AniMedia Solutions for Music, Media Publishing & more

Q: Hello Johnny, and welcome to our Reallusion Feature Stories. Please tell us a little about yourself and your background.

Thank you. I was originally a musician that filled the gaps with graphic design, songwriting as I could never really decide which I liked more. I did both and on the design side did work for banners/posters for the bands. I have been fortunate enough to have worked with a guy(Trevor) during the early 90's that was just amazing with a brush in his hand.

What I considered great work on a sheet of paper he could transfer onto the side of a building with a degree of accuracy I had not seen before. His cartoon character design and 3D photorealistic art was incredible and certainly increased my passion to keep at it, although I was sorely lacking his talent. I ended up taking on a city council as a client, and did everything from the highway signs to 3D mural tourist map based signs. That kind of locked me in for a few years as we were not short of things to do.

I started to dabble with animation using the onion skin method which is like watching the grass grow, and around the same time took on the vinyl plotter tech as it was useful for masking, lettering and general cost effective signage. With it I got involved a lot more with the computer side of things, and eventually discovered Daz which set me on my way with the 3D art. I currently work for Renderosity in the Daz community which I enjoy very much as the site is bursting at the seams with talented people. I must admit I have been a Daz user for years, and nothing gets you up to speed quicker than hanging out with Daz users and developers 7 days a week.

I feel you can learn more in a week just by observation than you can learn in a month working away on your own. Just little tips a member drops in a paragraph can change how you have been doing something for years. It appears there can always be a better way. I spend every spare minute working on my custom characters, props and then beam them over to iClone. I put my sign and design days to good use while setting up my scenes too.

Q: What kind of services does Lawsuit Pending Records offer?

LPR offers a fairly extensive range of services, and being in the music industry it has had to adapt to many changes. We were a closed label and specialized in label services from design to music publishing, before we opened up to the indie sector about 5 years ago. We carry a small roster but our main operation is working for other labels and businesses, providing music clips, post edit album covers, merchandise and advertising-related design work.

Q: We really like the animated music video you worked, title "Big - B / I Still Love her". Could you provide some information on this collaboration?

The "Big B - I still love her" animated clip was part of a first prize for a competition held by legendary UK producer Mr. Stuart Epps, "The Stuart Epps song contest". Loop Radio hosted the event. I was asked to be a judge and was honored just to be considered although I must admit it was a challenge for me knowing what winning the competition would mean to all the artist/bands that had entered.

The main content for the first prize was their track mixed by Stuart, whom has worked with Elton John, Robbie Williams, Oasis, Led Zeppelin and a ton more of equal footing. The first prize went to Big-B for the track "I Still Love Her" which was a collaboration between UK based lyricist Mel "Melsi" Barnett, Bjorn Vadar and Billy Playle. I also used iClone to design their album cover. Second prize went to a band called Bounty Hunters and I am in the process of finishing off a couple of music clips for them.

Q: Besides using iClone, are there other software that you like working with? In your opinion, what are the advantages of working with iClone?

CrazyTalk Animator Pipeline, CrazyTalk, PopVideo, UE4 and Unity for the animation side. I just about use everything at my disposal. As far as content creation/editing I use Daz, PP2014, Carrara, Bryce, Hexagon, Silo2, Blender, Substance Designer/Painter 3DCoat Earth Sculptor, Photoshop, and FaceFilter. For post production I use Blackmagic Fusion, Foundry Nuke and the new Natron. Color grading and final video production are done in HitFilm 3, or Sony Vegas Pro.

I feel there are two things that really stand out with the iClone platform; the first is the feature set vs. dollar value and relative ease of use. It is affordable to the majority. If you are working for clients you don't need to charge the earth for your services as the overheads are low. This was critical in the music industry where 6 out of 10 clients are indie living day to day.

It's a tough industry, they don't exactly roll up in their Lamborghini enquiring about a clip. The second is the fact that it does not lock you in with the content. I have a very large RL-based library but My Daz and Poser character/prop is substantial. I also build my terrains in Bryce or Carrara so to be able to bring them in and utilize it all in iClone just allows so much choice with what I do. Now I have got my head around the new Character Creator tool as well, so I can keep all my clips fresh with new products, and characters as I am looking forward to the future.