As a renowned 3D Artist, creating stunning visual effects seen by audiences around the world, China’s Xin Yi is incredibly adaptable in her work. She does not have a specific style or trademark, but rather focuses on creating the most stunning imagery she can in whatever style the project demands. She can make visual effects look as realistic as a photograph, blending seamlessly with their surroundings, or a stylized animation that captures the hearts of its viewers.
This outstanding versatility is evident in all of her work, no matter the genre or medium. Whether creating the virtual set for NFL Redzone or modeling, materials, lighting, and some transitions and characters for the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship, Yi focuses on the details to create artistic effects.
Recently, millions around the world saw Yi’s work in the Rocket League: Radical Summer trailer, although they may not know it.
Rocket League is a vehicular video game developed and published by Psyonix. It is like soccer, but with rocket-powered cars and has up to four players assigned to each of the two teams, using rocket-powered vehicles to hit a ball into their opponent’s goal and score points over the course of a match. Released in 2015 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4, with ports for Xbox One, macOS, Linux, and Nintendo Switch being released later on, it is a now iconic game, with its own professional league and a vast worldwide following.
Radical Summer is an extension of the game, a celebration of ’80s movies, television and culture. The extension has new items, game modes, DLC, and more. Available From 6/10 to 8/12 on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
“It is a pretty fun game to play with friends, even though I am not usually a gamer. The Radical Summer pack is super fun and cool as well,” said Yi.
After previous success on the Rocket League: McLaren 570S Car Pack Trailer in late 2018, Yi and her team at the motion graphics design and animation production studioCapacity were once again invited to create captivating cinematics to promote this new development of the game.
Before beginning work on the trailer, Yi did some research on Rocket League to know more about their style and at the same time, she watched movies from the ’80s and listened to music from that time period. Understanding more about the time period was essential in creating an ‘80s appearance and style in her work.
Yi did all of the rigging parts and exported them to let other teammates make an animation out of them and she also helped to animate one of the shots. She worked tirelessly to make the trailer both stunning to watch while matching the game’s style. She also did transition work to make the shot transfer to the next shot smoothly and did a composition for the TVs in the trailer to allow other artists to replace the footage easily.
“It is a really interesting project to work on. It brings us back to the ’80s, the rock music years. The pack is also using many elements from some 80’s culture, television from the decade and blockbusters,” said Yi.
Yi’s work on the rigs, animation, composing, materials, scene transitions, and renderings of this trailer paid off. The trailer was released on Rocket League’s official website and YouTube in June 2019. It received many positive comments and a lot of people were looking forward to playing the newly released pack. It has over 3.6 million views on the official YouTube link so far, and greatly contributed to the Radical Summerpack’s ongoing success.
You can check out the Rocket League: Radical Summer Trailer to see some of Yi’s beautiful 3D artistry.
Having always has a passion for playing video games, James “Jameskii” Prime spends each and every day doing what he loves. The popular YouTuber has millions of fans across the globe, that tune into each and every new video he uploads. His unique parody style content based on video games and web culture has vastly resonated with his audience.
“I can be anywhere at any point of time and create content for people across the entire globe just with an access to a phone or computer. Being raised in a poor neighborhood, I would’ve never imagined that it would even be possible. It’s incredible. Influencers and internet personalities are a huge part of our modern culture now and we take it for granted these days. I can’t even imagine it being taken away from us one day. I reckon if we were still stuck with 56 kb/s dial up internet modems, things would be completely different, in a bad way of course,” he said.
Jameskii currently has over 1.4 million subscribers on YouTube. His videos amass anywhere between 600 thousand and 11 million views, with continuous comments from fans supporting his work. Just last year, he attended the biggest event for video game streamers in the world, Twitchcon, as a Twitch partner, and co-hosted the Jingle Jam 2018, a series of livestreams that are shown over the course of December each year with the intention to raise money for various charities.
With his immense popularity, Jameskii also had the opportunity last year to strike a brand deal with Tencent Games, the world’s largest gaming company, and one of the most valuable technology conglomerates, largest social media companies, and largest venture capital firms and investment corporations in the world.
“When Tencent Games reached out to me with a brand deal I just couldn’t say no. I’m usually down to do brand deals with products I like, use or would recommend to someone, so it was a win-win for everyone really,” he said.
As part of Jameskii’s deal with Tencent, he was asked to make a dedicated promotional video for the game Ring of Elysium. In doing so, he handled everything, including recording gameplay with friends, writing down ideas to setting up skit situations in-game and editing the outcome footage. The result of his efforts turned out to be a hilarious montage of his adventures in the snow land of Ring of Elysium.
Jameskii’s in-game meetup in “Ring of Elysium”
“It was pretty much like working on any other video of mine, still the same bizarre style and total hilarious nonsense. I like messing around in games and doing things that aren’t really intended by the developers, so we tried a lot of random stuff like launching cars in the sky for example. The developers really loved my approach which means a lot to me. I love game studios with a sense of humor,” he said.
Tencent games also provided Jameskii with access to hosting his own private lobbies for his viewers. He held multiple games allowing fans to join him during his live streams, inviting his fans to meet him in-game. In one instance, he had over fifty fans joining him for a snowboard race, which is no small feat considering the size of the map, and the fact that the objective of the game is to eliminate other players.
“Even if it’s a brand deal, I can’t see myself making boring videos that aren’t fun for me and my viewers. I always want to be sure my content is enjoyable for everyone,” he said. “This game hadn’t been released in Europe yet, so I loved the fact that I got an early access to the game I was already excited for. I like trying out new games especially with unusual genres or unique mechanics, so it was a fun experience.”
The partnership between Jameskii and Tencent proved fruitful for all parties involved. The video created a vast amount of interest in the game for viewers, bringing many new players to the game that helped jump-start its popularity during the game’s launch in Europe. As of now, it is one of the most popular and most played games according to Steam statistics. Jameskii’s initial video featuring game play has over 800,000 views.
“It’s cool that influencers like me have an ability to jump start new projects. I love discovering and trying out new things, so it’s always awesome to bring life to a new project which allows its creators to do more creative decisions with unpredictable results. Creativity and originality are essential when it comes to entertainment in my opinion. I reckon it would be worse if all games had mechanics that are way too similar because the developers would be afraid to innovate in fear of the project’s failure. Of course, you can always rely on ideas that worked for years, but I think influencers heavily encourage people to try out new things, both when it comes to creation and consumption,” he concluded.
Jameskii is one of YouTube’s most popular video game content creators, and he has no plans on slowing down. Check out his YouTube channel for more funny videos and updates to what promises to be another exciting year.
Ryan Hughes is widely known under the alias ‘Bucks”
It can be argued that Western society has progressed quicker in the last decade than in the last 50 years combined. With the rise of technology and the ever-changing way in which information is created, distributed, and consumed, it is easier than ever before to spread a given message or idea across the globe. In the wake of this fast-paced societal transformation, there lies a community that was seemingly inconceivable for generations gone by: a network of online personalities, social media moguls, and internet gurus. More commonly, we now understand these individuals as being social media influencers: social media users who have established credibility within a specific industry and who have access to a large audience, allowing them to persuade their followers by virtue of their authenticity and reach. While it may appear to be a glamorous profession, in reality, social media influencers undergo immense amounts of pressure and public scrutiny for the views they put forth before others. For the most part, however, they attract large followings of supporters who value their efforts and find inspiration in their content. For one social media influencer in particular, Ryan Hughes, it is a dream job and one that he cherishes dearly. It is his pride and joy and the British-native works tirelessly to ensure that it is everything his followers desire and more.
“Being an influencer, especially on YouTube, is a 24/7 job. There isn’t a time of day where it is not on your mind. You’re constantly juggling your next idea, your future ideas, your current online performance, any increase or decrease in growth, any upcoming deadlines, any contracts, or sponsorships, etc. It takes a great toll on you mentally,” said Hughes.
Hughes began his YouTube career in 2012 when he created a channel under the alias, “BuckFizz,” a name which he later shortened to “Bucks.” It wasn’t until he began attracting thousands upon thousands of followers that he decided to leave his role at a large, global digital marketing agency to pursue a full-time occupation as a professional social media influencer. Today, his YouTube channel hosts to over 400,000 subscribers and all of his videos combined have earned a remarkable 62,839,195 views and counting. In addition, Hughes Instagram and Twitter accounts have earned upward of 90,000 and 72,000 followers respectively. As he continues to create and publish his content, those numbers are only sure to rise. His reach is wide and his motivation to expand his presence in the online entertainment industry is stronger than ever before.
At the beginning of his YouTube career, Hughes set out to create a channel that would act as a source of entertainment and laughter within the online gaming community. He recorded himself playing popular online games, full of tips and tricks as well as elements of his own quirky personality. Today, he has expanded his content to include not only gaming material, but also personal vlogs, product promotions, and much more. For instance, earlier this year, Hughes was selected as a candidate to promote and endorse a Cineplex and WorldGaming tournament in Canada which has earned nearly 100,000 views in total and can be found online here. In another of his brand collaborations, Hughes was approached by the app, Skinsilo, to promote their inflammable mobile phone case. In situations like this, companies will reach out to social media influencers in order to use their creative space and their strong followings to promote their products. These influencers are often given full creative reign to create a video using and reviewing the chosen product. In his collaboration with Skinsilo, Hughes entertainingly set fire to a phone, which you can watch here.
Hughes is well known for his unusual, captivating antics and his followers continue to tune into his videos time and time again knowing that they will get to see whatever exciting new idea he has conjured up. Another of his more notable characteristics, however, which makes him an even larger source of inspiration for his subscribers, is the fact that he is consistently looking for ways to not only connect with his followers, but to reach out to them and to give back to the community in whichever way he can. He recognizes that social media platforms provide influencers like himself a unique opportunity to raise money and awareness about prominent social issues and he is proud to work in an industry that makes a great effort to support individuals and communities in our society that experience hardship in their daily lives.
“Charity is a very important thing in my life. As a child, I always vowed that I would support charities at all costs, no matter what sort of salary I’m making. There are so many people in this world that experience unfair situations and I think it is imperative that as humans, we join together and help,” Hughes noted.
On May 22, 2017, a homemade bomb was detonated at the end of an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in Manchester, United Kingdom. In the wake of this devastating attack, twenty-three people were killed and over 500 others were injured. When Hughes learned of this news, he was extremely affected and determined to find a way to lend his support to the victims and loved ones of this horrific event. In June, he learned of a crowdfunding page hosted by the website, www.justgiving.com, and decided that he would find a unique way to raise money to donate to the cause.
“Working on this involved playing on the sponsored website, CSGORoll.com, which essentially offers Vegas-style games to bet on using onsite credit which can be exchanged and withdrawn in the form of in-game cosmetics for CS:GO. To raise money, I filmed myself playing on the website to earn as much money as possible to donate to the charity. In the end, myself and the website put forward a total of over $1700.00. In addition, the amount that my audience donated in total is unknown due to the fact that they were contributing to a large-scale crowdfunding page; however, it is thought to have added a substantial amount to their total. You can watch the video here,” indicated Hughes.
Hughes’ manager and agent, Ryan Fenwick, took great pride in knowing that he is representing such a courageous, giving individual and supported Hughes every step of the way for this initiative. He was astounded by Hughes’ drive to carry this project out carefully and considerately. He wanted to raise as much money as possible, whilst still appealing to his audiences and making sure that the entertainment and fun they know and love about him was not compromised at any given point.
“Ryan and I worked very closely to come up with a highly effective way to make a positive impact. Not only did Ryan show great support and love, he went above and beyond to complete the video in a timely manner. I’ve never seen someone miss so much sleep over a charity video before, but I could really tell that Ryan cared and his fans did the same. He has one of the most sickening work ethics I’ve ever seen and he is truly dedicated to creating as much valuable content as possible. He’s by far the greatest social influencer I get to work with on a daily basis.
For Hughes, being able to use his YouTube channel to generate awareness about this tragic event, but also a financial contribution to its victims, was indescribable. He felt that being able to bring such a powerful meaning to this particular video gave it a very intense feel and he made a strong effort to raise as much money as he possibly could in order to donate. Being able to combine his creative and philanthropic interests was unlike anything he had ever done before on his channel and it inspired him to continue to do so for as long as his YouTube and social media influencing career will permit.
William Shakespeare once said, “when words fail, music speaks.” It is a universal language with the power to change lives, to evoke emotion, and to allow human beings to connect with each other on the deepest level. For renowned composer, Min He, it is a language she speaks fluently. She is one with her music and her compositions are profound. When audiences listen to He’s work, they hear far more than an arrangement of notes and chords. They hear her passion, her expertise, and her extraordinary ability to connect the world through her music.
“I love composing because I like being creative. I have so many things to say to this world, whether it’s my feelings, my thoughts, or my imaginations. For me, being a composer is an opportunity to capture my emotions, to write them down, and then to share them with my audiences. It is a bridge that connects me with the world and it is the most wonderful form of communication that I can think of,” tells He.
Through He’s unwavering desire to compose, she has built a career unlike most. The award-winning composer has acquired experience from a variety of different projects and she is well versed in studying a script and determining how best to bring it to life with her music. Whether she’s scoring or orchestrating, she has an unprecedented affinity for creating unique sound arrangements and she is an invaluable member of any team she works with. She has a vast amount of experience, composing for films like Princess Eun Hwa, Sanjiang Dream, and Jin Zhi Xi Yan (No Smoking).
One of the many things that sets He above her competition is her diverse understanding of the art of music and her willingness to experiment composing for different genres and mediums wherever possible. For instance, in 2014, He was approached by game designer Zi Li about composing for the video game, Dissonance, and due to her love for video games and her passion to expand her knowledge in the arts and entertainment industry, He eagerly accepted. The success she earned from Dissonance, however, was the reason she was later approached by designer Jack Cai about lending her talents to his game Pursuit of Light 2 in 2015. Cai had heard of He’s reputation, sampled her work in Dissonance, and knew that he needed He to take his game to the next level.
When He composes for a video game, she begins by speaking with the game designer about the type of feel that he or she hopes to communicate in the game. She then requests a cue sheet with the designer’s vision for each piece. This is where He’s magic begins. She carefully and considerately reads through the designer’s ideas and determines how best to translate these ideas into scored scenes. Once she has developed her composition, she vigorously edits through it to ensure that presents the designer with nothing but the highest quality composition. She then allows the designer to review and make any changes necessary.
Due to the fact that He has such a vast understanding of her profession and an unparalleled creative edge, she is often trusted with taking full creative authority over the process. In rare cases, where designers are skeptical about stepping outside of their comfort zones, He uses her professionalism and work ethic to communicate their options and to make sure that they are getting the best result for their project. For instance, when He worked with Li on Dissonance, she was asked to write dark and depressing music to keep with the mood of the game’s storyline. He, knowing Li’s vision for the game, was certain that there was some leeway to dive deeper into the player’s emotions and create a more dynamic score. When she suggested adding elements of hope and brightness to the composition, Li was hesitant. He proactively decided to craft two separate pieces, one keeping with Li’s vision and one demonstrating He’s ideas. Upon reviewing the two compositions, Li realized that He was right and loved the result.
“Working with Min was a wonderful journey. She has phenomenal ideas when it comes to making music and more importantly, her sound is unique and she is innovative beyond measure. On top of that, she is so gifted and hard working. Her love for video games also helps to make her music fit with the game. She just knows what will work best for the project at hand and I am glad I was able to work with her,” states Li.
He becomes instrumental to any project she works on and is often showered with praise and recognition for her efforts. She has received a number of awards for her work. Dissonance, for instance, won the Indie Prize for Best Innovative Game 2015 and The Experimental Game Showcase at the Out of Index Festival. Pursuit of Light 2, on the other hand, won the CGWR SINA Award for Best Indie Mobile Game of the Year. For He, receiving recognition for her work is fulfilling, but the true joy of her job comes when she hears what her audience or the players of her video games have to say about her work.
“One of the greatest joys about my career lies in the way that people receive my music. They truly love it and they actively look to hear more. After Pursuit of Light 2 was released, I saw reviews from players left on the Apple Store and they were all talking about my music, saying how beautiful and enjoyable it was. In that moment, when I was reading those reviews from absolute strangers, I felt truly loved and it was the highlight of my career,” He recalls.
In future, He hopes to continue creating beautiful compositions to share with the world. Professionally, she aims to work with more talented and prestigious movie and television directors, as well as game designers. Personally, she is bursting at the seams with inspiration to compose even greater works than she has already created. For He, composing is more than a job. It is her creative outlet and she is always ready to try something new.
Composer Shaun Chasin conducting a string orchestra at The Bridge Studio
Shaun Chasin is a prolific composer who uses his immense musical talent to write and record soundtracks for films, television programs and video games for some of the biggest production companies in the world. Through his work Chasin essentially sets the mood for entire narratives, breathing life into what would otherwise be just dialogue and silence.
Chasin recognized early on the importance of the growing video game field, and has applied his knowledge and passion for that booming sector of the entertainment economy to boost the sense of immersion. He was integral to the success of the recent game Hektor, for which he was not only the composer and sound designer, but also worked with a 40-piece orchestral band to record the soundtrack.
“Video games provide an interesting opportunity for a composer because it’s a non-linear medium,” Chasin said, explaining how unlike the score for a movie, video game soundtracks must be able to change and adapt on a moment’s notice. “The music must stick with them and be able to change based on their actions.”
Hektor is a great display of his adaptable and varied talents, but Chasin primarily works in film, where his compositions truly shine. One such film is 11 Minute Mile, the striking story of a man stuck in an airport after all flights are cancelled in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. The man tries desperately to reach his brother, a runner in the ill-fated foot race, but his attempts are in vain. Through Chasin’s careful work on the film’s score, the audience feels that frantic anxiety and emotional distress.
“This was a particularly moving project for me to work on,” said Chasin, who was a long-time resident of Boston. “I had many friends there at the time of the bombing and it occurred in an area where we all frequently would hang out. For the score, I looked to the emotional potential of synthesised sounds to try to create the feeling of the main character’s inner turmoil and worry.”
In The Sin Seer, Chasin helped compose music, which set the tone for the intense thriller. The Sin Seer stars Lisa Arrindell Anderson (Clockers, Madea’s Family Reunion) as Rose Ricard, a woman who has a special gift for sensing the lies and motives of people, which she uses to solve crimes and cold cases. The film also stars Michael Ironside (The Machinist, X-Men: First Class) and Salli Richardson (I Am Legend, Antwone Fisher).
Chasin’s exceptional musical talents and the diverse range of his skillset also made him the ideal composer for Ho Yaqeen, a series which tells the stories of six people who have strived to improve Pakistan, their home and the country they love. The series is directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, whose film Saving Face won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2012.
“The six-part documentary series looked at the contributions of unsung heroes to world,” Chasin said. “Each episode featured a new individual. This allowed each episode to have a different and unique musical sound.”
In addition to film, television and video game compositions, his contributions to the music of international advertising campaigns are invaluable. Among his projects are two public service announcements with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy prior to his work with her on Ho Yaqeen. He also did the music for Coca-Cola’s Crazy For Good ad campaign, the purpose of which was to encourage the commission of random acts of kindness.
With a virtuosic understanding of the power of music and sound, and an innate ability to apply them in a way that perfectly sets the mood and tone of any project on which he works, Shaun Chasin’s golden touch has made him one of the most desirable composers in the field of entertainment.
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