Introducing Odd Bleat

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We would like to give a warm welcome to our new neighbors Odd Bleat.

Odd Bleat is a versatile director duo between Yannis Zoumakis and Manos Gerogiannis, who  write, design, direct and animate for TV and web.

Collaborating since 2009, in 2015 they founded Odd Bleat, creating commercials which have already brought them numerous awards and recognition. Their work is characterized by subversive humor and attention to detail, while also retaining a soothing simplicity which has become their trademark. They have created short films that opened festivals around the world.

An example of their work is their first experimental documentary, or as they call it mockumentary, about the wise giants that live amongst us. It is called Jachalay and has been screened in numerous festivals around the globe and has also won the Best Documentary Award in TOP Shorts.

A more representative commercial project of their work though, would be the TV commercial they created for the European Reliance, which is written, directed, designed and animated by them.

In order to increase awareness and civic engagement, Odd Bleat have created a short animation film for Odyssea, a social enterprise designing resilient solutions for environmental and humanitarian challenges in Greece.

A short bio:

Yannis and Manos are both from Heraklion, Crete and have known each other for many years. They have studied together graphic arts and design in the Technological Educational Institution of Athens and did their internship at NOMINT, a multi-awarded animation production company. When Manos moved to London to do his masters in filmmaking-directing he continued working with Yannis through Skype and in 2015 they founded Odd Bleat. After Manos returned, they found their new home under the Stone Soup roof and have been housing their offices here ever since.

Odd Bleat have worked for many clients abroad, in Canada, Lebanus, London, New Zealand and USA but also with organizations here in Greece like the Piraeus Bank, the Coca Cola foundation, European Reliance and more. Apart from these projects, they have also worked with non-profit organizations like the UN, TedX and Odyssea.

You can see more of their work on their website or their Facebook page!

Stay tuned for more!

Heetch: a fun way to return home!

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We are always excited to share the stories of people who visit us here at Stone Soup and work amongst us for a while. Here is the story of Julien who works at the operations department of Heetch.

Heetch is a ride-sharing service that is helping young pHeetch intervieweople to enjoy their night out by driving them home safely. It operates only at night (from 20h to 6h) and the drivers are young people who try to make your way home as fun as possible! “The idea came when we were trying to go home on a Friday night and we couldn’t find a taxi. In France the demand for taxis at a Friday or a Saturday night is very high but the taxi service is low and the drivers can be picky, especially when it comes to young people returning from parties. So we decided to develop Heetch in order to cover this high demand”.

12494763_529578963892988_430378648153926793_nThere are two basic differences with a taxi service. First of all, the drivers are not professionals so they do not get paid. They can only pay back their annual car cost. Secondly, the passengers can give a free donation at the end of the ride in order to participate to the driver’s annual car cost. However, Heetch does not allow their members to get new rides when they have already made 6000€ a year, since this is not an actual profession.

Right now the app is up and running in France (Paris, Lyon and Lille), Poland (Warsow), Sweden (Stockholm), Italy (Milan) and Belgium (Brussles) and has about 500.000 active accounts. Their goal is to expand in one city every 2 or 3 months.

You can find out more about Julien’s work by visiting the website (in French) or you can find them on Facebook.

Entering Iasonas Kampanis art studio

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Iasonas Kampanis is a painter based in Athens and in London, currently housed under the Stone Soup roof. We visited him in his studio to learn more about his work and future steps.

Iasonas started his career back in 2003 working on jewelry design and even though jewelry making was something that interested him and earned him a living, he discovered that visual arts was much more the thing he wanted to be involved in. “I found more freedom in painting, as it is a form of art where you can express your ideas without any restrictions, as the results of your work have no primarily practical function. I like to paint anything that I see and inspires me and I need it to be more than an ornament, mean more”. He started experimenting with painting and other visual art forms in 2007 and he has also worked as a graphic designer, illustrator and assistant engraver.

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Right now he is working on different projects and one of them is a collection of 53 artworks (it stands for the 52 weeks of the year and one extra ), which is inspired by all sorts of artistic affairs that have happened throughout the years, mainly since the beginning of modernism. “I think that nowadays, artists have a much bigger source of inspiration because of the Internet. Currently my research is based on this, surfing in the web thinking oh, this might be an interesting thing to put on a canvas and that’s how this project started as well”.

You can find out more about Iasonas’ work on his website.

A small bio:

Iasonas was born in 1985 in Athens, Greece. In 2003 he moved to Thessaloniki to study jewelry design and lived there until 2010. In 2012 he moved to London and started experimenting with the digital processing of images. He participated in various exhibitions both in London and in Greece. Most of London projects were about photography and this resulted to his ongoing collaboration with the ART:I:CURATE platform. He has also participated in exhibitions such as in the TINAG Festival in  Bishopsgate Institute, in London Print Studio and in the Nonsense Exhibition in O3 Gallery. His first solo exhibition was in Athens in 2011 in Parapera Cultural Multispace,  followed by another one in Bord de l’eau design factory in Thessaloniki in 2012. Group exhibitions include IANOS Art Space in Thessaloniki, Chryssothemis Gallery in Athens and the Art-Athina Platforms Project in collaboration with London-based Lubomirov/Angus-Hughes Gallery.

Project Update: Camerize’s whereabouts

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Martinus Meiborg is an freelance director from Amsterdam and an associate of Stone Soup.

He is the founder and CTO at Camerize and co-founder at Appsterdam. During his visit to Athens we had a quick sit down with him to check on updates and his encounters here in Greece.

Q: So Martinus what is your backround?

M. When I turned 18 I wanted to go to the Dutch Filmschool, but people in the profession told me to learn a craft, as I would learn filming while doing it. So I studied digital electronics and programming at a technical school. I have worked as a cameraman, editor and director. In 1990 I started a computer based editing company and a two years later I started a software company called Broadware aside, specialized in all sorts of tools for the video postproduction. Around 6 years later I quit the editing company to work in Broadware full time. In 2001 I moved to France and took Broadware with me. In 2005 the Broadware dissolved and after 2 years I started working for a company that produced playout automation and media mangement for TV stations all around Europe, North Africa and Asia. In 2010 we started Camerize, which proved to be a little bit early for the technology so we started again in March 2014. We decided to take out Camerize for testing in January 2015 to cover the Greek National Elections and then again in September 2015. After that came a 24h endurance test in order to cover the Star Wars Premiere.

Q: Does the app work only on iOS? Do I need to have an iphone?

M. You need an iphone for the camera app but Camerize is a live production service in the cloud and we use mobile phones as cameras. You can stream with any device, but then communications and possibilities might be limited. Right now the app is running only on iOS software but we’re planning to release it on Android in time. The difficulty is that Android is running in different versions on many different brands and devices, which is tedious for a hardware related app as ours. We’ll do that once we are fully up and running on iOS.

Q: What about any future milestones?

M. Oh, that’s a big secret but we’re planning on letting you know as soon as we have some news.

Q: So, what about your experiences here in Greece? What’s the thing that excited you the most?

M. A souvlaki per day keeps the doctor away! I really loved the greek souvlaki and the mediterranean food in general. The truth is that there is a misconception about the greeks and there are many stereotypes that are not true. Here in Athens we do start late but also end late compared with Amsterdam, but I must admit that it fits me better since I am not a morning person anyway.

Q: And what about your project with Stavros Messinis? Could you tell me a little more about that?

M. In October the first Mini Maker Faire was held in Athens and I went there to visit the Stone Soup booth. I really liked the concept of the exhibition and there were many great things going on so I decided make a small video. Stavros was a co-organiser of the Maker Faire and he is really making an effort to put Greece on the map so I wanted to help this effort.

Stay tuned for more!