For several reasons (one of which being the weather) we will be shifting gears from our usual meetup. This time, we’re going to meet up at Iron Horse Hotel (The Yard if it’s nice our, otherwise Branded) and hang out, talk shop, and get a few drinks. We’ll still be catching up and talking about the group animation project, but this will not be a structured event.

If you’ve never been to a Mograph Milwaukee meetup, this might actually be the the best time to come and meet some of Milwaukees best (and most fun) motion designers and animators. It should be easy to spot us—we’ll probably have a laptop or two out—but if you have trouble, send us a message on Twitter or Facebook or contact Paul directly. One of us will let you know where we are.

We’ll be discussing some seriously great work that’s out there and trying to figure out how it was done. Bring links or quicktimes of mograph work you’ve been wondering about, and we’ll wrap out collective heads around it to see if we can break it down.

Keeping along with that theme, we will be giving away Harry Frank’s After Effects Expressions and Trapcode Form training (worth $65) in a free drawing. Then you will indeed know how the f#&! to do that.

There’ll also be another first: we’re offering free food. We’ll have subs and beverages available because we’re just that generous. Here’s the details:

7:00pm Meet, talk, network, eat, drink, be merry.

7:15/7:30pm Discussion. There’ll be a few business items to discuss about our group, then we’ll get on to viewing some works and trying to break them down.

8:45 Quick overview of our group project. Where we stand… What needs to be done… Setting deadlines… We’ll also be nailing down a specific theme to work off of. After this meetup, we’ll be kicking it into high gear!

Depending on time remaining we may have time to show off your stuff, but it’s not guaranteed since we only have the space until 9:00pm. So come to Bucketworks on June 16th at 7:00pm to eat, meet awesome people*, pick everyone’s brain, and maybe win some stuff.

*Seriously, the people at these meetings are really awesome.

[Update: Added event to our Facebook page.]

Mark your calendars. Wednesday May 19th will mark Mograph Milwaukee’s 4th meetup. We’ll follow a similar setup as last time:

7:00 Mingle, Talk, Network…
7:30 Discussion about mograph trends. Maybe a demo or two.
8:00 (or whenever the discussion ends) Show your stuff. Bring something to show off, or perhaps more importantly, something to get critiqued.

We’re sticking to a laid back atmosphere here, but we’ll need to wrap by 9:00 so the Bucketworks crew can head home. If there’s interest, we’ll head to one of the nearby bars to keep discussions going.

See you there!

This brings me to my next point, we’re having a meetup soon, emphasis on soon. This time around, there will be more focussed discussion instead of a free-for-all as we’ve had in the past. We’ll still be looking at cool/inspiring videos and discussing what we’ve each been doing lately, but to kick things off, we’ll be talking about two items of interest to me lately: the possibility of a VFX union, and the state of numerous online tutorials and how they affect the up-and-coming motion designers as well as established talent (so, everyone).

Now, this isn’t to say all our events here-forward are going to be centered around topics solely chosen by one or two people. Most events will morph around and change depending on who shows up and what’s interesting to them. So, if you have something you want to talk about, bring it up! Or, if you have an idea for a lead discussion or having speakers come in, let us know either in the comments or by dropping us a line at info [at] mographmilwaukee.net.

See you soon!

So, if you want t have your information listed, feel free to send it to paul@mographmilwaukee.net. You can include as much or as little as you want. As an example, you could send your name, picture, phone number, email, Twitter, Facebook, website, company & position, etc… Or you might just send your name and email. It’s entirely up to you.

As names start coming in, I’ll compile the list and put it up on the site for all to peruse.

We had a great time at the December meetup. Thanks to all those who came out. It was a great way to get to know other motion designers in the area. We want to keep things informal at these meetups, but we hope to have a slightly (only slightly) more focused discussion this time around. The topic is still to be decided, but chances are we’ll be viewing some work (both our own and others) so bring something to show. If you’re on Vimeo, you should post videos to our group. We’ll be using that as a sort of collection basket for videos to discuss at meetups and other events.

Got an idea for what do discuss? Leave a note in the comments.

We’ll post more details to the site as we figure them out. As with everything in life, it’s a work in progress…

Hey Kids! – just a reminder, tonight is the first Mograph Milwaukee Meetup. It’s a tremendous opportunity to rub elbows with the city’s top motion designers, see some solid work, and most importantly watch Miles Fabishak have a complete melt-down, eat an entire pizza at once then get falling down drunk. Huh? Huh? Doesn’t that sound like fun? Seriously though, Mograph Milwaukee is the creme de la creme for Milwaukee motion graphics. December 1st, 7:30pm at Riverfront Pizza. Mograph Milwaukee is picking up the tab on this, so all I need is a yes or no.

So we have our first official meetup coming up on Tuesday December 1st. The problem is, we don’t know where to host it. What we need is a ballpark figure for the number of people who will attend. With that said, we have a new events manager here and it accepts RSVPs. So take a look at the page for the December meetup and rsvp if you’ll make it.

We’re starting small, just a couple meetups to hang out and talk design. Our next meetup is planned for Tuesday December 1st. Location is still TBA.