Industry news: CSTC "Fades to black".

Now this is a real shame. We were extremely shocked and saddened to see that the Canadian Screen Training Centre (CSTC) has been forced to close its doors due federal and provincial funding cutbacks. It actually hits us hard as my previous company (MõSHON Digital Media Inc.) sponsored and worked very closely with the CSTC and SIFT in the 1990's.

The CSTC, founded by Tom Shoebridge in 1981, trained more than 7,000 screen professionals and had offered some 600 workshops from coast to coast.

To read more visit www.cstc.ca.

Silver sponsor: Stock-Archive.com

Stock-Archive.com is proud to once again be a SILVER level sponsor at the FITC Design and Technology Festival in Toronto. The event runs between April 25 - 27. 2010. We hope to see you there. Visit our booth and pick up some swag that will make your tail wag. We are big fans of FITC and are big fans of the event.

In celebration of our sponsoring the FITC event. We are giving away three FITC passes to the next three people or companies that purchase a one year subscription (either a Photo, Illustration or the Dual Subscription). Each FITC pass is worth over $699 CAD in value. So this is an opportunity not worth passing up. Stock-Archive.com will contact the successful pass winners to get the necessary information to get the passes arranged for you. Unfortunately if you don't hear from us by Friday you were not "the next three" and were therefore not eligible to receive one of the promo passes. We thank you for your interest and participation. Good luck. This promo giveaway officially begins at 4:35 EST, April 14, 2010 and ends once the passes are gone or Friday April 16, 2010 at 1:00PM EST. Which ever comes first.

To purchase a Stock-Archive.com subscription. Use the promo code TOPDOG at the checkout and click apply to save 50% off our amazing subscription plans.

The passes are non-transferable and can not be re-sold. Promotion (FITC) tickets provided by Stock-Archive.com must be used by the person or company purchasing the subscription.

Big Fans of: FITC and the last advertising agency in the world

We are huge fans of FITC, Saatchi & Saatchi Canada, Lunch and Tool for this brilliant video was that was produced for the 2010 FITC event to attract people to come to the event. It foreshadows the imminent shift in media and advertising and how companies need to adapt to stick around... in other words you should really, really really go to the FITC 2010 event in Toronto.

We might be able to help you out. Check back early next week. We have 3 free passes to the FITC 2010 event inToronto. Stay tuned for details.

The Last Advertising Agency On Earth from FITC on Vimeo.

Big fans of : Red Lemon Club

Stock Archive is a big fan of the Red Lemon Club.


Red Lemon Club is a great self promotion website for creatives that sends out weekly tips to anyone who subscribes to their RSS, follows their Tweets or subscribes to their newsletters. Great insight into marketing, promotion and social networking/media strategy. We recommend following them on a weekly basis or order their new book. You might just learn something new. We did! That is why we follow RLC and are big fans of the Red Lemon Club.

Big fans of : Graffiti Research lab

http://graffitiresearchlab.com/



We can respect good quality graffiti and support the artists that take it seriously. Done right it is amazing. Were not big fans of random tagging that are littered throughout our streets. However, as objective as we can be, we can only see it as a stepping stone for some of these artists who mature and put their skills to use for good and evolve the next advancements in our society because these people are passionate about what they do. Passion drives creativity which builds progress and advances our future leaders.

The Graffiti Research Lab is a great example to show the general public that sometimes the people just trying to express themselves are the people who will use their minds for progression and good causes to advance our world or to help inspire those who are less fortunate. We present " The EyeWriter."

A good cause: United Way Campaign 2009

Each year Stock-Archive and Victory Arts makes time to work with the United Way Ottawa, to produce their campaign video and photos. It is a good cause and we are proud to have helped for over 4 years now. This years theme is "reDISCOVER COMMUNITY. What do you want your community to be?" Think about the message, think about how you can help in your community. Every little bit helps and it is for a great cause. To find out more about the United Way Ottawa, and how to donate, you can visit them on their website http://www.unitedwayottawa.ca

For production on this years video we tip our hats to Will Reid for his amazing direction and motion graphics magic. Masayo Shimizu and Ken Cooper for their amazing motion graphics and design contributions. The amazing audio score was composed and mixed at by David Burns and Wayne Bartlett. www.Bartmart Audio

To view the previous United Way Videos that Stock Archive / Victory Arts produced please visit our Victory Arts link on YouTube here. There are a whole pile of other portfolio videos we've produced there to get your juices flowing.

France is sharing and showing the love...

...and all we would like to say Merci beaucoup! With hundreds of new members from France it really makes us feel good that our content is attracting so many new people from various regions around the world ( 80 countries and territories so far!). The reason we single out France is that it is the third largest member base next to Canada and the United States.

Much of the traffic from France has been generated from a great designer blog/site. So, for all of our French speaking members from Canada and abroad, please check out this great designer blog www.all-for-design.com .

We also know that this connection to All-for-design.com, is somehow related to our exposure with the amazing netdiver.net designer blog which as been getting us much more international exposure than ever before. We highly recommend visiting www.netdiver.net every day. the content on this site is truly amazing and inspirational.

We certainly welcome any and all blog links. Please let people know about us. We are keen to build our members and continue to provide amazing free content until we launch this site.... which will happen within this year we promise. Also, the free images will remain even after we launch so no need to download everything. Also, upon site launch the searching capability will be active in the site.

Thanks again to all those who share the love and post blogs and links to us. It is sincerely appreciated!

Big fans of... Netdiver.net

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netdiver.net
You LUV everything design? So do we! Welcome home!

.............................................................................................................

Finally an online magazine for the creative mind. netdiver.net has amazing content published everyday thanks to an amazing researcher/editor that has sourced and filtered the best of the best in design, illustration, photography and other creative mediums. This online magazine is the best we've ever seen. We are "big fans..." actually, the word "big" is too small a word, so, for this entry we need to change it to say that we are "Huge fans..." of this online design magazine. We suggest you take a look. You'll be hooked on this inspirational candy covered website. Be prepared to be inspired like never before. Go check it out.

netdiver.net You LUV everything design? So do we! Welcome home!

Kinda neat... My kid digs it and I dig it too.

As much as I hated the 3D dancing baby of the 90's, I almost find it hard to believe how much of a fan I am of this video by Evian water for "EvianBabies"
I think the thing that made my day is that I was watching this video with my 9 month baby girl who was sitting on my lap smiling, giggling and bouncing as the babies roller skated away. We had to watch it a couple of times for her to have her fix... but I'm sure she'll be back for more later.

This video directed by Michael Gracey and developed by ad agency http://www.eurorscg.com

Hero > Jamie Muntean

You like motion graphics? We do too! We also are big fans of our next featured Hero. If there is ever a need for quality and speed, this guy has it all. Meet Jamie Muntean, this guy is a magician when it comes to motion graphics and animation. Trained in Animation, Jamie quickly picked up on After Effects and became an amazing motion graphic designer and has been working in the UK, Ottawa, Montreal and with clients all around the world. We've had the pleasure of working with Jamie and he seriously had to be one of the nicest... and most creative guys we've ever worked with. Passionate and dedicated, this is a guy you want working on your next project. For sure check out his reel here or on his site : www.thesideproject.ca

A Sneak Peek: HD motion clips: Vicky

Besides shooting stills and creating illustrations... we've also been busy creating some wild motion graphic HD clips. While we've got a batch of amazing "Line Works", "Motion Masks" and a bunch of other animated clips, we have also been producing precision based HD clips that use steady cam, dolly and Jib arm to capture shots. We even got a bunch of Raw shots that are just hand held, gritty and show the reality of this crazy world.

This mini movie was a tribute to our camera named "Vicky". This batch of Royalty Free stock clips was shot in one car ride home by the "Vice Admiral", (our D.O.P.) Vice, went home with the camera, shot clips on his way home, ate some dinner, neglected his girlfriend and worked until 3AM and came in the next day ( at 8:00AM I might add ) with this mini movie that showcases what his "typical drive home" is like everyday. As you can see we are shooting content all the time. There are no real work hours here... we shoot when we see things or when we are inspired... not just during regular work hours. Above and beyond the call of duty Sir Vice.... Nice work!

FITC 2008... memory lane

We were just getting prepared for the FITC 2009 tradeshow and came across our ad from last year. Last year's FITC theme was "Break it". The FITC group suggested to advertisers to try and make ads that worked within the theme. We love a challenge, so took it on!

Our ad/concept was "IT'S FREE....THE INTERNET IS NOT BROKEN.... IT'S JUST CONFUSED... .TRUST ME". We came up with this tag line because we figured nobody gives anything away for free these days... We were giving away 500 Royalty Free stock images away. Yea... look at us now! We are at 2,000 free images. The INTERNET is not broken it is REALLY SCREWED UP. Why give 2000 Royalty Free stock elements away.... Why not! We want your love so we gotta share the love! (Wait that is this year's campaign)

This wicked ad for Stock-Archive.com was a great collaboration project we did with our amazing Algonquin College Coop students of 2008 which consisted of Steve Capyk, Joulian Tavalloli, Zach Flaman, Priyanka Singh, and Sahil Khanna. We asked them all to build some vector line art for our stock collection as part of their first week of coop placement. The day after they submitted their examples we put together an ad that was a mix of all the elements they provided. Each of these individual elements will be available on the Stock Archive site once we launch. This was a great example of working as a team and putting a mixture of styles together to make one amazing looking piece.

We are all big fans of Algonquin College as the entire staff that works at www.Stock-Archive.com

graduated from Algonquin. We don't have last years algonquin college website handy but we figured we'd give some support to the Design Grads of 09. Check out their work. From what I've seen it is pretty amazing. Some good potential employees here if you are looking. www.redhanded09.com

Kinda neat... My brain is officially augmented.

While some of you may have seen this. I can't stop looking at it. It is mind blowing what people are doing with Flash and their human brain and lots of spare time. While I could blab "on and on" about Augmented Reality, I think it is just best that you go see this for yourself. I've posted two links to watch... and some of you can actually do this and my hat is off to those of you who can. Our Flash skills are not quite savvy enough to do this so we'll just leave that to the pros and watch from the sidelines.

But seriously, go enjoy these two examples with Augmented Reality links.



Lee Brimelow http://www.gotoandlearn.com/play?id=105




Toyota Campaign http://http://www.toyota.co.uk/cgi-bin/toyota/bv/frame_start.jsp?id=iQ_reality

Shameless Promo : Stock Archive Tradeshow display

While we are on the topic of Good Dog, Bad Dog, I thought we'd also show one of our tradeshow pop-up displays. We thought it would be good to see how these simple images can be used and re-used over and over again. These two images are free on page 27 and on Monday there will be some more of this fantastic K9 Mug for you.... and some other cute dogs in the site. So, if you like what you see go get em!

The print job was from a company called Industry Images. We are "Big Fans of..." Industry Images. They have super fast turnaround and great quality stuff and not to mention super cheap. Try them out on your next project. They have locations in Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto. Go take a look. www.industryimages.com.

We are fine with Feiner

From the jumbo super empires like Fuel Industries to the independent creative superstars like David Feiner, we will profile these heroes from time to time. We just want to share the love and to pass on info and links of who and what's hot in the industry. Hopefully we can get some cool collaboration going or maybe just get people inspired enough to push their own creative limits. Hence David Feiner! This guy doesn't seem to have any limits. "Our hero" this month, David keeps impressing us with each new project he works on. With some great work from brands such as GM, Oh Henry, HBO and Toyota... and not to mention his own, David is setting the bar for independent freelancers proving that it is possible to stay single and be happy. Armed with an arsenal of creative juice, multiple Flash flavours and a vault load of passion it is no wonder why he chooses to stay as an independent. This guy works better with you than for you. Nice to see people stick to their guns for what they like to do and stay grounded at the same time. David is a super nice guy, with amazing ideas and he will for sure be one to watch as we expect amazing things from him in the next few years.

Do yourself a favour and go check out his site... better yet hire him for a project (or more). We are fine with feiner... you will be just fine too.

www.iamfeiner.com

April Fuel's Day: Get a job on the spot!

This is no April Fool's day joke, in fact it is called "April Fuel's Day" Open house Job fair. If you are not working at Fuel already you should be. If your in jail... break out and bring your portfolio and resume to this event. Heck If I wasn't running my own company I'd be in first at the door for a job with this amazing company. Fuel has the best talented designers, programmers and project managers from across Canada, the United States and other global countries. We are "Big fans" of Fuel Industries. A leader in Branded entertainment and mobile gaming. Seriously you should have stopped reading this blog at the second line and just clicked the link to get the info and go to the Job fair. Heck I just told my own staff to go apply for a job there. My fingers are crossed that they won't but why should I stand in the way of an amazing opportunity. It is nice to see that in these troubled times there is a company doing amazing stuff and hiring people when others are just letting them go. Good on ya Fuel!

So seriously... why are you still reading this blog... click the damn link already! www.fuelindustries.com

Shameless promo: The same but different

This was one of our first Ads in Applied Arts magazine. A great design and media magazine. We are "Big fans of..." of Applied Arts Magazine. We encourage you to pick up a magazine or one of the annuals and visit them online. www.appliedartsmag.com


The same but different.


We’re the same as everyone else. We’ve got the standard stuff – handshakes, shiny apples and smiling kids. We even have a dull name.

Then, well, you notice something different. Our images are technically perfect. Each one is carefully colour corrected and edited. All logos are removed without a trace. There’s never a flaw, ever. And then you see the price – totally reasonable. And the images are all model released. No residual costs. That’s different.

You also notice that our shooters are not thinking like photographers. Nope. We’re designers and art directors. We think like you. We’ve been in your shoes. Then you discover some of our work that’s off the beaten track. It’s really different.

You start seeing how our images really get at the heart of your creative process. They stimulate your mind and body. They help you conjure up and complete whole campaigns.

Suddenly you realize how different we really are.

Stock-Archive.com


So that was the write up. It was certainly different than all the other corporate mumbo jumbo that the other companies were pitching.... Funny thing is they are all making money... we aren't. Maybe we should be more business and less passion? But then we totally would be the same... we like to be different.

To each his/her own.

Big fans of... CatShitOne

Hey we didn't come up with the name. In fact we spent some serious time online trying to figure out why the name was what it was. We did figure it out but figured it is like an Easter Egg hunt for those intrested. Now, regardless of the name, this bunny movie... not that it has anything to do with Easter was an amazing masterpiece in animation. The bunnies are pretty darn cute for military special forces unit. You must go watch this video... It is all in Japanese and probably one of the best 3D trailers I've ever seen in a while. It has some bunnies in it so we consider it festive enough to add to the list of "Big fans of..." Easter edition. Seriously I've probably watched it like 10 times. Still can't get over the small subtle details. Brilliant.



The company that created it can be found at www.studioanima.co.jp

The best part that we just figured out today is that USAGI is "Bunny" in Japanese.... Put all the words together with a space in English and we get USA G.I. We thougth that was pretty cool... yea we are geeks. We admit it.

Big fans of... Hank and Mike

So if you are looking for some great Easter Entertainment (Maybe not for the kids) we are "Big fans..." of this Easter Holiday movie "Hank and Mike". We encourage you to go visit their site and watch the trailer. Hank and Mike are in theaters now. So go check it out.

Here is a little info about Hank and Mike. They are two pink, pissed and unemployed easter Bunnies that have some pretty big chips on their shoulders. An "off-side" movie with some good old fashioned humour.... well maybe not so old fashioned. More like modern, edgy and sharp humour.

The film is directed by Matthiew Klink from Ottawa. Matthiew is an up and coming Director with a great vision and lots of passion. We've had the pleasure of working with Matthiew Klink back when he was producing and directing Y.B.Normal?. A sketch comedy series that aired on the Comedy Network. We are quite proud of his focus and dedication to get this movie made. He has been talking about it for quite sometime and we congratulate him on getting it to the big screen. Some of us only dream of making a movie. Matthiew did it and I bet will do it again and again. For sure one of our heroes. Good on ya Matthiew. See the trailer and more on Hank and Mike here. www.hankandmike.com

Share the love.

We are launching a new ad campaign online, some magazine ads, swag and we are sponsoring the FITC 2009 tradeshow in April. [ www.fitc.ca ]. This is a small taste of what the ad flavour is. We are now close to 2,000 free promotional Royalty-Free stock elements. People have been asking... "why not launch your site and start making some money from all this great stuff." Our response is "Share the love". We love that people are coming to our site, registering, and coming back every week to get more free stuff. Makes us feel good. Good feelings = "love", in return, we share our "love" back with free content to you and others. One day we might open this site up and actually start recouping all the money we've spent "Sharing the love". We know the "love" will be returned once we launch. To all of you loyal members... thank you!!! And yes... everybody at Stock Archive loves you!