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When I hear the phrase “motion graphics” all I can think of is pretty movie title sequences.
I also recall the time I fired up Adobe After Effects once to try and add some text on top of a video I shot with my digital camera. After using Photoshop for ten years I figured it'd be a piece of cake, but I couldn't tell my timelines from my layers and I might have accidentally tweened myself in the process. The program's language might as well have been Russian to me.
This week we're going to pit Bran Dougherty-Johnson versus Jason Koxvold in a battle of motion graphics prowess that will stretch the limits of the Layer Tennis playing field. I'm already in awe of these two titans for trying to do video work with only 15 minutes per volley, and that's completely ignoring the uploading/downloading time for moving files around. God I hope they have crazy 100 megabit connections because they're going to need it.
The competitors, Bran and Jason, have client lists a mile long and some pretty impressive reels. I love Bran's work for Yo Gabba Gabba and the webbies but his 2007 reel is a great summary. I know Jason's work from the rock videos he's done for my friend's two bands and his reel from 2004 sums up a lot of his motion graphics chops. Both gladiators bring a lot of other skills to the table: Bran's got a love of dayglow, typography, and illustration that should come in handy during the match while Jason's work runs the gamut from websites to wine bottles. That's right, we're talking freakin' wine bottle design here.
Bran won the coin toss and will make the first volley, but Jason gets the last word. When asked for comment Bran said "I plan on keeping the game classy. And that also means I'm going to take Mr. Koxvold to school. AE 101." Those are some pretty big words, can't wait to see them both bring it on Friday.
Bran studied Film at Vassar College and then moved to San Francisco where he became a motion-graphics artist at pomegranit editorial. he moved back to New York and worked in staff positions at the Attik from 1999-2001 and Brand New School from 2002-2005. He's also done freelance work for Buck, Digital Kitchen, ESPN Classics, Imaginary Forces, loyalkaspar, National Television, Showtime, Transistor Studios and others. Now he lives in Shelter Island, NY with his family and also runs PSST! Pass it on... a yearly collaborative film series.
Jason Koxvold was born in Belgium of not-Belgian parents, but shortly relocated to the more buttery, less garlicky shores of England. Ten years of boarding school taught him nothing if not to fight dirty; the element of surprise will feature prominently in his battle strategy. With that said, he's sure that Bran is equally freaked out by the prospect of doing anything substantial in After Effects in the space of fifteen minutes. How do you spell train wreck? Oh, wait.
When not reporting from the soggy Northwest, Matt Haughey spends most of his time screwing around on the web (professionally). After eight years of running a silly little community blog called MetaFilter, it's now grown to thousands of users, millions of pageviews, and three employees. When not herding kittens in his community, he sporadically posts to half a dozen other small blogs. Strangers collected more than you ever wanted to know about him on Wikipedia.
Here's how the game works. Jump into the Layer Tennis Forums, we'll be taking the pulse of the conversations there to declare a winner. You can also subscribe to our Layer Tennis RSS feed and follow along via Twitter.
Congrats to totopromo, the in-forum contest winner, and Operator, the remix winner. We have some Jewelboxing and Swap Meat items to send out to you. We're also sending packs of Field Notes to reo5th, BMB and naamyo. Email your shipping info to dawson at coudal.com.
Today is your last chance to sound off about who won Friday's Layer Tennis Matches and to post your remix/contest entries too.
On the last Friday of the season we played two matches at the same time, Koxvold vs Hutchinson and Glass vs Inman. There was a lot of action on the court and a lot in the forums too.
All matches took place on Fridays, live at 2pm Chicago time or GMT-6.
January 25 - Match 1 | View Match
Chris Glass vs Shaun Inman*
Commentary by John Gruber | Forum
January 25 - Match 2 | View Match
Jason Koxvold* vs James Hutchinson
Commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin | Forum
January 11th | View the Match
Veerle Pieters* vs Cindy Li
Commentary by Kevin Guilfoile | Match Forum
December 14th | View the Match
Matt Owens vs Jason Gnewikow*
Commentary by Joshua Allen | Match Forum
December 7th | View the Match
Jason Koxvold* vs Bran Dougherty-Johnson
Commentary by Matt Haughey | Match Forum
Match was played using Adobe® After Effects®
November 30th | View the Match
Trevor Van Meter* vs James Hutchinson
Commentary by Bryan Bedell | Match Forum
This match was played using Adobe® Flash®.
November 16th | View the Match
Aaron Draplin* vs David Nakamoto
Commentary by Steven Heller | Match Forum
November 9th | View the Match
Scott Hansen* vs Rob Cordiner
Commentary by Alissa Walker | Match Forum
November 2nd | View the Match
Marian Bantjes* vs Armin Vit
Commentary by Heather Armstrong | Match Forum
Match was played using Adobe® After Illustrator®
October 26th | View the Match
Brian Taylor vs Jason Santa Maria*
Commentary by Matthew Baldwin | Match Forum
October 19th | View the Match
Naz Hamid vs Chris Glass*
Commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin | Match Forum
October 12th | View the Match
Steven Harrington* vs Chuck Anderson
Commentary by Jason Kottke | Match Forum
October 5th | View the Match
Neil Duerden vs Mathew Star Thomas*
Commentary by Debbie Millman | Match Forum
September 28th | View the Match
Kevin Cornell* vs Shaun Inman
Commentary by John Gruber | Match Forum
* =winner
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