myself of when I’m struggling a bit, that if Nick didn’t let that get in the way, I shouldn’t either.

Aside from more traditional film and animation, you mentioned that video games have been a source of inspiration, especially for your project “Player Two”. How have video games affected your creative process?

At least for me, after playing a game for the 15th time, you try to beat them or play them in the coolest way possible. When the player is given access to the camera, it’s easy to compose and block the animation in dynamic ways. Zelda, GTA, and Uncharted are especially great examples of this. Zelda in particular never features any protagonist dialogue so the emotion of the moment is completely in the player’s head. When I picked up 3D animation the idea of a free camera came naturally to me.

Because I grew up playing video games, and they had a part in growing my love for animation, I wanted to make a short about video games from the perspective of the little brother. People debate whether video games are an art form, garbage for the brain, etc. However, I think the context in which we were playing these games is definitely an important part of a child’s life when imagination and memories are so strong. So the look I went for in “Player Two” was sort of like a hyper-stylized memory, where the camera is flowing in and out between detailed moments.

What made you decide to use Adobe Creative Cloud to help bring those stylized memories to life, and what was your workflow like?

I started watching After Effects tutorials when I was 13 or 14, mostly as a hobby. I was using FxHome’s Effectslab and Visionlab at the time, which has now evolved into “Hitfilm.” In college, I started doing all of my editorial in Premiere Pro and haven’t really looked back. Photoshop was something I was taught in high school, so that’s been part of my workflow ever since.

From the beginning of working on “Player Two”, I knew whatever I animated had to be very economic and feasible. The workflow I followed was to roto frame by frame in Photoshop, and export video from there, giving me a little room to touch up in After Effects. Once I started principal animation, I found some scripts that would allow me to bring the majority of my Photoshop data in After Effects, which let me loop frames of animation, change colors, shading, and non-roto elements. Non-roto elements were things like the posters or walls in the final shot. I could do a 3D solve of the live-action footage and add in basic shapes in After Effects.

Do you have any advice for students who are starting out their film careers?

Keep putting out content, and don’t stop. Making one awesome video can blow up the internet, even if it’s a three-second animated gif. I’m starting my first full-time job tomorrow, so maybe I’m not the best person to ask for career advice, but I will say I’ve managed to get myself a job in a field I love, which started as a hobby when I was nine years old. Doing what you love is possible if you work hard enough.

Empowering Students to Tell Their Creative Story with Dan Armstrong →

*Note: This blog was originally posted on the Adobe Education Blog – 3/2/2016

As an Adobe Education Leader, Dan Armstrong is constantly looking for new ways to foster his students’ creative growth at Skyview High School. A few days ago, Dan was kind enough to sit down to discuss how he integrates Adobe Creative Cloud into his everyday curriculum, and how it enables him and his students to stay on top of current industry best practices

Dan cautions that “technology changes so quickly if you use the older versions of software it makes students less employable and gives them challenges competing when they get to university”. By always being able to use the latest versions of the software through the Creative Cloud, Dan feels as though he and the rest of the Skyview High School staff are sending students into the world prepared to better face design and creativity challenges in the years to come.

Specifically, Dan shared his excitement that once Fuse–an Adobe product the enables creation of custom 3D characters for Photoshop projects­–was released, he was able to have the software up and running in his classroom just two days later. He was then able to include projects created with this software when working with his students to help them build portfolio websites to showcase their work.

Stressing the importance of students having a wide variety of different tools available to them–from Illustrator and Photoshop to Premiere Pro–Dan feels that in the end, it’s all about allowing students to properly tell their story while working to advance their creative careers.

“Maybe they are an audio learner or are more into video. Creative Cloud gives students all the tools for how they want to create and tell their story”. – Dan Armstrong, Skyview High School, Nampa Idaho

Other helpful links:

• Adobe Education Exchange

• Creative Cloud Help | User Guides

Streamline Your Ad Monetization →

Note: This case study was originally published on Fyber – 12/18/2014

Social Point simplifies ad monetization for increased eCPM.

Social Point is Spain’s largest mobile game studio and ranks globally as a developer of top-grossing mobile and social games. Worldwide, their games have garnered over 50 million monthly active users and more than 100 million app downloads. Social Point works with Fyber to simplify the integration of their various demand partners on multiple platforms, for leading titles such as Dragon City and Monster Legends. Fyber’s tools and services also helped Social Point identify key areas of opportunity to refine and optimize their ad monetization strategy.

Tackling Ad Monetization Challenges

Social Point chose to work with Fyber’s mediation platform to address three key challenges commonly faced by mobile app developers:

1. The fragmentation of demand sources

2. Lack of transparency due to inconsistent reporting of KPIs from multiple demand sources

3. Time and resource-consuming integration

Streamlining Access to Quality Demand Sources

With so many advertising demand sources – and so many network SDKs – integrating and maintaining multiple partners can quickly become costly and time-consuming. By integrating Fyber’s unified SDK, Social Point was able to work with their top-choice demand partners in a more efficient and streamlined fashion. Fyber’s mediation platform simplifies the integration of multiple ad networks through drag-and-drop SDK adapters that each connect seamlessly to other ad network SDKs. This makes it possible for Social Point to work with thousands of demand partners via five mediated ad networks, as well as Fyber’s own Ad Marketplace. In addition to an easier integration process, Fyber helps reduce maintenance costs by handling all updates and QA testing of our partners’ SDK adapters. Each adapter is also certified by the corresponding ad network, which means that Fyber works in tandem with mediation partners to consistently ensure optimum performance and stability of the adapter

Identifying Actionable Insights Through an Easy-To-Use Dashboard

Social Point found it extremely intuitive to track insights through Fyber’s Dashboard, and in turn, utilized this data to refine their monetization strategy. For example, they identified that increasing the amount of in-game currency rewarded by Fyber’s Offer Wall on the weekends would allow them to substantially increase overall revenue. Social Point was also able to pinpoint the right amount of Rewarded Video content to show and determine when to show it.

Proactive Account Management

While Fyber always maintains close, regular communication with our developer partners, Social Point was more impressed with the actions taken by our Account Management team behind the scenes – such as proactively identifying areas for optimization and providing guidance on industry best practices.

Download full PDF case study here.

Companion apps: A look into the past, present, and future →

Note: This blog was originally published on Fyber – 6/29/2015

This year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) brought in 50,000 attendees to the Los Angeles Conference Center for the first time in a decade and featured a wide range of exciting game previews for consoles, PCs, and mobile devices. One of the biggest announcements for both the gaming and mobile gaming communities was that of Fallout Shelter, an iOS companion app for the highly anticipated game Fallout 4, which will be available on PC, Xbox One, and Playstation 4 in November of this year. While companion apps – mobile apps that are connected thematically or strategically to a console game – are nothing new, Fallout Shelter has made headlines by pushing mobile giant King’s Candy Crush Saga out of the number three spot on the top-grossing app chart. 

This success will likely encourage other game publishers to follow suit and develop their own mobile companion apps, which will continue this year’s trend of strengthening the relationship between mobile and console gaming. Taking a look back into the origin of companion apps and games, it’s clear to see that there has been a fair amount of experimentation to varying levels of success. To get a clear look at what may be in store for the future of companion apps and what effects it will have on the mobile gaming industry as a whole, it’s useful to take a brief look at their history.

2003: Companion apps with a cross-promotional function

When Nintendo released its Gamecube console in 2001, it supported a cable-link feature that wasn’t fully utilized until around 2003. Players were able to connect their portable Gameboy Advance systems to their Gamecube to play minigames, “upload” data from a sister game, or participate in other innovative gameplay. While smartphones had not yet been embraced by the majority of the population, the handheld Gameboy Advance served as a stand-in. This connectivity needed a literal wire, but it can be safely assumed that this type of game inspired later iterations of the companion app which would become entirely wireless with the inevitable smartphone takeover.

2009: Companion apps as a fan service

Many consider Champions Companion to be the first real companion app that fully utilized iOS. Connected to the game Champions Online, Champions Companion (released in 2009) started to shape the trend into what it is today. Players were able to “view the in-game news, view your friends list and friend activity streams, and even send and receive in-game emails”. The same year, WoW Armory set the stage for other “armory” type companion apps – essentially a database for information weapons, characters, etc. – to become popular. However, in 2011 World of Warcraft, removed its companion Facebook app in favor of a web API, which prompted fans to take matters into their own hands and start production of user-generated companion apps.

2013: Companion apps as a marketing vehicle

With the release of Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar Games also released not one but two separate companion apps. This was a milestone as it showcased the variety of possibilities within the genre. The first app, iFruit, was comprised of a custom car maker and a mini-game, while the second app was a game guide.

2015: Companion apps as revenue generators

Today, the business model of creating companion apps as a way to market the core title seems to be more prevalent than past trends. Fallout Shelter has remained in the top spot for adoptions which has proven that it has served its purpose as a marketing tool, but the fact that it was also able to oust Candy Crush from its number three spot on the top-grossing charts hints that this game has become something much more. Some estimate that, in order to have made it to the number three spot on the top-grossing charts, Fallout Shelter brought in approximately one million dollars in daily revenue. The power of a big name IP is obvious when it comes to initial downloads by fans, but smart monetization mechanics are essential to becoming a top-grossing app.

Especially in scenarios when a developer’s target demographic is console or PC gamers, opt-in ad formats are a natural way to monetize their companion app without fear of scaring their players away. While in-app purchases (IAPs) are already implemented in Fallout Shelter, it will be interesting to see if rewarded ad content will be integrated now that the game has staying power as a stand-alone title. While it may sound counter-intuitive to include ads in an app that was originally designed as a marketing tool itself, there are strong indicators that some ad formats can actually strengthen the engagement that players have with a game. For example, a recent study conducted by Fyber in partnership with a major game publisher shows that rewarded apps increase both the likelihood that a player will make an in-app purchase and the likelihood that they will remain active in the game. No companion apps currently use this mechanic, but it would be a solid prediction that this may be the case in the future, as it has proven to work for top mobile game publishers.