The Unofficial Luis Hurtado™ Fan Club » Luis Hurtado

The Importance of Being Noob

Luis Hurtado — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:20:13 +0000

A few years back when I was freelancing at a couple different production companies and agencies, I ran the gamut on different creative offices and types of folk within them. I was fresh out of a large organization and I wanted to make my mark on the Los Angeles Design & Interactive scene. Typically, I was the “New Guy” on the team, which didn’t bother me very much, because everyone was always so friendly and open.

Most of the time, I would be sitting next to some of the most talented designers and animators, illustrious luminaries. I felt like a complete noob in comparison to them. I dreamt of one day, perhaps being lumped into the same group as them, but I knew I was far from it. Sadly, as things do, time moved on and we all went on to other projects.

Shortly thereafter, I landed a gig at a small, but up-and-coming Interactive shoppe. Everyone was incredibly nice, and I felt like I could definitely contribute to this organization. I sat down at my desk, looked around and saw nothing but young faces. For the first time in my life, I was one of the ‘Tribe-Elders.’

It felt good. I felt like I had arrived. I wasn’t the kid lookin’ up at, “Team Awesome” – Perhaps, maybe, I was one of those people lumped into that aforementioned group. I would walk in playing “Highway to the Danger Zone” in my head, giving finger-pistols to the cute, hipster receptionist chick. It was fantastic! I felt like Top Dog.

That’s when I sat down again, at my desk, looked around, and saw nothing but young faces. This time I had a moment of realization. I was the King of the Hill. But of what hill?

I could stay here and revel in ego. I could contribute tons to the organization, but would they be investing in me? I knew if I stayed I would not be learning or growing on a personal level. Every project handed to me would not challenge me in the slightest. I knew I could phone it in, and people would still be impressed. But I couldn’t do it.

There had to be some other hill, or mountain to climb, even if I couldn’t currently see it at that moment.

After a very long-winded story, my point is: if you aren’t continuing to grow or increase knowledge, then you are stagnating. It may be fun for a little while, but it’ll definitely end up biting you in the ass in the long run.

Speed Cameras

Luis Hurtado — Sat, 08 May 2010 19:26:06 +0000

Speed Cameras

Bliss.

Luis Hurtado — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:09:27 +0000

Bliss.

Father’s Day 2009

Luis Hurtado — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:10:28 +0000

Fathers Day

Click here for more photos.

Ooh, good quote!

Luis Hurtado — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:39:38 +0000

“The artist doesn’t have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don’t have the time to read reviews.”

-William Faulkner

NorCal Trip

Luis Hurtado — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:43:38 +0000

Hiking in Santa Monica Mountains

Luis Hurtado — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:53:34 +0000

Will Hathaway offered up the opportunity to go hiking up in the Santa Monica Mountains. I hadn’t gone hiking in a long while, so I decided to take him up on the invite.

Click here for a link to the Facebook photo-gallery as well.

Kevye West: 808s & Expiration Dates

Luis Hurtado — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 06:54:11 +0000

[ Read More to find out how I did the visual FX ]

Joe Lynch ended up shooting the music video, chopping it up and editing a fairly finished rough-cut by Tuesday or so of last week ( ~Dec. 16. ) He dropped off an external hard-drive, and I copied the rough cut Final Cut Pro QT locally onto my 2nd-Generation Macbook Pro with 3GB of RAM.

I brought it into After Effects CS3, and started going through each shot, seeing which light-sources I could attach lens flares to.

I decided to use Sapphire Plugins for the color-correction and lens flares. It turned out really great, they have an amazing hue/sat/bri plugin that allows you to adjust the brightness / contrast while still being to offset the darks lighter or brighter which allowed me to give it that ‘muted / white but high-contrast’ look that I was going for to parody the colors in Kanye’s Love Lockdown video.

There’s an, ‘Auto-Tracker’ Lens Flare Sapphire Plugin which dynamically adds lens flares to white-hot bright light-sources. It tends to ‘jitter’ around the frame a lot, so for the most part I animated and placed the lens flares by hand.

Since each shot has different white hot spots and brightness values, I went through each shot and set custom values for color-correction for each specific shot. It was fairly tedious, but I was really happy with the final outcome.

Below are Before & After shots of the music video to give you some reference on how the effects were added.

[ The 'Before' Shot ]

[ The 'After' Shot ]

It really goes to show you how easy it is to create a sharp-looking, high-budget / production values piece. I hope you enjoyed the quickie ‘behind the scenes.’

[ Logo Design ] TrackFanatic

Luis Hurtado — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 06:21:33 +0000

[ TrackFanatic Logo Design ]

Working on a side project with a few other race vehicle-enthusiasts. Lots more to come. For now, check out this logo I designed.

Lou-spiration

Luis Hurtado — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:07:01 +0000

[ Inspiration Image Gallery, Updated Daily ]

Dropbox has this feature of allowing you to sync a local folder of images and photos off your hard drive. I decided to sync my Inspiration folder, which are random photos, graphic design pieces, illustrations, life quotes, random musings and such. Some photos in the photography section may be a bit risquee. I update it daily, enjoy.