Hasta La Motion!

Warner Bros. Television Group president, business and strategy and Warner Bros. Digital Networks, president Craig Hunegs will be leaving the studio at the end of the year. Hunegs, a 20-year WBTV veteran, is the highest-ranking executive to leave the company since AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner was completed in the summer.

“Craig has been an invaluable member of the Warner Bros. family for more than two decades.  His skills as a manager, a savvy deal maker and a hugely talented strategist have helped shape our future in the rapidly evolving television industry and been critical to the company’s success.  Most recently, Craig was instrumental in our move into the digital networks business, including helping launch DC Universe, which brings one of our most important brands fully into the digital age.  I thank him for his many contributions to Warner Bros.  We will all miss him immensely, but I have no doubt he’ll be equally successful in his future endeavours,” said Warner Bros chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara( to whom Hunegs reports).

As president, business and strategy, Warner Bros. Television Group, he was responsible for overall Television Group performance and for creating growth across Warner Bros.’ industry-leading television business.

He actively managed production for U.S. broadcast, basic and premium cable networks and SVOD services, the growth of Warner Bros. Animation’s kids’ business, expansion of international local production and the evolution of linear and on-demand TV distribution windows.

He was also the lead deal maker for all Television Group production divisions. He also served on the board of The CW network, playing an active role in setting its linear and digital distribution strategies. He was promoted to his WBTVG President role in May 2013.

“I want to thank Kevin and my colleagues in the Television Group – especially my partners Peter Roth and Jeff Schlesinger – my Digital Networks team and all my colleagues across WB, Turner and HBO. It’s been an amazing run. After 20 years here, I can’t wait to take on new opportunities at this incredibly dynamic time in our industry,” said Hunegs.

Hunegs was also the founding president of Warner Bros. Digital Networks and led the rapid build-out of Warner Bros’ OTT services, the growth of its digital-native content development and production, and the further development of Warner Bros.’ direct-to-consumer capabilities. Included in Warner Bros. Digital Network’s portfolio are OTT services DC Universe and Boomerang; the gamer network Machinima; the digital-native production company Stage 13; Uninterrupted (a partnership with LeBron James and Maverick Carter); and Ellen Digital Ventures (a partnership with Ellen DeGeneres).  WBDN launched in June 2016.

Previously, he served as executive vice president, Warner Bros. Television Group from 2006-13, where he played a central role in managing the Television Group and developing, planning and implementing its key initiatives, including broad licensing partnerships with Netflix and Hulu, the launch of original cable series production and international local production, the formation of new linear and on-demand distribution windows, the expansion into online and wireless entertainment, the acquisitions of Alloy Entertainment and Shed Media and the creation of The CW network.

The post Craig Hunegs to leave Warner Bros. studio at the end of the year appeared first on AnimationXpress.

CAKE’s digital arm, Popcorn Digital and Rovio Entertainment Corporation have extended their partnership on the official Angry Birds YouTube channel, which will see Popcorn Digital continue to manage the channel as well as collaborate with Rovio on the development and production of original Angry Birds content.

Popcorn Digital, who started working on the Angry Birds YouTube channel in May 2017, has been credited with boosting brand engagement on the already popular channel.

Incorporating the latest digital trends into a pipeline of original content has had a dramatic impact on the channel’s performance, adding over one million subscribers to reach 2.7 million subscribers and averaging more than 115 million minutes of content watched per month over the last year.

Popcorn Digital content director Bruna Capozzoli said, “We are thrilled with the tremendous growth the channel has seen over the last year. It’s a huge privilege to work on a prominent, far-reaching brand such as Angry Birds and we are looking forward to partnering with Rovio on developing further YouTube content for 2019.”

In addition, Popcorn Digital and Rovio have forged a close relationship with the YouTube Kids app, which ran a feature promotion of Piggy Tales: 4th Street earlier this year. Collaborating on original digital content, Popcorn Digital and Rovio kicked off the summer with the YouTube-exclusive football-themed Angry Birds: BirLd Cup., Launched during the World Cup and produced in partnership with English Premier League’s Everton Football Club, the series featured star players Wayne Rooney, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Tom Davies and Cenk Tosun as well as young YouTube stars.  Angry Birds – Funny Voice Overs capitalises on digital trends with a series of videos featuring key influencers, who provide hilarious original voice-overs to episodes from the classic non-dialogue TV series Angry Birds Toons.

Most recently, Popcorn Digital and Rovio collaborated on Angry Birds: On The Run, a 22-episode family-oriented live-action digital series which launched last month, introducing the adventures of three Angry Birds plushies suddenly cast out of their game and forced to make sense of the human world. New episodes of the comedy series written and directed by Baker Terry of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared fame premiere every Saturday.

Rovio Entertainment head of content licensing Joe Lawson, said, “We are beyond delighted to continue our collaboration with Popcorn Digital. Their creativity, instincts and production savvy have been essential in helping us develop a robust pipeline of original content for the Angry Birds YouTube channel to substantially build our subscriber base and increase brand engagement.”

Further original content will be confirmed for 2019, which marks Angry Birds’ 10-year anniversary and the theatrical release in August 2019 of The Angry Birds Movie 2, the sequel to the 2016 hit blockbuster animated feature, from Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The post Cake’s Popcorn Digital Renews partership with Rovio Entertainment on the Angry Birds Youtube Channel appeared first on AnimationXpress.

We talk to motion designer James Owen about his experimental series of looping animations. See how he uses C4D, Redshift, and the new Everyday Material Collection.

All images via James Owen.

The benefit of scrolling through the Instagram accounts of the many talented C4D motion designers is the treasure trove of stunning imagery.

One of the most recent eye-catching designs that caught my attention where the series of flourishes created by James Owen.

It’s a really beautiful series of shorts, and to find out more I reached out to creator James Owen. Here’s what I learned about his Flourishing series.

Interview

Michael Maher: Before we talk about your Flourishing series, can you first tell our readers a bit about yourself and your design background?

James Owen: Hi, I’m James Owen, a design-driven creative based in Los Angeles. I’ve been in LA for over two years now and am originally from London. I studied photography and graphic design at college/university and am self-taught when it comes to 3D and motion design.

I had originally planned on being a photographer, I fell in love with the medium when I was really young and have been interested in it ever since. When I got to college I discovered graphic design and really enjoyed the synergy of the two art forms and how well they could complement one another. Being able to design layouts that included photographic imagery was really fun for me at that time.

During that phase I stumbled upon motion graphics and was instantly hooked, being able to combine type/layout and imagery in a moving image format was mind-blowing to me. I decided to learn all I could about the medium and make a career out of it after leaving university.

My first job was working with the guys who were responsible for The Matrix frozen time effect. That was really interesting! From there I went on to work at Weareseventeen for a number of years which was a great door opener into the motion graphics industry. After that, I worked at ManvsMachine for five years as a technical/creative director in London and moved to LA to help set up the LA studio.

MM: Small world. We just worked with Trevor Kerr from the LA ManvsMachine office for the Greyscalegorilla Guide to Redshift. Did you happen to use Redshift on this project?

JO: I used Cinema 4D and Redshift.

I typically use Houdini and Cinema 4D as my main workhorses but I also dip into Maya, 3D Coat, Substance, a lot of other stuff actually. I tend to work with whatever tools I need in order to get the job done essentially. I don’t think there will ever be a go-to software for me. I love learning both new ways of working and faster more efficient ways of things I already knew.

MM: Are you still working at ManvsMachine?

JO: I am currently freelance and have been freelance for about a year now.

MM: Let’s talk about this project. Tell me more about your Flourishing series. How did you end up creating the final animations?

JO: The Flourishing series came about from exploring simple mathematical formulas. I really enjoy coding and testing out different ideas with code, but sometimes the end result is only beautiful to you because you know the algorithms at play or the ideas and concepts behind the piece.

With the Flourishing series, once I had developed the mechanics of the structures and how they could move, I focused on presenting them in a more tangible fashion. I could have easily stopped once I had the base animation down, and often that’s where a lot of my exploration do end, but for Flourishing, I wanted to take it to the next stage and make them presentable.

MM: Now correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you used the new Everyday Material Collection in these animations. What was that experience like? 

JO: What really helped me make these pieces more tangible and relatable was the EMC collection of materials. The material collection is heavily inspired and based on real-world materials and substances and so having that array of quality textures at your fingertips was great for this project. I appreciate how all the materials are set up in a pretty straightforward format (No multiple material blends or ray switch nodes etc).

This makes it really flexible to alter parts of the material that may not fit your desired outcome for the scene, for example, changing the overall material colors or scaling down the bump map to increase its frequency. All very basic adjustments but that’s all it needed, the quality of the textures was already there, so I didn’t need to spend time improving them.

MM: Can you offer any advice on how you used these materials?

JO: As with all material packs, light kits, or presets etc, I strongly advise to never settle with the default values. Instead, use all of these amazing time-saving utilities we have access to nowadays but expand upon them, craft them in a way that’s unique for you, that sticks with your vision or desired outcome.

Then you get the best of both worlds, you’ve saved time on the setup, but can now focus of making it your own.

MM: That’s solid advice. Anything else you’d like to say?

JO: When’s EMC2 coming out?!

MM: [Laughs] Well, the current EMC took Chad about a year to make, but I think he’s mastered the workflow. I’m sure you’ll see smaller material packs from Greyscalegorilla in the not-to-distant future. One last thing. Where can our readers see more of your work?

JO: My website (jamesowen.co), Instagram, Twitter, and Behance.

Thanks to James Owen for sharing a glimpse behind the scenes. If you’d like to learn more about the Everyday Material Collection’s 350+ materials, check out the product page here.

The post The Making of These Mesmerizing Flourish Loops in Cinema 4D appeared first on Greyscalegorilla.

The task of living up to Kipling’s (Rudyard Kipling) imagination presupposes a great deal of commitment and attention-to-detail. Above all, capturing the essence encapsulated in the book in itself demands accurate portrayal of the darker nuances on the landscape of jungle ranging from (Bagheera) the panther’s sonorous roar to (Sher Khan) the tiger’s sinister and intimidating demeanour. Andrew Serkis has deftly taken these points into consideration in his reimagination of the legend, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle

The cardinal mistake that the previous adaptations made lie in the deliberate sanitisation of an impactful story that is deeply entrenched in the overarching ‘Man versus Wild’ theme with layers that depict courage and mental conflicts.

At the outset itself, Serkis lays bare that he has no plans of pulling any punches as the opening scene unfolds with Mowgli’s parents are being violently roughed up and beleaguered by the brutal antagonist Sher Khan, thereby orphaning the man-cub Mowgli. Though raised by the pack of wolves, Mowgli struggles for acceptance and finally led to live amongst his own kind in the adjoining village on account of his inability to measure up to the actual wolves.

A man or a wolf? Neither or both? He staggers through this vexing conundrum as the visual masterpiece plies us with heavy doses of intricate CGI-animals inhabiting the jungle that lays athwart a village full of humans. In the quest to belong, he perseveres through the trials and tribulations that lob up in his turbulent journey.

The only quibble about this movie is that it tends to appear disjointed at various points. Although that gets gratifyingly compensated by the spectacular display of CGI fused with live-action.

Through blood-curdling screams, gunshots and gory hunting, the movie aims to hit every note in the whole spectrum of themes that the story contextually intended to represent. Final flushes of the film depict his mastery over the worlds that not so long ago mastered him as he avenges his parent’s death and finds acceptance in places he previously felt abandoned and by.

Fighting the vicious tiger with doubled rage and man-tools, he beckons his pack with a perfect howl unveiling a rare spectacle of redemption as the animals draw into the frame to witness the ultimate retribution. It’s the emergence of the man-cub as a survivor that makes it all the more cathartic to watch.

The post Review: ‘Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle’ offers a darker retelling with spectacular visuals. appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Japan’s private broadcaster TV Asahi and its animation production arm Shin-ei animation teams up with India’s animation studio Green Gold Animation to create all-new episodes of Ninja Hattori, the action comedy animation franchise running over three decades with a large number of followers in Japan, India and countries worldwide.

TV Asahi head of animation at international business department and entertainment division Takahiro Kishimoto comments, “We are thrilled to announce our partnership on Ninja Hattori with Green Gold Animation, a highly-regarded production studio from India.  This collaboration with Green Gold will be another step forward for our business development in India, and we hope it will open new doors not only for ourselves but for the entire animation industry both in Japan and India.”

Shin-ei’s experienced team of writers and directors, in collaboration with Green Gold animation studios expert team of animators, is creating the new Ninja Hattori episodes in 2D-HD through a digitally mastered process.

Shin-ei Animation producer Yuichi Nagata comments, “We are excited to have Green Gold on board to take part in the production of our new season of Ninja Hattori.  With our creative content in collaboration with Green Gold’s quality of skills in animation making and diligence, we are convinced that the production of this significant content will be brought to a whole new level of creativity.”

Produced by Shin-ei animation, original episodes of Ninja Hattori have been broadcasted on TV Asahi in the 80’s achieving a very strong fan base.  TV Asahi and Shin-ei Animation have been producing new episodes of Ninja Hattori since 2012 in response to a strong demand from India where the show has been one of the top-rated kids’ shows since its launch in 2006.

The newly-produced reboot series has been broadcasted in key markets in China (YouKu), Korea (Turner), Southeast Asia (Disney) and Middle Eastern countries. In addition, Netflix, the world’s leading entertainment service is set to release season one and two of the reboot series early next year in India, Southeast Asia and additional countries such as the US, Canada, the UK and more starting early next year.

Commenting on the collaboration, Green Gold  Animation vice president content sales  Bharath Laxmipati says “Working on a global show like Ninja Hattori plays an all-around win-win for us as a leading animation company from India. It is an excellent opportunity to showcase our talent. We look forward to working with Shin-ei’s and TV Asahi on the hugely popular show Ninja Hattori.”

 TV Asahi, responsible for international sales of the show, has received strong interests from countries all over the world.

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