We received so many comments about last month’s User Story we decided to bring Mike back again. This time he’s going to give us some insight into his working environment and where he fits into the production pipeline.

ZW – So Mike, one of the things that intrigued our readers was that you work right at the arena.

MG – The QTV Productions offices are located on the Event Level of the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. The event level is basically the bottom level of the building and is the same level upon which you will find the playing court, ice, field or concert stage depending on the event of the day.

The QTV crew.

ZW – Do you take part in the play back of your graphics?

MG – I do not have game-night responsibilities that would confine me to the control room so I often observe the games from the press seating or even better from the SkyBox at the top of the arena. It is from there that our LED operator plays back my fascia board content, while the remainder of my full-screen content is played out from the control room on our video clip server.

ZW – What the heck is a fascia board?

MG – A Fascia Board is the ribbon-like LED video screen that goes around the interior of a sports arena. All sorts of graphics and animations are displayed on them from game stats to corporate signage to game prompts. 

Fascia Boards are 32 pixels tall and over 16,000 pixels wide.

ZW – What’s it like to design for a screen that is really really wide and not so tall?

MG – Designing for the format is certainly something special, most people have a square or rectangular working space to design for, but when I’m designing for the fascia boards I’m dealing with resolutions of 28 x 3552 pixels and 32 x 16,032 pixels! It took quite a bit of getting used to but I’m quite comfortable with it now.

ZW – Since your office is near the locker rooms do you get to rub elbows with the professional basketball and hockey players that play at your arena?

MG – We often bump into players but we’ve got to keep it cool. You know, we can’t really just freak out and jump them for autographs! But nonetheless it’s cool enough to just get to say ‘what’s up?’ to these players on a regular basis. 

ZW – Are the players available for new graphics whenever you want?

MG – We really only interact with players on media days, which is where we get each player for 15-20 minutes and we try to shoot everything we can think of that we might need for the upcoming season: voice-overs, shout-outs, promotional reads, psych-ups, etc. We also get a second media day when the Playoffs roll around.

ZW – Once the season starts are you pretty much done for the year?

MG – Oh no we’re handling changes and doing special event graphics all season long. The most work however, is done for the opening of the regular season and the playoffs. That is serious crunch time and an amazing amount of work from the whole team is produced in just over a week. We keep on tweaking the product as long as possible until it’s time to do the pregame run-through. 

ZW – Can you give us an idea what it’s like to work at your production facility?

MG – You bet! Here’s a video giving you a behind the scenes look at QTV.

Behind the scenes at Quicken Arena.

ZW – What’s the best part of your job?

MG – Without a doubt it has to be the beginning of the first game of the season when you finally get to see all the effort unfold out in the arena. Nothing will ever top the feeling of the first time when your Video Open plays out, along with the accompanying LED fascia board animations, in front of 20,000 people. It gives you chills and a rush of emotions because we put our hearts and souls into these projects and once it starts it’s just a very overwhelming emotional experience for us all. I absolutely love our work here.

The Quicken Arena, where Mike Gulley goes to work.

Mike Gulley is the Motion Graphics Coordinator for the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team. “This is my third season working with the Cavaliers and my role has expanded as time has gone on. I initially started here as the in-house LED Fascia Board designer. At that point most projects were out-sourced but over the years more and more projects became an in-house affair, and therefore became my responsibility. We produce content for the in-game Jumbotron, also for the in-arena video screens, outdoor video screens and broadcast promos. The workload has become such that more members of our production team began contributing to the motion graphics as well. Having other artists on-board also helps to mix up the content we create. Each individual brings their own style and ideas to the table.”

Mike works at the arena. His office is on the same level as the game floor, near the locker rooms so he often bumps into basketball or hockey players the halls. “Our QTV group is a full-fledged production department from pre-production to post. We do it all around here. We are dedicated, passionate, efficient and effective. The QTV team really knows how to engage the crowd.”

Mike first heard about Zaxwerks software in college. “What really brought me to Invigorator and then ProAnimator was the fact that I could branch out into 3D without leaving the familiar Adobe environment. Learning any new program is usually daunting and quite time consuming, so the ability to use a Zaxwerks plug-in to do 3D within the same pipeline I was used to, was reason ‘numero uno’ and still is. Plus, 3D just looks cooler!”

Now in his work with the Cavaliers, Zaxwerks products have become part of Mike’s everyday workflow especially ProAnimator. “I’ve read the manual at least 6 times, no Joke. I’ve got sticky notes everywhere with all the cool things in ProAnimator I have yet to try. ProAnimator is quite a robust piece of software in which I can pretty much make anything I desire. I learn something new in ProAnimator every day. I’m at the point where if I have an idea I can make it happen in almost any case, and now with the imminent release of ProAnimator 5 I’m absolutely psyched up beyond comprehension, and my team is ridiculously excited, especially after my colleagues saw it in action at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference.”

“We often combine ProAnimator and 3D Flag. 3D Flag is easy to learn and it yields some truly beautiful results. I wanted to make an animation for SHAQ with a SUPER-SHAQ cape blowing in the wind and voila! 3D Flag took care of that wonderfully!”

“ProAnimator’s interface is brilliant. It takes complex tasks and brings them down to earth in a way where a single artist can create a brilliant piece of content. Other 3D programs are so complex that you need a team of 4 or 5 individuals working on the project to get anything of substance done that and a huge render farm! ProAnimator inside After Effects equals one happy artist when it comes to speed of rendering and quality of the graphics.”

Not too long ago Mike’s team needed to create an animation for Zydrunas Ilgauskas a beloved player for the Cavaliers. “Everyone likes Z. I had to make something really cool, so I busted out ProAnimator and made a snazzy Z-Nation animation.”

“ProAnimator is really excellent at keeping our workflow fast. Whenever the season is about to get underway we have to redo all the NBA team logos. That’s a lot of 3D graphics, but it goes pretty quick thanks to ProAnimator. Zaxwerks products have seriously sped up the motion graphics pipeline as far as going from concept to content. And in the ridiculously fast-paced world of the NBA basketball we need a program that is speedy but yields high quality results.”

You have been CHALLENGED! AEtuts+ and Zaxwerks wanna give you the opportunity to both learn and create. For the whole month of May you will be able to use ProAnimator free of charge and teach yourself how to use it. Additionally, you can take what you learn and show off your skills by entering our animation contest. See the details below about specifications and prizes!

First Place will have proved they can use it so will be given the complete ProAnimator Bundle (OSX or Windows) retail value: $1,669.00

Second Place will be given a full license for ProAnimator (OSX or Windows) retail value: $695

Third Place will be given a full license for 3D Serpentine (OSX or Windows) retail value: $199

Here’s your chance to really show off your skills and really incorporate some cool 3D work into your After Effects projects!

Visit the AEtuts+ site link below to see all the contest rules:

AEtuts+ Challenge

As the saying goes: “Your results may vary.” But one lucky guy credits ProAnimator for starting the journey, which ended with him finding his true love! Daryl Young, from Mad Cow Films, considers himself primarily a video editor but wanted to expand his business. He added ProAnimator to his toolbox and got rave reviews from his clients, an edge over his competition, and he found love. Here’s how it happened.

“I was given a challenge to help a company look bigger than it was. I thought I could help them by giving some life to their logo, and maybe boost the entertainment value. I had never done animation in my life, so I was looking for a 3D program I could use. I did some research and I saw the demo video of ProAnimator and of course I was sold straight away!”

“The first animation was easy, that’s where I learned the art of animating an individual letter or character. I learned about the timeline and keyframes. By the way the behaviors in ProAnimator are brilliant. It made my imagination very easy to achieve.”
Take a look at Daryl’s first animation here.

“The second animation was more of a challenge. There is a lot more movement with every character, and getting the characters to appear like they are reacting with the others. I found a lot of thought had to go into the characters. I had to think like that character and feel how they would move.”
Watch Daryl’s second animation here.

“The third animation was the hardest; it involved multiple camera angles and camera animation. I planned it out carefully; story boarded it to see what the main frames would look, and to see if I could do it. But in the end I conquered it. I feel pretty much invincible. If I have an idea, I can set it in motion. ProAnimator has made me look better than I really am, for which I’m very thankful. Thank you Zaxwerks.”
Watch Daryl’s third animation here.

ProAnimator made it very easy for Daryl, to achieve professional work without hours of training.
“The tutorials helped me understand other aspects of image creation, even with Photoshop, a program I was convinced I knew a lot about.”

Daryl has now enlisted ProAnimator to do logo designs in Illustrator and Photoshop, He also uses it on Final Cut and Motion.

“I love the workflow, it’s always quick. I can save my movies with alpha channels; I can change text that has already been animated. I can make adjustments on the timing and resolution very quickly, and I love the fact that I can send previews within minutes to my anxious clients, although I actually wait before sending them, as I try to make it appear that I spent a fair bit of time on it…naughty huh!”

“Thanks to ProAnimator. I can let my creative juices flow, and experiment with different ideas, without the long hours and fuss. But what I love the most is that it’s very profitable.”

And then there’s the love angle. Because of his venture into the new world of animation, Daryl found the girl of his dreams. During production, he realized he needed a voice for the “characters” in the animation. He put out a call and found Erin who captured the spirit of the animation and captured Daryl’s heart too. They didn’t meet face to face until after the project was over, but soon they did meet, began dating and eventually got engaged.

Daryl is a very, very happy guy these days. “You just don’t know where ProAnimator will take you.”