The Mozilla Story

Sound Design and Music Composition by Allan Levy

More info on this Thought Bubble.

Ecojustice Talks About Source Water

Sound Design and Music Composition by Allan Levy

Illustration and Animation by JinKyung Myung

http://theaquaticview.com/

More info on this Thought Bubble.

Unicef Canada Gifts of Magic (Part 1: Girl)

Unicef Canada Gifts of Magic (Part 2: Boy)

What do spacemen, mythical creatures and a jungle have in common?

What we hope is a fun, awesome demo reel.

It’s to show the work of our studio in combination with our sister company (who we literally share a studio space with), called Trouble and Maker New Media. You might remember this company through some of our past collaborations: TEDx Vancouver, our Thought Bubble promo 2010, and City of Vancouver’s Greenest City project.. We’re separate entities, but when we fuse our talents together, we’re like a happy marriage. This reel represents our combined creative introduction to the masses. Since we assume you already know a lot about us, here’s a link to Trouble and Maker’s website if you’d like to learn more about our friend: http://troubleandmaker.com.

We’ll be putting a reel out a couple times a year to highlight our work, but until then, enjoy our Smart Bubble + Trouble&Maker 2010 edition!

Illustration by Mike Mitchell

Here at Smart Bubble Society, we firmly believe in the prospect of a greener future, so we were pretty excited (no, ecstatic actually) to partner with an organization like Greenpeace; a pioneer in the world of eco-activism. Collaborations like these give us a chance to meld our expertise in the field of communications with our desire to inspire change. Not just a generic sense of change, but in this case, a call to action to shift our perspective and dependence on oil.

In Canada, we’ve got a hefty problem on our hands because we’ve got the Tar Sands. Not only that, we’ve also got a slew of offshore drilling projects both in northern and eastern Canada (including Chevron’s new oil rig off Newfoundland, one of the deepest offshore oil wells to date). All those things are not synonymous with less carbon emissions (which might be why we didn’t commit to anything reasonable at Copenhagen last year), nor do they support any hope for a greener Canada (remember when Canada used to pride itself on being an environmentally-minded nation?).

Greenpeace’s Go Beyond Oil project is working to demonstrate how we are implanted in a system directly tied to the to the consumption of oil. In fact, the team shut down a Cairn Energy offshore drilling rig located in Greenland on Monday morning by climbing and fastening themselves to the rig.

Unfortunately, we’ve become pretty accustomed to hearing about oil spills, offshore drilling, human rights violations in oil-rich countries, and damage to wildlife and our planet in general. It’s another day of headlines. But with Greenpeace, we hoped to remind our audience that the measly fines these multinational corporations pay, often just to tidy surface damage and quiet people from making an uproar, can never truly repair the damage already done. Nearly twenty years after the Exxon Valdez spill, 26,000 gallons of oil remained in Prince William Sound’s sands and water. The effects of these disasters typically last much longer than they are expected to, which is important to highlight given the recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, oil that is spilled into bodies of water never truly disappears; it forms deposits near the bottom of the sea, evaporates as gas into the atmosphere, and in smaller particles, gets absorbed into various aquatic life. You’ve heard about the dispersing agents, right? All they really do – with their undisclosed, secret concoction – is speed up the process of breaking the oil down to those smaller particles. Bottom line, the oil doesn’t go away.

But don’t walk away slumping yet, we’re happy to report that we did find a glimmer of hope, in a little publicized piece of legislature called The Climate Change Accountability Act or, Bill C-311. This bill could very well be the government’s chance to put Canada on par with the rest of the world, and make up for its shameful standing at last year’s Copenhagen Climate Conference. It’s important that our country picks up the pace, and breaks up with its longtime, climate trashing boyfriend the US.

No matter how redundant the news seems to get, we ask you to do one thing; and that’s to stay on top, stay informed, and don’t lose hope. Read about C-311, about Greenpeace UK’s actions to help us Go Beyond Oil, and think about ways that you, yourself, can start to get there. It could be as simple as walking to work tomorrow, boycotting petroleum-derived products (plastic bags), or buying your first, electric car (make that second, if you’re one of those people from Who Killed the Electric Car).

To check out the Thought Bubble we created for Greenpeace’s Go Beyond Oil campaign, click here.

“We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators, and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century.”

Their magazine opened up my mind to the possibility of ‘junk thought’ (as Micah White describes it); the pollution that advertising was creating in my mind. Like Jon, I always felt that as visual communicators we could, and should aspire to more philosophical and educational pursuits. We have a blog post that Jon’s written about this very topic if you haven’t had the chance to read it.

As you all know by now, Smart Bubble Society embraced this alternative mission and strives to prove to the world (and those naysayers) that it is possible to be a conscious design studio.

I first came across Micah White through his incredibly eye-opening article, Screen Addiction, and after that, his challenging call to Facebookers in Commit Facebook Suicide. Once I read his more recent article entitled Death By Advertising, I knew I had to reach out to him and cover one of his inspiring ideas. It was that article which first introduced, to me anyway, the concept of Junk Thought, and gave way to Micah White’s Thought Bubble. Here it is, and if you feel inspired by the end of it, please visit junkthought.org for information on how you can challenge the mental pollution in our world, and in your mind.

The link again, Micah White’s Thought Bubble: Junk Thought.

“an environmental short film competition that harnesses your creativity to convince the world to stop making garbage! But this is a film competition with a twist. All entries must be in the form of a movie trailer and they all have to convey this year’s waste reduction theme, which is: say NO to disposable coffee cups! Each year in North America we throw away billions of paper coffee cups, wasting trees and creating unnecessary garbage. Create a trailer that helps people make the choice to refuse to use disposable coffee cups!”

If you or anyone you know is interested in partaking or submitting to this competition, check out the website for more details.

This was a lot of fun to create, we decided on a cardboard theme for all the artwork, and fashioned it as a trailer to emphasize the concept of creating a trailer for the competition. We had the lovely Jeff Rechner a.k.a. VoiceBoy narrate it for us in your typical ‘trailer-man voice’ (but even more entertaining than anything else I’ve heard!), and the sound design and score was done by the superbly talented Allan Levy.

The competition was just announced, so we held off until now to share it with you all, we hope you enjoy it.

Check it out here.

John Green, an award-winning author and popular vlogger on Youtube, posted a video last week entitled, “Health Care Overhaul Summarized Via Massive Pig.” In under two weeks his post made it to over 700,000 views, which goes to show that people surfing YouTube or hitting Google with searches were looking for some information on the healthcare debate. It also helps that John and co-vlogger Hank have over 100,000 subscribers to their channel, ‘vlogbrothers’, ranking it as #46 most subscribed directors channel of all time. (For those of you that don’t know, YouTube channels follow a few different formats including Director, Reporter, and Musician. You choose yours based on the nature of your channel and video posts).

So we came across John’s health care post, and were intrigued by his clear, concise, yet entertaining narration. We also loved his comparison of America’s current state of healthcare to ‘Walkin’ Tall’, the ‘world’s largest boar who can’t walk.’ We also felt it would be a great experiment to take an existing video and supplement it with motion graphics to see the kind of response it would generate among its audience. Being a prominent vlogger, we hoped that some of John’s viewers would watch our video after his and see if it confused or clarified their understanding of his original discussion.

What was also exciting about this task was that it exemplified how we could supplement any existing, informative discussion on a relevant matter like the healthcare debate with a layer of supporting visuals. So far, it appears to be helping people understand and retain the information presented. We were lucky to come across John and Hank’s channel, and look forward to offering other online voices, authors, and educators an added dimension of communication.

A week and a half after his post, we present you with our adaption of John Green’s Health Care Overhaul Summarized Via Massive Pig.

Other links:
John’s original post: Health Care Overhaul Summarized Via Massive Pig
John Green’s website and blog
vlogbrothers YouTube channel

What Barry Says, by Simon Robson

This is one of the first infographics we laid eyes on. At the time of its release we were in school and motion graphics were still a relatively blurry medium for us (for me anyway). We had just begun experimenting with it for various purposes, but What Barry Says showed us its unmistakable effect at informing an audience of an otherwise complex and lengthy subject to research, in just a few minutes. As designers, it showed us the untapped power that we had to inform and mobilize people. We could now look outside of commercial services. We could now branch off and become activists with our existing skill set, and with a university-driven sense of relentless hope, we could change the world. What made this video so impactful was also the timing of its release, as it coincided with (and, I believe, catalyzed) the growing awareness around the war in Iraq.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized, by Jonathan Jarvis

Another informative and timely video, this time explaining the credit crisis. Here we see a seamless, clean explanation of another complex topic, and in a visually engaging, entertaining way. The narration paired with the crisp sound effects drives an understanding that deepens with the use of supporting iconic imagery. As Jonathan himself explains, “the goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated.” Therefore, viewers are inspired by their enlightening experience to (hopefully) delve deeper into the subject, or come away at least a little more educated. Thought Bubble plans to have this effect on viewers also, and with the formation of an online archive and social network, we hope that videos like this drive discussion and debate among viewers.

The Declaration of Human Rights, by Seth Brau

This video exemplifies just how powerful a soundtrack can be, and how useful an infographic can be in sharing an otherwise dry and lengthy information source. I mean really, how many of us have read through the Declaration of Human Rights? The founder of the Human Rights Action Center (HRAC), Jack Healey, states that “The UDHR was signed by the United Nations 60 years ago and, unfortunately, less than 1% of the world’s population is aware that it exists.” What’s wonderful about this video is that it achieves true global exposure by being translated into other languages. With such a simple style and text-central approach like we see here, it’s quite simple to do.

350.org: Because the world needs to know, 350.org

A great example of how effective an infographic can be without the use of typography (text). This way, there isn’t even a need for translation and the message is understood around the world as is. 350.org uses this video to explain their central motivation, which is to lower the CO2 in the atmosphere to a safer (and less globally-destructing) ratio of 350 ppm (parts per million).

Wedding Crashers: The Perfect Girl in Typography, Brian Cain

The last example is of a simpler, typographic video that visualizes dialogue from a character in the 2005 movie, Wedding Crashers. The nature of the dialogue is comical, which makes for a comical video in general, but the concept remains strong in that the visual support of text, a.k.a. typography, emphasizes the message being communicated (or in this case, spoken). The subtle animations of the text (such as the word dating becoming a set table) compliment particular moments in the conversation and add visual interest.

There are so many more examples out there, but we hope to add videos to that landscape that inform the audience, educate them, and motivate them to learn more about a given topic or issue. Our main goal at the end of the day, is to spread awareness, and help share knowledge.

That’s why we are looking for clients like NGO/NPOs, authors, great thinkers, and so on, who generally have important, informative, and educational messages to relay to the public. If you’re wondering about our videos, how we intend to make them, or what our service details are, please contact us. We can fill you in, and we’ll be posting all of that information to the blog very soon!