There’s more to communicating than just passing on the information at hand.  The fact is most information isn’t terribly interesting on its own.  While it may be relevant or even important, how much of that urgency will you get across if the delivery method is so dull that the recipients go glassy-eyed before they get the message?  Not much.

That’s where resistance comes in.  It seems counterintuitive at first, but resistance is a key feature in action.  Every force is defined to some extent by the resistance it encounters. For instance, in order to get a 900,000 pound 747 off the ground, you need more than thrust, you need air, and wings that have a resistance to it.  Without that, 600 people just bought tickets to ride in a very big car on tiny wheels that will soon shake apart and explode.

So how do you build in resistance to information as part of a project that’s designed to communicate it?  There’s no single answer to this, but in general terms, you do it by creating context.  By placing the information in a context, a situation is generated, and that situation plays the role of positive resistance.  It’s takes on the properties of a tungsten filament that resists the flow of electricity, heats up and produces the mystical thing we call light.  If done skillfully, the situation created by your chosen context will embody all the necessary attributes to light up your message, making it interesting, and ultimately memorable.

Here’s my example:

I made this video for BeanJar Inc. to demonstrate their new gaming rewards service and iPhone app.  They needed to describe a long list of functioning details in addition to illustrating actual usage so the mechanics of the system could be understood by potential advertisers, game publishers, and consumers to boot.

The client already had two things defined: the app functions they needed to highlight, and some usage scenarios they wanted to illustrate.  I felt these two kinds of information represented different communication goals, and should therefore be handled in different ways.  While the app functions were pretty straightforward and needed to be delivered as literally as possible, the usage scenarios were a different matter, and they became the perfect means to include useful resistance in the production.

It’s easy enough to explain how someone may be using an iPhone app, but if the viewer is not already predisposed to hearing about it, they’ll blow right by like a runaway 747 taxi.  I suggested we create some distance (read: resistance) between the viewer and the app user depicted in the video by delivering her story via the auspices of someone once removed, who was watching her.  That someone would be a private detective who documents and reports the story as it unfolds.  By employing that device, layers of interesting content were added to the raw information, enhancing the meaning, personality and depth of the presentation.  The context, i.e., the resistance, I built into the project, is like air pressure under a jet wing, it’s noticeable, and ultimately provides a kind of glue that pulls the whole presentation together.

Determining how best to include useful resistance in a presentation is always a challenge.  It can be risky like any creative goal that requires you to reach beyond the expected, but “unexpected” is often synonymous with “unignored”, and if you can be bold enough to raise the bar a little higher for your next project, the rewards will be undeniable.

Once upon a time, there was a guy (Matt) and a girl (Julie) who loved making stuff up.  “Stuff” in this case started out as doodles and scribbles, graduated to drawing and painting, and eventually became lots of other things including just about every kind of media you can look at or listen to.  They learned how to:

• develop creative ideas and concepts, and effectively communicate them in an original, exciting way
• write, produce and record music and other audio, like interviews, voice overs and complete programs
• develop and produce highly original video presentations using Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects and Apple Motion
• design cool graphics including logos/brands, magazine ads, PowerPoint presentations, websites and all types of signage
• write great copy that gets the point across in an interesting way

Whatever the scope of your project, Julie and I draw on our uniquely original talents and wide variety of experiences to provide you with a superior creative product. It’s important to us that our work goes beyond meeting your basic needs to add something special, a flare and vitality that guarantees you’ll stand out from the crowd.

Made-Up-Media LLC is a creative services studio in Waleska, Georgia, owned and operated by freelance designers Julie B. Anderson and Matthew Sigmon.

Made-Up-Media LLC
PO Box 99
Waleska, GA 30183-0099
770-720-4724

Software used to produce the visuals include Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator. Audio work was done in Logic Studio and MOTU Digital Performer.

To view this video, visit our portfolio page here.

Demonstration video produced for BeanJar Inc., highlighting their new service and iPhone app. The developers wanted to cover a number of features in detail, so the challenge became a matter of presenting the information in a context entertaining enough to hold the viewers’ interest.

Depth was added to the presentation by creating a stylized private detective character who kept the service user under surveillance and reported on her activity.

Vintage treatments were applied to original illustrations, and coupled with retro sound design and voice work to bring the package identity together.

Software used to produce the visuals include Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator. Audio work was done in Logic Studio and MOTU Digital Performer.

To view this video, visit our portfolio page here.

Software used to produce the visuals include Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator.  The original music as recorded in MOTU Digital Performer, and features acoustic guitar, electric slide guitar and fretless bass.

To view this video, visit our portfolio page here.

Platform: Joomla

Software used: Photoshop, Illustrator

Live site URL: Livengoodplanet.com

For a closer look, click on the image below, then toggle the “full screen” option in the upper right hand corner of the lightbox.

Beneath Another Sky features two ambient compositions. Titled Suddenly and Always, the two pieces explore different views of a single idea.

Imagine you’re in an unfamiliar place. It’s night and you lay under an open sky. Free from preconceptions about your surroundings, your mind is open to seeing things as they actually are, not how you think they are or expect them to be. This is the premise represented by the lush, musical atmosphere both compositions in Beneath Another Sky are based upon.

Suddenly – click to listen

This track is a musical exploration of momentary awareness and aims to symbolically express the wonder and delight of unexpected beauty. A falling star, a drifting cloud, the shimmer of light from distant suns. It’s the appearing and disappearing, coming and going, rising and falling of phenomenon that reminds us life is ephemeral, and our challenge is to be as open as possible to both the depth and span of where we find ourselves in this moment.

Always – click to listen

Track two is a representative view of the fathomless expanse of which our experience of passing moments is an integral part. Behind every shift and change is an eternal consistency so pervasive and absolute that our usual state of mind misses it completely. It isn’t something that happens, but the unending context that things happen within. It’s here one realizes that ultimate “value” isn’t found in what things are, but that they are.

Beneath Another Sky is available here as a multi-format, name-your-own-price download.

As human beings, our lives are full of beautiful paradoxes, and none are more striking than our capacity to experience linear, finite time in one breath, only to open to mystical timelessness in the next. Recognizing that these truths are not at odds with each other, but instead are the complimentary foreground and background of our being, is an important step toward realizing something more about what we are. Beneath Another Sky is a musical nudge to help you remember that the sky you’re under right now is truly one you’ve never seen before. Watch carefully.

Our commercial voice over demo presents a compilation of voice treatments suitable for a wide range of audiences and programs.

Commercial Demo

Another great application for commercial style audio is to create an audio program or interview that digs deeper into the features and background of whatever you’re promoting. There’s something uniquely effective in presenting an idea, service or product in the context of interesting conversation.  It’s also an excellent way to highlight additional information the tighter format of advertisements or demo videos can’t accommodate.

If you think your message will come across better if it entertains in a humorous way, a character voice treatment may be what you’re looking for.

Character Demo

Check out the use of both commercial and character voicing styles in this video to see how entertainment and information can be combined to make a presentation more effective.

It’s a little known secret that when it comes to video, it’s really the audio that makes or breaks the presentation. Scruffy looking video with the right kind of soundtrack will come off as cutting-edge and cool, while pristine visuals stuck with a rotten audio track will fall flat.

Contact us to see how our knack for composition and creative audio production can allow us to build you a multi-media presentation that works on every level.

Platform: Joomla

Software used: Photoshop, Illustrator

For a closer look, click on the image below, then toggle the “full screen” option in the upper right hand corner of the lightbox.

Sigmon’s premiere solo release One Opens Up addresses an all-too-noticeable absence of intelligent, world-wise pop music. This thirteen song collection is an engaging piece of work that aspires to re-energize the genre for adults who grew up believing that music needed substance as well as style to be great.

Tracks

Leaving Day – click to listen
02. Underway
03. Where Do You Go
04. Angels In White
05. Feels Like A Finger
06. Fascination
07. With You
08. Millennium Man
09. Not Tomorrow Yet
10. Possibility
11. Sunny Shiny Moon
12. My Real Address
13. Between The I’s

Preview the entire album and purchase multi-format downloads here.

“One of the Top CDs of the Past Decade

If you’re a fan of creative, catchy, intelligent pop music, buy this CD –you won’t be disappointed. I’ve owned it for years and have repeatedly claimed that Sigmon’s collection of toe-tapping, sing-along tracks deserves to be recognized as the pop music masterpiece that it is. After repeated plays (and I DO mean repeated), it only seems to get better and better.

Not only that, but my kids (in their early teens), as well as friends and family members who’ve heard the CD love it too. And based on the reviews of others here and elsewhere, there is an audience eagerly awaiting more Sigmon music.”

-Alan Fornek
iTunes reviewer

“…I’ve given [One Opens Up] a few listens, and I like it a lot. It’s smart, grown-up, expertly crafted, sometimes edgy sometimes trippy pop that engages your sensibilities instead of assaulting your senses.”

“There are songs about life changes (“Leaving Day”, “Angels in White”) that are refreshingly hopeful and without the usual regret or bitterness… There’s also social commentary (“Millennium Man”) and philosophical introspective (“Possibility”, “Between the I’s) with a little spirituality thrown in (“My Real Address”).”

“…Sigmon’s music has lots of subtle and fun influences spanning decades of styles. It “sounds like”, well, Sigmon. If you like what you hear on XM’s Cafe or maybe The Loft, you’ll probably like this. North Georgia based Sigmon is a remarkably talented singer, songwriter and instrumental performer, who wrote, produced, arranged, and performed almost everything on the album. Check it out.”

-R. Neal
KnoxViews.com

“…I first heard “Feels Like A Finger” on RadioParadise and was hooked. I bought the album (from CD Baby because it was not available [on iTunes] yet) and was amazed at this music. This is truly intelligent pop music in the same vein as Peter Gabriel. Guarantee you’ll listen to one track and love it… then you’ll listen to the next and go… man, that’s better… over and over… I’m looking forward to more from Sigmon”

-Opustwo
iTunes reviewer

“I work in the retail music biz and as such get to hear tons of artists. It’s been a very long time that I have been so impressed by someone I’d not encountered before. Thoughtful lyrics, great hooks, and a fresh voice combine to make this album one I share with my music snob coworkers (whom also love it).”

-VulgarU
CD Baby Reviewer