All motion graphics, animations and illustrations created by myself. LEGO Movie 2, Elf, and Smallfoot are properties of Warner Brothers and I do not own the footage used.
Music by Miro Calderon & Matthew Angeles – made using FL Mobile
Singalongs On Steroids
A few months ago I had the opportunity to work on some singalongs. Since I love karaoke, I immediately said yes. But it wasn’t doing a cool version of Bon Jovi’s Bed of Roses that I was doing. Instead I had the honor of working on a release of Elf, not a musical, but a really funny Christmas movie that’s always a blast during the holidays. This time, it was adding some cool singalongs as well as other graphics popping in-and-out of the movie. Being a comedy more than a musical, it gave us the opportunity to play around a little bit with how we approach it as a sing-along, or in this case, a Sing & Cheer-Along.
Using Buddy’s hat as the main bouncing-element, I got to play around with making it come to life using After Effects. The actual lyrics would’ve looked really good in 3D, that’s why I opted to use Video-Copilot’s plugin, Element3D to create the lyrics. This gave me the ability to control everything, and animate the singalong all in After Effects. With Zooey Deschanel’s character singing, I used her hat for their Baby It’s Cold Outside duet in the movie. It was really fun but at the same time really hard to animate all the overlapping lines in the song.
Overall, the mix of playful animations and having it interact with the movie made this singalong project a real treat. It felt like I just gave a cool gift to an already great movie.
Immediately after this project, I hopped on to a similar one, but this time with a new movie called Smallfoot. If you haven’t seen it, I can guarantee it to be a blast. A funny and unique take on the Yeti’s point of view and how people are in regards to mysterious creatures. For this particular project though, I got to explore more designs and bouncing elements for each song. Using emojis and other elements from the movie, it was very easy to get creative especially with the catchy songs. I’ll be a movie-critic this once and say it’s actually better than Frozen.
Like Elf, aside from just doing insane singalongs, I also got to play around and incorporate the graphics into the movie itself. This method seemed to be really working well as your attention goes from singalong to movie, and it all works seamlessly.
Using Element3D, I created the 3D snowball, and used it throughout the mowvie, bouncing in between scenes and lines from the singalong. It was another great way to do some fun and unique compositing. At this point, I was getting the hang of the timing and generally have a good feel of how singalongs work.
Fast-forward a few months and my producer got a green-light from Warner Bros. to make another singalong, but for this time, for a movie that is tried and tested, and had one of the catchiest songs in 3D animated-movies. Everything was awesome at this point!
So from doing 2 movies and all the songs in those, plus some more compositing and motion graphics work, it felt like it was good to start with those, because now its getting crazier. Still looking at Element3D as my main tool, this was the perfect opportunity to do some wild things with the plugin, and just take this whole singalong journey to a whole different level.
Too many things I got the chance to play around with. Bouncing coffee-cups, morphing Lego Queen to Batman – this was starting to get better, but at the same time, renders are getting heavier and heavier.
We were very fortunate to work with the animators of the movie as they provided some of the 3D models of the characters. The problem was, they had their own system of how they used these models, so for most of the bouncing elements, we created our own 3D elements using Cinema4D while we figure things out. Luckily with Lego, we are only dealing with blocks, but since these are well-designed toys, we had to get our measurements and modeling right.
By the time I had to work on the last song, I finally managed to get the main character, Emmet, rigged and set-up for animating in Element3D. The extra steps to get it working in Element3D worked great because like I mentioned before, I didn’t want to be switching between Cinema4D and After Effects. Having the ability to control everything in After Effects made everything easier in the long run.
3-movies, and probably close to an hour-worth of 3D animated singalongs later, I think I accomplished something that easily got out of hand. It got out of hand in a good way – I used methods that nobody in their right mind would do, and it all turned out unbelievable, super-cool, outrageous and amazing. Such a phenomenal, fantastic and so incredible experience. Woo-hoo!
These songs are burned in my head now. If you want to have the same catchy songs stuck in your head, or would want something for the kids, please do check out the new release of Elf, Smallfoot, and Lego Movie 2 and check out the singalongs!
Protected: Storyboard, Design & Animation Portfolio + Demo Reel
DC Titans: Character Profiles Got Me Hooked
I was fortunate enough to have worked at Homebrew, a fully remote Social Media agency, where I got to work on things I rarely get to do – Video Editing.
As primarily a motion graphics artist, I’ve always known I can edit trailers too. Being sent creative first-passes of trailers and promos are part of my everyday tasks, so I’ve always had something in my back pocket whenever the opportunity presents itself. What I did not expect from editing shows, is liking the shows, and one of them being DC Titans.
Season 3 was my starting point, and my task was to create character profiles of some new characters, and those that had a major changes in their overall character. This led me to taking small peeks in Season 1 and Season 2. There was no going around it. I thought at first of how much of a pain it is to figure out how these characters have evolved in a couple of days. Luckily for me, shotlists saved my life, but what’s most important was I started watching everything from Season1 (Thank you for streaming). At the end of it all, after taking on a few character profiles, I was hooked.
Disney Animated Shorts
In my time with The Walt Disney Company, I had the wonderful and rare opportunity to work on some of the most beloved characters we’ve known since we were kids. From sketching out redesigned looks, to storyboarding, and eventually animating them – it was a blessing that even only having a short time with the company, I was able to put a small stamp into their world.
Using Procreate, Photoshop, and After Effects, I created Minnie Mouse and Pluto animations for the Me & Mickey series of shorts. These episodes show Mickey Mouse reading from a book, with my animations to go along with it. I sketched out different looks for the characters, and even experimented with body size/type, clothing, and colors. With some rough voice over, and a script, I was able to create the storyboards to go along with presenting the new looks.
The first video in this series, I collaborated with a co-worker where she designed the look of the backgrounds and some elements, as well as a handful of character animations as well using my illustrations. Another co-worker also worked on the title design for a couple of videos.
The second video with Pluto was a great challenge for myself too because I have never really animated a dog with this much movement. Apart from that, designing a new look for Pluto proved to be difficult as well – there is a thin line between having the dog look like Pluto or Scooby Doo. Much like Minnie Mouse, Pluto should be recognizable upon first seeing him, which I accomplished after a modest amount of time.
For the holiday video, since the look of Minnie was already established, I had to create new clothes that would match the story. A Christmas episode in the sea on a boat called for a captain-look!
The last video in this series is somewhat different because I was tasked to create a new shark character. This was a little relieving since now there’s even more room to try different things and experiment. This was a great video to explore different illustrations, animation techniques, and basically put as much detail as I can.
These videos are also available to stream on Disney+.
Well, that’s NFT!
I am getting into the NFT game!
The first couple of items are both existing artworks that I posted on Instagram. I would be minting my entire Face-collection as I earn more Ethereum. If you’re not aware of Ethereum yet, think of it as the prince to Bitcoin’s kingship. I decided to start with Rarible because it’s open to all artists. Eventually of course I’m gonna try getting into, or even creating my own gallery for Web3.0 (when I eventually figure that out.)
NFT’s have been the buzz in the crypto-art world as of late. Since this is still kinda in its infancy, there are a few things that are concerning after minting my first artwork. One particular drawback of this whole ecosystem are the Ethereum Gas fees. As of this writing, it costs almost $100 to mint a single artwork.
Hopefully when Eth2.0 rolls out, this would be well calculated into a more “fair” price. It’s always a big gamble to get into something new – but isn’t that what crypto is all about? Ask me 8yrs ago when I started buying my first Bitcoin what price it could reach by 2020 and I might have told you it would only go as far as $10,000. Welp, its now 2021 and Elon Musk – the master of FOMO – just boosted it up to $45K as I write this article.
Check out my first NFT’s on Rarible! Follow me for more NFT drops in the near future!
TUTORIAL: LEGO 3D Text Build in After Effects w/ Element 3D
In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a LEGO text build in Adobe After Effects using VideoCoPilot’s Element 3D. As an alternative to expensive 3D software, I’ll show you how to create and animate a dynamic and good-looking 3D text made out of Legos directly inside of AE, ready to comp and include in your work.
Download the C4D brick file here.
Read more about the project I used this method in from one of my recent articles, Singalongs On Steroids .
Purchase your own copy of Element 3D here: https://www.videocopilot.net/products/element2/
Show Meike Some Love: 35mm f1.7
So I just got myself a used version of the popular Fujifilm XF35mm f2. Y’all know it, you’ve YouTube’d the hell out of it, and read everything you can provided it’s not a shady site (unlike this of course). It does not disappoint I tell you that, but before having the privilege of that lens, I was using the Meike 35mm f1.7. I just feel like I need to show some of my love for it. Manual focus, cheap (most people say “inexpensive” but let’s be real), and not as sharp. I’m sure those old vintage lenses aren’t perfect as well, so this can’t be that bad right?
A lot of people don’t really like this lens, but a handful of people also do. I hated it during the first couple of weeks. I didn’t know how sharp or how bad it should be. I didn’t get anything good out of it, and I thought that I reached its limits. Then again, I was always shooting at f1.7, which is probably its worst f-stop. I kinda felt like it was just too much effort to like this lens, and it was not functioning how I wanted it to. My fault too for relying too much on focus-peaking. I found that turning any MF Assistant feature off is best with manual focus lenses.
The Meike 35mm f1.7 just got its own vibe though, so I stuck with it. It will give you something different, not worse, than the official X lenses. The way it handles color is just a love-hate thing. On one hand its a unique look, but on the other, its an inaccurate look too. If it’s giving you what you want then great. If you are expecting to get something in the quality of Fuji lenses, then you’re out of luck. It’s more compact than the xf35mm f2 though. The Meike doesn’t ship with a hood, but regardless it is still shorter than the Fuji f2 counterpart despite the bigger opening and wider filter thread. In terms of weight, I felt like the Meike lens was a bit heavier, which also gives it a premium feel.
A plus on this lens too is the not-very-accurate depth of field scale. Not perfect, but usable and way better than zone-focusing digitally. If you find your sweet spot, it’s basically point and shoot. I shoot mine mostly at f8 with the focus just between 10ft and 4m. Once you find that sweet spot, you’re good, and you will learn to love it. If you’re not a fan of having everything in focus, you might as well just get the XF35 f1.4, for the convenience of AF and wider aperture if you can find it for a good price.
The lens flare I could live with as well. I do like the work of Andrew Kramer after all.
If you have the Fujifilm X Series camera too, using Acros on this is just heaven. I almost want it to have scratches like I used to have using those old Colplan black and white film (Yes, Colplan is the goal!). It almost feels like cheating because using an affordable lens like this on a Fuji-X body and getting great images is just too good.
I hope each Meike35mm is unique. Like there’s a different characteristic or sweet spot for each lens; kinda like how 2 guitars could have a different magic to it even though they’re the same model. For me though, I think I got a keeper.
Overall, now that I have the Fujifilm XF35mm f2, I don’t think I’ll miss the Meike 35mm. That’s because this lens still has a place in the bag and will see its use. It’s still the best lens for those days you just feel like shooting JPG. Highly recommended, 5 stars, must-buy and all that jazz. Bye!
WhatIsLA? Series01
WhatIsLA? Series01 is a collection of digital illustrations about different meanings of LA. Some matter, some don’t. Some are relevant, most are not. But hey, I like finding different meanings in the simplest of things.
These are all available as prints and shirt at my online store so feel free to check them out!
Old Stuff
Early DBH T-Shirt Design
Made with Sketchbook on iPod Touch
Early DBH T-Shirt Design
Early DBH T-Shirt Design
Those cute IKEA toys are coming to get you!
My former band, Electric Fun’s “mascot”
mirocalderon.com 
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