Author Archives: Chris Biewer

About Chris Biewer

I am a motion graphics artist working in the sports industry. My goal is to enhance the game day experience for fans through my motion graphics work on LED displays through out arena's and also through promos done for the web. I believe that this medium has a lot of untapped potential and it is my duty as an artist to push the limits and to enhance the memories of the fans!

Production Update 217: Studio is Back

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Recently getting over a cold, so no one wants to hear that during a video update. Let’s just be honest 😀 So you will have to wait at least a few more days to see my beautiful bald head, unless you watch a previous update. The studio space is put back together, a little unorganized but the desk and book cases are back in spots and there is room to get my second monitor up so recording won’t be too far off, actually planning on doing some recording tomorrow night. Sleep was a priority over the weekend to get back to health.

Over the weekend, I was a guest on a local podcast, in which we recorded two episodes so it was a good chunk of Saturday. If you want to give it a listen, you can find it at the Sioux Empire Podcast. The first episode focuses on more news and local events, next weeks episode will be based more towards Cosmic Rage and nerd culture.

I pushed forward on storyboards this week, wrapping up another couple scenes, again, I will get more into this soon. I want to make sure I cover a little more of the script-aspect of episode 2 before moving onto the next stage of the process.

Thanks for checking out the production update!

Production Update 216: Studio Coming Together

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The process of storyboarding is continuing! I have moved onto the second scene and am close to finishing it up. This past weekend my wife and I took our last weekend trip and headed to Minneapolis for a concert and some hiking. We made some time Saturday morning to sit and enjoy some coffee and work on projects, in my case, I continued to work on storyboards. I promise I’ll break these down more soon, which leads to the next item up for the week.

Last week I had to take apart the studio to get the carpets cleaned so my desk and everything got moved out of the space.

My plan is to get everything put back in place in the next night or two so I can get my mic and everything set up for recording. I do have some videos I need to get recorded and uploaded, I promise those will be uploaded real soon 😀 I really appreciate your patience! My plans for the upcoming videos include an updated Patreon video for episode 2 and also more of an in depth look at the script for episode 2. Let’s get to work!

 

Production Update 215: Storyboarding Begins!

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Hey everyone! I was intending on doing a video blog for the week but my studio has been rearranged for some carpet cleaning and with several other house projects going on, it might be easier to do a written blog post.

This past week I started storyboarding for episode 2. Currently I have the first scene storyboarded, of course this can still change but the concepts and ideas are there. I will get more into this in the future when I dive into some video content about storyboarding and discussing how the process is going.

I also mentioned that I have been reworking Patreon and I have my new structure in mind, which will be launched in a couple weeks. I appreciate everyone’s support and look forward to sharing more about Cosmic Rage with everyone!

Let’s talk conventions now. This past weekend I was in my hometown Watertown for a one day convention. It was a a great turn out and the venue had plenty of space and room for panels, artists, vendors and more, they even held a cosplay competition and had a fantastic turnout. The local conventions are always a blast and it’s great to see everyone and talk animation, gaming and more with them.  I also received word that my panels have been accepted into Nebraska so I will be hosting several panels there on animation and even my j-rock panel for some Sunday fun. This will be my third year at Nebraska and I look forward to it every year.

Up for this week, is to continue to making progress on storyboards and getting the studio put back together.

Thanks for visiting! Back to storyboarding I go!

Production Update 213: Panel Refresh

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This week I spent some time refreshing a couple of my panels before I head to AnimeFest at the end of the week. This week I am going to be spending some time expanding on my animation panel. This panel is still in it’s early phases, I performed a strip down version last year at Nebraskon and it did really well, the room was packed. So I want to polish up a few areas and also expand some areas that other attendees had questions on. My goal with the panel is to help people understand more about animation but to also help give some resources to people who are interested in animation and to help demystify it.

Last week I also met up with another local content creator to just pick his brain a bit. The reason for this, is I want to update and relaunch my Patreon page in next couple months, with more focus on content creation and what all goes into animation production. I have another meet up planned for this week. Speaking of meet ups, I am also relaunching the local animation meet ups. I used to organize these a couple years ago but things tapered off a bit and our venue also went through some remodeling. However, I have met some more animator’s and wanted to bring them together in a place where we can learn and talk shop together. I will be sure to bring the content I make to the site and more. I am looking forward to these meet ups and can’t wait to see what everyone is working on!

Production Update 212: Con Announcements!

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I have been a little behind the past couple weeks, we had some issues crop up at the house that required some attention all around the time I was getting ready for a weekend of travel as well. Everything is returning to starting to wind down a bit more.

I found out last week that both of my panels for AnimeFest have been approved. This year I will be presenting a panel on J-rock and also one on an Introduction to Animation. I went to AnimeFest for the first time last year and it was an amazing time, I felt that the convention was focused on art and artists and I look forward to being back next year. This past week I have been working on refreshing my J-rock panel and updating my Animation panel will be on schedule for this week. I ran a light version of it last year at Nebraskon and I had a large turn out so I look forward to seeing how it does at a convention like AnimeFest.

I have been pretty busy critiquing artwork the last couple weeks that I haven’t had a chance to finish up my animation project that I started working on. However I did get the timing chart break down uploaded to Youtube last week, check it out below if you haven’t already.

Production Update 211: Direction

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I admittedly wanted to do a video production for this update but I will get one done that dives into this a bit more in depth. I finished up Independent Animation by Ben Mitchell as I wanted to get a little more insight into some of the points of view and experiences of independent animation. After wrapping up the first episode of Cosmic Rage, I wanted to take a little step away to decide which areas I could improve, what things I should cut, all kinda of things like that to revise things moving forward.

I am also starting a new animation teaching assisting session, this past week I have been working with a new group of animators and going over their work. The next few weeks will be pretty busy working with them.

Besides the TA work, I am going to move forward with episode 2’s script this week and go through and revise and tweak now that it has had a little bit of time to brew. I am not sure I will get a chance to finish up my first exercise in my online class I am taking, but I do have a video with the first step of the process that I am aiming to have out by mid-week on Youtube.

Production Update 210: Moving Forward

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Writing this weeks production update from California! I’ve been here for almost a week now for a wedding but I have kept things progressing forward as well. I spent one day out and about looking for old artbooks and imported CDs. I was able to snag a few CDs, didn’t find much on the artbook front. I have recently been digging a band called FACT (disbanded) so it was awesome to find a handful of albums that I was able to purchase. I have been able to also find some time to get into Cosmic Rage a bit inbetween rehearsals, and getting things prepared for the wedding and family gatherings.

I’m in the process of reworking and rethinking a lot of stuff, which I will be getting into more depths with very soon, I really appreciate everyone’s patience in the matter.

Anyways, I am almost done with the book I mentioned a few weeks ago, Independent Animation. I have a few chapters left but I anticipate plenty of reading time on the way back home on the plane and in some downtime post-wedding.

Before leaving for the wedding, I did record a video on the first lesson of my animation class I am taking. It will be posted up soon and covers the process of keyframing and roughing out timing of the first animation/exercise in the course. On the same front I created some bumpers for videos that will get posted to Youtube in the future. This goes hand in hand with some revisions I am in the process of making on Patreon as well, but again, more on that in the near future!

I hope you had a great holiday and we’ll talk again soon!