Archive for March, 2010

Kickass Premiere was…

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Just got back from the London Premiere or Kickass. No real reason for this post other than to say how brilliant the movie is. Sounds wanky, but I’ve been to a fair few premieres, enough to know when the movie really, well, kicks ass. When you walk up the stairs after Brad Pitt and narrowly avoid treading on Claudia Schiffer’s shoes, you know it’s going to be a good one.

Thanks to the horrendously slow camera on my iPhone and the assumption that seeing a phone at apremiere will set off all sorts of alarms, I didn’t manage to get any pics. Hopefully I’ll turn up in the back of some of those Brad and Claudia photos to prove it. I do have the ticket I guess…

However, the icing on the cake was a ‘fan’ out the back of the cinema when we left. Slightly short, chubby bloke wearing a batman mask in an attempt to look like Big Daddy character. His weapon of choice? The bazooka of course… clearly an old rolled up yoga mat. Good work fella’! We salute you!

So in short, Kickass is fantastic. Chloe Moretz rocked. Nic Cage was brilliant (surprisingly brilliant), Aaron Johnson stole the show but best of all, Matthew Vaughn directed a masterpiece. Definitely my favourite movie from the last 3 years.

Now all I have to do is wait for Tron Legacy…

Digital Outlook: Cool digital jobs galore!

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Shameless plug alert.

Digital Outlook London have some pretty funky jobs up for grabs. And the best bit is, you get to work with me!If that doesn’t swing it… we also have great benefits, multi-coloured beanbags, a room with fake grass, an indoor bike rack, the full Xbox Rock Band setup, table football, an inflatable moose head, an office in LA and free beer. What’s not to like?

The jobs are…

  • Creative Developer
  • Senior Designer
  • Art Director
  • Junior Designer
  • Microsoft Xbox Social Media Editor

Creative developer will be Flash based, working on games, funky stuff, Unity 3D, microsites and even iPhone content if you’re up for it. You’ll be sat right in among the designers and other devs so it’ll be a good giggle. So if you’re sparky, want to get lots of training, work on really cool content and are looking for the next step, drop me an email and I’ll do the rest.

Senior designer will be working on all the cool stuff we do at Digital Outlook; Disney, Pixar, Xbox, Mr. Men, iTunes, Universal, Miniclip, games, Facebook and all that. really looking for a bright designer. Someone who isn’t satisfied doing the usual banking, corporate nonsense and wants to roll their sleeves up and make a difference. You’ll be passionate about your craft, games, entertainment, movies and especially the kids and teen audience. Also, if you’re quiet, don’t like a laugh or shy away from karaoke, look away. If you’re still here, contact me!

Art Director is essentially the same as the above but with a fair bit of experience under their belt and someone looking to make Creative Director in a company that will actively help you achieve your dreams. You’ll have been there and done that but will also be sensitive to those that haven’t… including the clients, who will look up to you to hold their hand and inspire them. Yes you can wear a funky shirt. Yes you can lead brainstorms. You can even hang up an inflatable gorilla head to go with the inflatable moose we already have. The role is yours to shape. You guessed it, if it sounds interesting, let me know.

Junior Designer will probably be a year out of Uni… straight out of Uni but has a dose of reality already… or someone who’s never been to Uni but really want to climb the ladder, experience one of the cooler companies in the industry and develop their skills in an area that has soul. If you’re into games, love Photoshop, like Flash, fiddle with After Effects or get off on coming up with bonkers ideas for willing clients… Digital Outlook has a Mac and a nice seat with your name on it. We have PC’s too if you prefer.

Social Media Editor will help deliver and develop Xbox’s social media strategy across loads of social media platforms, as well as doing all the editorial and content updates, user engagement, moderation, and reporting. It’s 3-5 days a week, based in the Microsoft HQ in central London and obviously would be perfect for anyone into social content, gaming, writing and working in a job that would make your mates properly jealous. This one is time sensitive though so if you’re interested, get a shift on and let me know.

Check out the Digital Outlook site for a basic overview of what we do and if you like what you see, just drop me a line (and ideally a CV) and if the planets align, an interview awaits! It may be the best thing you do in the next 5 years. :)

Some of the jobs are here too. http://www.digital-outlook.com/jobs but we’ll hopefully update that in the next few days.

First test with Unity 3D

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

There’s all sorts of things wrong with the control and physics (the car wheelies like a mad thing and rolls over at the merest whiff of steering angle) but I’m very impressed how easy it is to put something like this together from scratch! Like, 1.5 hours thanks to a few hints here. Very cool.

More to come!

Click the image to launch the demo. You’ll need to install the Unity player, but it’s pretty seamless.