Richard Smith Mitchell
Web Developer

Tobi.com

http://www.tobi.com/

n/a

2015–present

On-line retailer of women’s fashion.

Full-stack Rails engineer on a large-scale enterprise application which includes an on-line store and administration for orders, warehouse/shipping, reporting, and marketing. Last year I built a restful API application in Docker to act as the catalog for the store (Rails 5 and Solr). I regularly use Rails 2 and 5, Solr, Postgres, Memcached, Redis, Github, Solano CI, Rundeck, Pivotal Tracker, Bugsnag, New Relic, Sumo Logic, RSpec, Selenium, Capybara, Pry, FactoryGirl, Nginx, Unicorn, Puma, Resque, Yard, and the Braintree and Stripe payment processors.

Couchsurfing

https://www.couchsurfing.com/

Couchsurfing International

2013-2015

Social site to help people around the world (some 10 million users and growing rapidly) connect with each other to find a place to stay while traveling.

Mainly worked on large-scale (2G+ rows) data migration and analysis using SQL, Ruby, and Node.js. Also worked on full-stack Rails development, including Erector and HTML5, CSS3 and Sass, jQuery, and Backbone, JSON, Bootstrap, RSpec, and some PHP.

Rich Pageant

http://www.richpageant.com/

Rich Pageant for itself

2011-2013

Multi-media production company Web site.

I built both the front and back end of this custom CMS: PHP / CodeIgnitor / MySQL server-side and utilizing XHTML/HTML5, AJAX, MooTools, CSS3 client-side.

Pushy Cat Facebook game

Not available

n/a

2010

Pushy cat is a Facebook-hosted, sokoban-style game developed by four friends and me.

Sadly, no longer active. I built the the back end using PHP (including the Facebook PHP SDK) and MySQL. I also did the front end, i.e. the part that displays in the Facebook canvas, using XHTML.

Custom Artworks

www.customartworksf.com

small business

2011

Custom content management system for artist’s site.

Another page using the PHP CodeIgnitor framework, using MySQL, and XHTML

Web zine: Otherzine

www.othercinema.com/otherzine/

Non-profit organization

2004-2008

Custom content management system for the on-line magazine published by Other Cinema in San Francisco.

Design, XHTML, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL. I was also the editor for several years.

DKNY Original “Kiss in a Cab”

apps.facebook.com/dknyoriginalkiss/

Mekanism for DKNY

2010

Internationalized Flash-based application allowing users to register and upload an image which is then incorporated into the DKNY Kiss-in-a-Cab commercial. Languages: de en es pl ru.

I built the server and Web components using the PHP CodeIgniter framework. Flash communication with the database was accomplished with AMF and HTTP post. I used both the Javascript and PHP Facebook APIs to incorporate the application into Facebook.

DKNY Original moderation tool

Not available

Mekanism for DKNY

2010

Internationalized moderation tool for reviewing uploads from the “Kiss in a Cab” campaign. The user is notified by email whether their image was accepted. In case of rejection, the reason was included in the email. Languages: de en es pl ru. We built similar tools for Brisk and Brisk Canada.

I built the server side of the site with the PHP CodeIgniter framework and MySQL.

CNN ARTool

Not available

Orange Design for CNN

2010

A multi-media, web-based internal management application for data analysis.

Back end: PHP CodeIgnitor framework, MySQL. Front end: XHTML implementation.

CNN Election Pulse interactive map

www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/11/election/interactive.tea.party.map.pulse/index.html

Orange Design for CNN

2008

Interactive map showing data-mining results from Twitter feeds.

I built the page using SVG / VML and Javascript to display the data from JSON files.

CNN Data Dashboard

Not available

Orange Design for CNN

2008

A multi-media, web-based internal management application

PHP CodeIgnitor framework, MySQL, XHTML, AJAX, Flash integration

TAGDIS

tagdis.com/

Orange Design for TAGDIS

2009

Web site for the eponyomous augmented-reality iPhone app. Users create tags with their iPhones. These tags are displayed in Google maps and street view.

I built the site with Ruby on Rails, MySQL, XHTML, and the Google Maps API.

Diabetes Act Now

Not available

Anderson DDB for the Diabetes Care Coalition

2007-2009

Flash-based patient education site offering advice and programs to improve health via self monitoring and email reminders. The user control panel showed a progress chart and allowed account management. Languages: en es.

I built the site in XHTML using PHP and MySQL; I integrated the Flash and set up its link to the database via AJAX.

LifeScan OneTouch ad campaign

Not available

Anderson DDB for LifeScan

2007-2009

Flash-based ad site for the OneTouch UltraMini blood-sugar meter. Plays videos, has a simple share via email, lots of downloads.

Flash is integrated into XHTML.

Metro Nashville Art Commission Grant Application

Not available

Government agency

1999-2009

Each year the Nashville government awards around two million dollars to arts organizations. This site was a fully automated grants process taking the user from application to invoicing and final grant reporting and close out. Check out a demo version here.'

I built the site using PHP and MySQL.

Metro Nashville Art Commission Artist Registry

Not available

Government agency

1998-2009

Any artist in Nashville may show three images and publish a statement and resume on this government-hosted site. Incidentally, this was the first artist registry (pre 1997) sponsored by an arts commission or council in the US.

I proposed, designed, and built this application for for the MNAC in 1995-6. At first we used database-generated Javascript arrays for data delivery (my own early version of JSON) and eventually moved to PHP when web hosts started offering it.

Burnt

vimeo.com/43090709

n/a

2011

This video is a response to and interpretation of T.S. Eliot reading his poem “Burnt Norton”. The video’s structure was directly determined by the poem and my responses to it. Illustration was not the goal—the choice of material and imagery is idiosyncratic and not necessarily rational. My intention was to intensify my own understanding of the poem. (trt 3:38)

The filming and animation are entirely my own. I used Adobe ExtendScript with Photoshop 1) to recapture the final scanned prints and save them as video frames and 2) to apply various displacement maps to the scanned graph paper to generate the frames of the speaking mouth. This video was edited in Final Cut Pro.

100 Mark

vimeo.com/44587311

n/a

2010

This video developed from a found object: a 1920 100 Mark bank note. The subject is a visual examination of the note as well as a free association of ideas triggered by it and its history. There are two filmic precursors—Berlin: die Symphonie der Großstadt by Walther Ruttman, which lent structure and some of its abstract footage; and Lehrer im Wandel by Alexander Kluge, which contributed audio and some direction to the moral stance of the piece. (trt 3:43)

I used Adobe ExtendScript with Photoshop to recapture processed images; to apply motion and perspective effects to image sequences; to apply a displacement map based on footage of rippling water frame by frame to another image sequence. I produced the music, an excerpt from the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, in GarageBand. This video was edited in Final Cut Pro. (NTSC, TRT 3:43)

Zing

vimeo.com/46936937

n/a

2010

Both the visuals and the audio of this video consist of found objects / materials. It was inspired, broadly, by a poem my sister wrote in high school. It is a continuation of my experiments with digital direct filmmaking started in my two in-series videos. (trt 3:53)

I used Adobe ExtendScript with Photoshop to generate the video from scanned objects. This video was edited in Final Cut Pro. (NTSC, TRT 3:53)

J.S. Bach—Fuge XXVI h-moll

vimeo.com/50741991

n/a

2009

I got the idea for this video while playing Rock Band (Bach Band?). It uses a piano roll to show the structure of the fugue while a playhead indicates the position in the score. Of course, you’d have to be a very accomplished keyboardist in order to play along!

All the artwork was drawn in Illustrator and imported into Photoshop, where I used ExtendScript to generate the video frames, adding motion and perspective. I did the audio, i.e. the performance of the fugue, in GarageBand. I exported the midi from GB to MaxMSP (with the midiO component) to generate JS arrays of note objects which I then used in ExtendScript to animate the keyboard. The piece was assembled and edited in Final Cut Pro. (NTSC, TRT 7:26)

LIFE

vimeo.com/50491493

n/a

2007

This video is a combination of found 8 and 16mm film composited with pages from an old Life magazine. The sound is both found and recorded—all of it with some relation to the imagery, however tenuous.

The material was scanned into Photoshop where I used Adobe ExtendScript to generate the video frames. The pieces/parts were assembled and edited in Final Cut Pro. (NTSC, TRT 5:17)