News dal Mondo::Articles
Good morning everyone. Here is some “Breakfast” served up by Big Active’s Parra. Enjoy!
Posted on Motionographer
A couple of months ago the first spot Blind completed, in a series of three for Oppenheimer Funds, was posted as a Quickie. They recently completed all three and they are in deservingly need of a thorough viewing.
It all began as a fairly large pitch last December. Now a year and thousands of hours of labor later, we can feast our eyes these VFX/GFX heavy spots where the stock market pages of the Wall Street Journal come to life. According to Chris Do, this is definitely the most ambitious project Blind has tackled. Directed by Erik Buth, and with the help of Nathan Love on the VFX, the task at hand was extremely challenging.Â
“The team did a great job,” says Erik, “maintaining a sense of dimension and space while applying a moving typographical treatment to the talent so they could live and breath in our 3D environment. While this may sound simple, the task of maintaining a sense of personality and a fidelity in the actors’ performances was uniquely challenging.”
Watch:
Posted on Motionographer
Just in time for the holidays, Lowe Roche Toronto and Psyop introduces us to a gentle old man, toiling away late at night in his rustic workshop. Hunched over, he delicately crafts a paper bird. “Dove” for Stella Artois, features loving attention to detail throughout the spot. The live action sets the magical, storybook mood and the luminescent paper village glows with Christmas cheer. Also, a nice touch on the website: downloadable paper ornaments.
Here are some extra tidbits from Psyop’s Eben Mears and Marco Spier:
What was the creative brief from the agency?
We were given an animatic and a print style frame that was about a paper-cut world. The basic story line was that of a craftsman who is making a bird out of paper and this bird comes to life. The brief was to start with a live action hero and transition into a magical world of animation.How did you approach this job creatively?
We started by studying traditional still-lives and paper sculpture to find the right aesthetic. Ultimately we were fascinated with making translucent paper that seemed like it was lit from inside. We thought there was real beauty in how light would affect the paper and the space around it. The live action was shot in the Ukraine with DP Darran Tiernan and our local production company, Radioactiv Films.What tools/software were used:
Maya, Houdini, XSI, AE and Fusion
Project: Le Noël
url: stellaartois.com
Spot title: Dove
Client Company: InBev
Brand: Stella Artois
Creative Agency: Lowe Roche, Toronto
Worldwide Creative Director: Matthew Bull
Creative Director: Christina Yu
Art Directors: Christina Yu, Patrick Shing
Copywriters: Rob Sturch, Joseph Bonnici
Producer: Dan Heighes
Digital Production Director: Trisha Quenneville
Flash Developer: Dan Purdy
Business Management: Anna Crabtree, Oliver Clark
Production Company: Stink/Psyop
Director: Psyop
Psyop Creative Directors: Eben Mears, Marco Spier
Executive Producers: Mungo Maclagan (Stink), Boo Wong (Psyop)
Producers: Mungo Maclagan (Stink), Carol Collins (Psyop)
Director of Photography: Darran Tiernan
Designer: Kimberly Delaney
Editors: Cass Vanini, Graham Brennan
Storyboard Artist: Ben Chan
Lead Technical Director: Tony Barbieri
Lead Compositor Molly Schwartz
3D Team: Gooshun Wang, Lee Wolland, Cody Chen, Jeff Lopez, Miguel A. Salek
3D Look and Development: Marco Iozzi
Composite: Cody Chen
Flame: Mark French
Asst Flame: Dan Boujolian
Lead: Roto J Bush
Tracking: Steven Hill
Music composer: Paul Leonard-Morgan
Sound engineer: Ben Gulvin
Sound House: 750mph, London
Posted on Motionographer
Passion Pictures used up all their ink after signing four new French directors to their roster. Keeping with Passion’s standards of excellence and individualism, each director brings a distinctive voice to Passion’s eclectic lineup.
The following info is taken from the Passion Pictures press release:
Sebastien Cannone
Sebastien Cannone combines live action with realistic CG animation to create beautifully crafted films which both mimic and distort reality.
His award winning campaign for Virgin 17 Radio (Best On-Air Ident, Promax BDA Gold 2008) features an array of bizarre but convincingly life-like characters in simple live action settings. They include a giant octopus–like creature moving through a city, a woman whose hair moves as though it were living tentacles and an art gallery containing an enormous metallic sculpture, with a life of its own.
Arnaud and Jerome
Film makers Arnaud Delord and Jerome Combe work together as a directing partnership called Arnaud & Jerome, combining their skills in design, live action, and computer animation.
Their first project for Passion Paris is a commercial for French ready meal brand Marie which uses a blend of live action settings and animated characters. The distinctive style of their work is achieved using motion capture and CG animation.
Dimitri Stankowicz
Dimitri Stankowicz designs and directs animation in a simple, graphic style. Some of his work is 2D animation and some is created in camera frequently using natural textures such as paper, leaves and paint.
Jean Lecointre
Jean Lecointre’s surreal narratives are acted out by strange composite characters made out of unlikely objects such as fruit, flowers and biscuits. His quirky, collage animation style uses still photographs, live action and animation which is composited using After FX.
Posted on Motionographer
1st Ave Machine has expanded their happy family by adding Asif Mian to the mix. After Matt Lambert, who joined 1st Ave a few months ago, Asif is 1st Ave’s second new director. His mix of live action and subtle vfx is a perfect fit for the unique brand of storytelling upon which 1st Ave has built their reputation.
Here’s some more info from the release:
Coming from a background of traditional fine art and sculpture, Mian uses a variety of creative techniques to tell intriguing stories, both in his short films and in music videos for bands including The Roots, Woodhands and Aesop Rock, among others.
Whether he is marrying live action with stop-motion animation, photoreal CG or creating in-camera effects, Mian’s highest priority is the story and telling it in a truly unique way. “I’ve always had this desire to isolate the everyday elements of real life and infuse them with creative abstraction,” says Mian. “I use whatever technique I think will best tell my story.”
Mian’s initial work, “Fast Cars,” a music video for hip hop artist Aesop Rock, opens with an image of a grade-school composition book. Unaided by human hands, the book opens itself to reveal a series of typewritten pages that turn faster and faster. Gradually, the typed words rearrange themselves to form the face of Aesop Rock, himself. The pages continue turning to reveal a striking cityscape rendered as a pop-up book scene, with Aesop Rock performing at the center. The ambitious technique, originated by Mian, is composed of entirely handmade pop-up book scenes that utilize stop motion to come to life. Additional CG elements were added to create fuller, hyper-real scenes.
In Mian’s latest work, a video for Woodhands’ track “I Wasn’t Made for Fighting,” time is frozen allowing the two band members to relive a disastrous day over again, eventually posing the people populating their day into a sculpture reminiscent of a classical painting.
“The Woodhands’ video was inspired in part by Renaissance paintings and sculptures that have people’s clothes and hair flying in the wind, as if they’ve just been frozen in the moment,” says Mian. “It’s also a visual story about that universal desire to live some days over again. Many of the ideas for the scenes came out of my own drawings. I will happen upon an image that I like, and I’ll figure out how to make it into a story.” Talking about the in-camera tricks and talent direction, Mian says, “I used wires, fishing line, a lot of hairspray… and I had people stand verrrry still in specific poses. Lighting and camerawork was very important in distilling the right mood.”
Mian holds Bachelor degrees in both Studio Art (Mixed Media Painting) and Biology (Genetics). Mian describes himself as a self-taught graphic designer, art director and animator for music, fashion, television, and film. In 2004, he was named one of that year’s best visual artists by XLR8R Magazine. Moving into film direction, Mian’s innovative style gained immediate notice with his work on “Fast Cars,” which was nominated for mtvU Best Animated Video, mtvU Most Downloaded and Plug Awards’ Video of the Year. In 2006, he was included in the prestigious ADC Young Guns Award.
Posted on Motionographer
Interactive Video Object Manipulation: a peek into the future from Dan Goldman and Adobe’s Creative Technologies Lab. (extra juicy starting around 1:45)
Posted on Motionographer
The Own Your C project first came to my attention when we posted Buck’s beautiful “C-Tree” short in October of ‘07. Denver-based agency Cactus is the mastermind behind the enigmatic anti-smoking campaign, and since working with Buck, they’ve added other spots to the multi-platform push.
The latest in the series are five kooky spots from Lifelong Friendship Society. Keeping with LFS’s lo-fi hipster aesthetics, each spot communicates the concepts of sharing, influencing and connecting, ending with a drive to the Own Your C website.
LFS’s playful approach to their work is a great fit for Own Your C’s target audience of adolescents and early 20-somethings, and these mini-narratives create just the right level of “wtf” to catch their attention. Each spot feels like something ejected from the subconscious minds of Sesame Street’s creators.
Watch:
Client: Own Your C
Spot Title(s): Plugging In, Sun Moon, Refreshing, Wireless Theater, Species
Airdate: November 2008
Agency: Cactus
Art Director: Chris Cox
Copywriter: Lee Perlman
Agency Producer: Danielle Bryan
Production/Post (Color Correct/Visual Effects): Lifelong Friendship Society
Director/Designer/Composer: Brian Close
Designer: Travis Spangler
Animator(s): Alex Miller, Mark Phillips, Tim Haldeen
Editor: Amilcar Gomes
Props/Costume: Pastor Alvarado
Music/ Sound Design: Ant Food (Sun Moon)
EP: Dan Sormani
Producer: Bridgette Spalding
Shoot Location: Upstate NY
Posted on Motionographer
