Corne van Dooren - (Multimedia) Designer

August 28, 2005

I've attached a guestbook to this website some time ago. If you appreciate my work, have read my books, seen my work or have anything else to tell me - use the guestbook!

On top of the Blog and My Photos I hope to have added another dimension to me personalizing this website. I have been shaping this site into a more personal website since starting Project 79, March 2005. Before that time this website was my professional website.

Anyway, leave a message & take care.

August 25, 2005

I've had many (Dutch) emails and response to the animation I entered in the Talpa competition. Thanks again to all those who have responded, I appreciate that. Also many, many thanks to all people supporting me throughout the Talpa competition.

Actually, I want to be honest about it. I entered the competition with marketing objectives. Because I've always received more visitors from outside The Netherlands I decided I wanted to draw more visitors from my home country. When the Talpa competition came up, I wanted to try and see how I could get the Dutch viewers to visit my website and take a look at my portfolio (hopefully generating work).

I knew the competition would draw a huge crowd. So when I started the animation, the only thing that was always clear to me: it should contain a reference to this website. I tried to make sure the web-address could not be missed by moving a camera from left to right - following the board with the web-address (2 times!) and one zoom-in.

The movie was deliberately made at poor quality to come across as someone giving 3D a go, while actually I have been using it professionaly for about 4 years. I deliberately did this because I felt an amateur animation would get more support than a professional animation.

My marketing idea seems to have worked as I've received about 100.000 visitors from The Netherlands, of which about 70.000 looked at the portfolio; about 60.000 visited this blog and about 25.000 linked through to www.project79.com.

I probably won't win any of the prizes even though I finished in the top 10 of 8000 entries. But that's okay (although the prizes sounded alright to me, especially the money, PlayStation or the Will Smith DVD Hitch), I have tested my marketing skills and am happy with the result. Next marketing strategy is to maintain this high ratio of visitors.... ; )

Take care.

August 15, 2005

I am completely recovered from feeling a little sick last week. So now it is time to get the business going again as I've lost valuable time.

Quite some stuff on the planning and quite some emails to run through and stuff. I've had good exposure with the Talpa thing, so I expect to be busy as ever!

Today I've made a cover design for Foundation XML for Flash MX, a new book (expected October) by friends of ED. I am assisting friends of ED with the new design for their Foundation series, so more covers on the way.

Anyway, gotta get to work... Take care!

August 11, 2005

A very big thank you to all the Dutch people who have voted for my Talpa-animation! I have made the final 10! The jury will now take a look at the highest ranked animations and decide who should win. I personally don't think I'll win it. But that's cool, I am already very proud of making the final 10.

I look at that as quite an achievement considering there were about 8000 entries. Mentioning my website in the movie has generated traffic to this website (85.000 people in first 10 days of August) and a lot of emails. Here are the most talked about issues in the email-traffic:

The animation was made using Cinema 4D XL. It was modelled, animated and rendered in 2 days. The quality can definately be notched up, but hey, I only had 2 days...

Yes, I am aware that entry 2218 of the top 10 is not original and that person has used it for other contests before. But it is not against the rules of the game.

The music is from a company in the UK (Q-Music) that delivers high quality rights-free music to companies and individuals.

The fire effect is a movieclip of fire masked out around the ball. The video of the fire is from Digital Vision, a company that delivers rights-free videos for a fine price.

The quality of the small movie is indeed a bit poor. And yes, I do have the movie at DVD Quality as it was made for the PAL format.

Thanks for your support throughout this competition!

August 6, 2005

Today me and Nadine have been to the Efteling with Nadine's sister Germaine, Germaine's hubby Olaf and their son Terence. Also members of the party crew were Nadine's uncle Huib and his daughter Bianca.

While the weather was really bad in big parts of the Netherlands we actually had quite sunny weather at the amusement parc in the south of the Netherlands.

We had a good day of fun. Made some photo's and got some nice video footage from a rollercoaster amongst others. Take care.

August 3, 2005

Okay, here's the thing.... I've entered a competition at Talpa, the new television station in the Netherlands. To win the competition (and the money) I need as many Dutch votes as I can possibly get through sms. Because I need Dutch votes I will explain in Dutch:

Je kan mij nu helpen 10.000,- Euro te winnen door de tekst TALPA 3240 te sms-en naar nummer 1010. Hardstikke bedankt voor de hulp! Let op: stemmen kan inmiddels niet meer!

Once again, many thanks, I'll let you all know what's happening through this website.

August 2, 2005

It's 1 'o clock at night and I am listening to some music, something I do very often as I enjoy music very much. As it happens I am listening to this track by Paul van Dyk, called "For an Angel". That track always creates a smile on my face as that track for me stands for the beginning of my career as multimedia designer and developer.

It's 1999 and Paul Barclay, my mentor during a training period at Hunterskil Howard, is using this track for a Lucent Technologies cd-rom. I am helping him with the production of this cd-rom. It was then that it hit me that I just love doing multimedia. So I immediately fell in love with the track.

It shouldn't be a surprise that the track brings back amazing memories for me. It is a track from when I was being shaped and moulded and deciding my future. Because of Paul and colleague Jeroen Meeuwissen I joined Hunterskil Howard, August 2000.

Unfortunately for me, the multimedia department lost all of its key members and had to be rebuild. Paul, Jeroen, Anneke, Mart, Remko.... They all left a once brilliant team. At that point I played the Paul van Dyk track more often because I'd wish things would be as energetic as they were when I was doing my training period.

As many of the readers of the blog will know I was sacked by Hunterskil Howard about 5 months ago. Actually I am very thankful that my new manager (replacing Anneke, but never delivering the quality) and the director decided to sack me. I have once again found that Paul van Dyk-vibe that I loved so very much in the beginning. It took me five years, but now I am enjoying the creative and good multimedia times again with my own company! (Even though I'd rather have these moments at a creative multimedia company...)

I am not saying I didn't enjoy my five years at the company at all. Actually I am very proud of the work I've done with people such as the talented Gerry, Glaudia, Greg, Francis, Richard, Andrew, Ben, Karm and others. It's just that I never managed to find my own creative way. Never managed to make multimedia count the way Paul, Jeroen and Remko could. Strange thing that I did manage to do this outside the company with the various book, magazines and other projects I worked on...

Maybe it is because the company didn't feel the same way about multimedia as I did, I'm quite sure that's it. I always wanted to push boundaries, yet never got the software or chances to give my views a fair chance. And since I got a new manager to replace Anneke, I kinda feel the multimedia department was turned into a web-developing department. Which limited my services and my creativity.

I recently found out that the guy being sacked with me at the time is now again working for the company. Glad he is back, because I believe he is the most creative Art Director they've had for a long time. For me, I would never go back. I have no bad feelings with the company, actually I would definately wish the new multimedia team (1 web-designer, 1 web-programmer) all the best, but I wouldn't want to go back for all the gold in the world... I think I am better off on my own or at a "real" creative agency...

...Besides, I am enjoying my Paul van Dyk-moments way too much...

Corne van Dooren, Multimedia Designer