Casual Fridays: Phil and The Third & The Seventh.

We realize that we post a lot of tips on presentations and presenting in general. We also realize this is the part of our blog valued most by our audience, by people like you. However, what we say in this blog is a direct reflection of who we are, and that’s something we don’t post a lot of.

This is Big Fish’s blog, but Big Fish is just a group of people and their passions. A lot of us do at Big Fish what we would do in our spare time. Our designers paint and draw, just to do it; our filmographer uploads videos to his own YouTube channel; and our copywriter scribbles notes all over classic books.

But we want to display this to you, to show how we translate our hobbies and passions into the work we do here at Big Fish. We want to show you the stuff we criticize, praise and learn from. The stuff that makes Big Fish what it is, and allows us to post the tips and advice for you.

So, starting now, we’ll be occasionally be posting our own critiques on Friday’s on the things we like and don’t like. It could be a video, a quote, a design, movie, or presentation. We’ll let you know how we see it, as professionals and as regular people. You may agree with us, you may not, and you might just learn something.

Either way, we feel it’s important you all get to know us a little better, not as Big Fish, but as Corey, Rob, Brandon and so on. We’ve cleverly named these posts, “Casual Fridays,” and this week it’s Phil’s turn:

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo. The Third & The Seventh is a film made by Alex Roman (Jorge Seva). I first saw this video about two years ago while I was stumbling around on Vimeo. It didn’t take me too long to understand that this video is truly a piece of art. At the time, I had never seen anything like it.

The way cinematography was able to draw you in from the very first shot. The entire video is very centered around architecture, photography, and film as a whole. And through this, Roman does a brilliant job of capturing the beauty of design in architecture and film. He’s able to do this by making you feel as though you’re taking a tour of these abstract and sometimes surreal locations.

As the camera travels through various buildings and landscapes, you begin to see a trend: The only person in the entire video is a mysterious photographer. This is also coupled with some shots of vintage cameras, minus the photographer, some of which seem to be moving by themselves. What’s really incredible is that not only did Roman create the video, but he also sequenced, orchestrated and mixed the music in it. This is one very talented filmographer, photographer, producer, individual, on and on. But if you think that’s impressive, you’re about to have your mind blown.

See, unlike the photographer in this video, Roman did not use a camera to capture these stunning images. Instead, he used a computer. That’s right. This entire video is computer-generated animation. Every. Scene. It was all built, textured, lit and animated from scratch.

I don’t even know what’s real anymore.