X Factor's Sam Callahan "Chasing Dreams"

Earlier this year as part of my degree I interviewed X-Factor's Sam Callahan who is now through to the Live Show's. 

I interviewed Sam for my magazine Aspire To Inspire. Aspire To Inspire was a magazine which aimed at promoting artists, that I believed in, and that I felt had a story to tell that would inspire our generation. As well as give an insight to the fans, into the musicians career/life. I felt there was a niche in the market for promoting talent positively to the people and the fans, that support these up and coming artists. I wanted to send out the message that anythings possible and thats what I hoped to do with this project.

I want our generation to know that no matter who they are, where they come from, they can be anything they want to be. Society create this idea of perfection, and the fact is, nobody's perfect, everybody's different. Yes!! It takes dedication and hard work but you can achieve your dreams. Having supported Sam for a few year's and interviewed him, I have been following X-Factor this year closely, the bootcamp stages I felt were uncomfortable to watch. To some it may have deemed entertaining to watch but this is peoples lives and dreams, and I felt this stage of the competition was harsh. 

You can read the magazine/interview here http://lilcdesigns.uberflip.com/i/133584

You can also follow Sam on his journey https://twitter.com/samcallahan94

Comment and let me know who you are supporting this year and why, I would love to interact with you guys and get your opinions on the show!!

For now Im going to love you and leave you. See you thursday!!

Live life and chase your dreams!! 

LC

xx

HOW I GOT STARTED!! (Motion Design)

Hey everyone,

Around a year ago, I began my second year of my foundation degree in Graphic Design, during this time I decided that I wanted to learn motion graphic's. Using my own initiative I began my research. I started by downloading a trial of After Effect's, and this was when I realised it was going to take a lot of dedication to learn, as from the off set it looked very complex compared to many other CS programmes. You can do anything you put your mind to, so don't let this put you off!! 

The best advice I can give to those of you that want to start out with motion design or any type of graphic's is to do the same. Some of the website's I found useful for tutorials and learning the basic's, as well as youtube were one's such as http://www.videocopilot.net and http://ae.tutsplus.com. 

My interest in motion design has always been there, whether it's from watching ad's, to seeing displays, watching films, to growing up seeing the change in cartoon programmes, I have always wanted to know how they did all these "cool" thing's. 

After working in the music industry as a booking agent and A&R, I felt it was natural to combine my skill's and talent with the contact's I started to build up. Being inspired day to day by music, and creativity. I kept coming across lyric video's on VEVO, So I decided this was what I wanted to learn.

So whilst doing some commercial freelance projects, I was approached by an artist to do a lyric video to their song and even though I didn't know exactly how to do it at first, I just said YES. Since then I have done various commercial and non commerical lyric video's, each one I try to learn a new skill and do something different, experimenting with my creativity and technique. As well using youtube, and tutorials online, I managed to gain some work experience at a motion design company where I created a mock up concert AD, for P!NK's tour, that would have been used on Underground AD board's. 

Since then I have been working on a new lyric video, which is my latest motion design piece. The lyric video I created was for Jake Miller's single "Collide" which I previously blogged about.

You can watch that video here: 

Two lyric video's that I have watched and been inspired by are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2A3oq1zn5A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9SeJIgWRPk

I am now looking to advance my skill's even further in After Effects. I have also started looking into Cinema 4D, as I am hoping to expand my skill's and show you that anything is possible. 

I hope you enjoyed this post!! See you Saturday! 

LC

xx