WE DO VFX

SHOT FIXES
in collaboration with Gigantic Pictures / Passionflix   

Client: Script says the cat’s left eye is sewn shut.
Forth: À la Frankenstein or like the cat was born that way? With eyeball or without?

 



Remove DP from rear view mirror:

Create The Circus signage:

De-age neck (not too much):

UPDATED COMPILATION

MOTION GRAPHICS REEL

Need a story told with flash and panache? Looking for a little motion in your ocean? Below you will find the current edit of the Forth Position Design motion graphics reel! Watch it here or in HD on Vimeo.

KINK DOCTOR

SHOW BRANDING

The Kink Doctor visual vocabulary evolved from discussions between Art Director Thomas Gallagher and Executive Producer / Show Host Dulcinea Pitagora. Among the concepts encoded into the work: visibility & anonymity; deviation, variation, and diversity; freedom, expression, and exploration; transformation & transcendence. Motion throughout the open mirrors the dynamics within the show itself: coming out, welcoming in, revealing that which lies beneath the surface.

Video and photographic ephemera shot by Thomas Gallagher and Maika Harrell with additional photography by Walter Wlodarczyk, Cliffton Creque Jr., and Anthelian. Music by Echobone.

For more information and to view the pilot episode visit kinkdoctor.com

PURPLE? YEAH, NOT SO MUCH.

MISSING POINT VIDEO

I’ve just recently completed the first video for my blog The Missing Point: PURPLE? YEAH, NOT SO MUCH. Politics, Power and Purple, all wrapped around a quote from Mr. Spock! The brilliant Kevin Wilson did the music / sound design for the opening of the piece. Subscribe to The Missing Point for more like this.



Dedicated to Leonard Nimoy, LLAP–IDIC!

FEELING THE BERN

ALL NIGHT LONG...

I had been musing about doing a video for Bernie Sanders. I had made a small donation to the campaign and my partner was out on the street collecting signatures to get Bernie on the ballot. I had jotted down some notes/sketches months back, but hadn’t gotten around to working them out fully. I found myself frequently writing about Bernie on my blog. The Sunday before Super Tuesday, Feeling the Bern, and quite caffeinated to boot, I decided to remix my Koosinich Remix for Bernie. The final render was at 5:01 AM...

UNDER ONE SKY

LIGHT THE WAY
in collaboration with The Illuminator

As part of a recent collaboration with The Illuminator collective, Forth Position animated 50+ short clips to be projected throughout New York City to promote the Under One Sky rally. Rallies were held in 70 locations around the globe to support the new UN Sustainable Development Goals and to add pressure for their implementation. The clips feature a diverse group of individuals searching, finding their way, and ultimately coming together in common cause.

PASSÉ

MUSIC VIDEO

Forth designed / animated the color graphics overlays, compositing them directly over the black & white edited video. The director had a specific look in mind, so Forth supplied a large number of initial frames to focus the dialogue and establish a graphics narrative to apply to the video. Our goal was to add rhythmic accent and punctuation, to augment the performance without obscuring it. The shapes in the overlays were produced by hand prior to compositing.

NETWORKING OF KNOWLEDGE & STORYTELLING

DAVID WEINBERGER PRESENTATION VIDEO
in collaboration with Pickerel Pie
 
This six minute video for David Weinberger’s presentation at the Future of StoryTelling Conference was to be viewed prior to the conference to help attendees choose which presentations to attend. The challenge was finding a visual metaphor simple enough to be easily understood, while broad enough to encompass the concepts discussed in the piece. The project was particularly satisfying to work on, its conceptual framework closely related to ideas the designer has been exploring on his blog The Missing Point.

 

Producer: Dewey Thompson (Pickerel Pie)
Design / Animation: Thomas Gallagher (Forth)
Editor / Audio: Brad McDermott (Pickerel Pie)

JEFF KOONS AT 180 MPH

SUNDANCE CHANNEL DOCUMENTARY TITLE DESIGN
Collaboration with Pickerel Pie

This opening title animation for a documentary about the Jeff Koons Art Car is a logical progression from the Koons design itself, his captured moment of dynamism and energy put back into motion.

 

HERDING CATS

FILM TITLE / CREDIT SEQUENCES
Collaboration with Film Entity

Opening titles and end credits for the film Herding Cats. The titles and credit animations are a simple play on the “backwards” N & R of the Cyrillic alphabet, flipping the characters 180 degrees each time they appear. Original footage shot by Beth Dewey.

 

UNTITLED (63519N)

EXPERIMENTAL

Someone asks you “what is it like in your reality?” Can you convey your answer in words alone? Forth created this piece to simplify our answer – “Like this.”



An associate asked us to produce a two minute video for Spring Magazine’s Tokyo fashion show. With no restriction on content, Forth took the opportunity to explore themes of internal vs. external identity - how do you visualize yourself vs. how do others see you? What is it like to be you, to have your perceptions and filters - your awareness? With these ideas in mind we began designing the graphics and costumes, shooting performance and movement video, composing music, choreographing the dance, etc. The final edited piece is an exploration in experiential communication, a spirited push back against the demand within our society to describe reality verbally.

BEYOND THE FESTIVAL

SUNDANCE INSTITUTE PSA TRAILER SERIES
in collaboration with Pickerel Pie   

Forth collaborated with Pickerel Pie on this series of five Sundance Institute trailers to be played before films at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Forth designed / animated an open, close, and spot information gfx (statistics, ids, etc.) keeping the design consistent while giving each trailer a slightly different look. The motion graphics are based on the festival print / web campaign by Durre Design.
 

Project Writer / Director: Dewey Thompson (Pickerel Pie)
Project Technical Director: Chris Torella (Pickerel Pie)
Designer / Animator: Thomas Gallagher (Forth)
Editor / Original Audio: Jeff Martini

BOXING ON THE EDGE

SHOWTIME NETWORKS IMAGE PROMO

Producer Wiley Faselt delivered his rough cut to Forth along with the individual shots and audio tracks to be re-cut with graphics. This allowed us to synch the audio as well as finesse and effect the shots. Color was removed, grain added, shots composited overlaying raw footage from more than one source. The seamless integration of video and audio was achieved thru a complimentary back and forth between producer and designer, the edited version sweetened by an audio engineer for the final spot.

There are several advantages to working this way. When the spot needed to be updated several times over the next year, it was a simple process to re-composite shots that were changed and re-render the spot. Another advantage was that the graphics could be modified and re-cycled for use in a number of related spots. In those instances these new graphics were rendered with an alpha channel and e-mailed to the facility where the new spots were being cut, saving the producer time, money and a headache or two.

Producer: Wiley Faselt (Huntshaw Creative)
Design / Animation: Thomas Gallagher (Forth)
Music: Sandblast

KOOSINICH REMIX

KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT

The remix and original videos were viewed more than 20,000 times on YouTube, reposted on political blogs and social networking sites, even projected in the New Hampshire campaign office window. Forth wrote the scripts for both spots. Hybrid had given approval pending payment for the use of their music in a TV ad, but the campaign came to a sudden end within days of completing the TV version of the spot.

Koo-sin-ich t-shirts and buttons using the same designs were made available in conjunction with the videos to give supporters a visual aid as well as a fun way to engage with voters, assisting recall of the name by having them say it aloud.

Deluged with a litany of endless distractions; a choreographed drama that preys upon our passions and prejudices, a stacked primary process in which the votes of two states are held hostage like two aces under the table, a nomination process that will end in a scripted marriage of the two “opposing” sides of the same coin; who will ask the obvious question being minimized by this reality television version of our democratic process? When they ask you who you are for, ask them “how ‘bout ending the war?”

Forth was involved in the 2004 Kucinich campaign as well. With a design team already in place, Forth’s contributions to the campaign were made on a local level. Forth designed a flyer to capitalize on Kucinich’s reciept of the top line on the NYS ballot. The flyer, based on George Lois’ campaign designs, was handed out on a march through Park Slope, Brooklyn where Thomas Gallagher ran as a Kucinich Delegate. Source Video - Cielito Pascual. Editing / Sound Synch - Thomas Gallagher (Forth). Posters featured in the video designed by George Lois.

FORTH COMPILATION

MOTION GRAPHICS REEL