Comprised of London VFX veterans Mario Ucci and Rick Thiele, Blacknail Pictures created this stunning piece for Breast Cancer awareness for IBCC via Ogilvy, São Paulo. The simple concept: excuses let Breast Cancer grow.
This visual metaphor could have stopped as a simple typographic solution. However, it ended as visceral and cinematic experience. The beauty of the fluid movement, renders and lighting captivate, allowing for the message to seep into your subconscious.
This labor of love was pulled off by just the two of them (with the support of Passion Pictures) while busy in their day jobs on feature films.
Agency: Ogilvy, São Paulo
Art Directors: Fernando Reis, Guilherme Nobrega (Ruivo!)
Copywriter: Marcelo Padoca
Head of Art: Denis Kakazu
Creative Directors: Anselmo Ramos, Fred Saldanha
Production: Blacknail Pictures
Director: Rick Thiele
Photography Director: Mario Ucci
Editor: Rick Thiele
Sound: Dr. DD/Bonde Fumegante
Dublin-based directing team, D.A.D.D.Y., has once again laid there quirky hand on an unlikely brand. In association with Mother, London and Blink Ink, they’ve created four fake, animated PSAs for the “British Biscuit Advisory Board” (Rocky Biscuits) to promote safe biscuit-eating practices.
Client: Rocky
Agency: Mother, London
Production Company: Blinkink, London
Director: D.A.D.D.Y
Producer: James Bretton
Editor: D.A.D.D.Y
Audio Post-Production: Factory Studios
Fx&Mat ha realizzato questo video per le prossime olimpiadi del 2010. Il lavoro è stato prodotto dalla Nexus. Gli autori ci passano sia il filmato finale che il making of che regala quel tocco di fascino in più. Il progetto ha già ricevuto diversi riconoscimenti tra cui il Premio d’Eccellenza al Siggraph. Per approfondire inseriamo il link diretto alla scheda del video sul sito del Comitato Olimpico Internazionale (in inglese).
Gli MK12 sono tornati, questa volta con uno spot in collaborazione con il regista Marc Forster e Swiss International Air.
La realizzazione di questo video è tecnicamente perfetta, la fluidità, la musica (di Brian Reitzell) e lo speaker donano un’atmosfera pacata esaltando il concept dello spot.
With the release of these two spots, Pleix continues to remind us of their broad range in both tone and technique.
BUNNY FUSION
Client: Duracell
Agency: Ogilvy, Paris
Executive Creative Director: Chris Garbutt
Creative Director: Nick Hine
Art Director: Antoaneta Metchanova
Account Team: Kim Ball, Anne Karcher
Agency Producer: Caroline Petruccelli
Production Company: Chuck & Lulu, Paris
http://www.chuckandlulu.com
Director: Pleix
Executive Producer: Edward Grann
Line Producer: Katharina Nicol
Post Producer: Sebastien Gros
Post Production: Digital District, Paris
Music: Apollo Studios, Montreal
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HELLO SOMEDAY
Client: Lexus – HS Hybrid
Agency: Team One Advertising
Creatives: Chris Graves-CCO/AD, Jon Pearce-GCD/CW
Agency Producer: Beth Hagen
Assistant Producer: Jenny Valladares
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Pleix
Director of Photography: Chris Soos
Exec Producer: Eric Stern
Line Producer: Caroline Pham
Editing Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Angus Wall
Assistant Editor: Anton Capaldo-Smith
Producer: Kimberly Colen
Music: Elias Arts
Mixer: Bob Gremore @ Juice
Post Production: The Mill / Los Angeles
Producer: Lee Pavey
Shoot Attend: Giles Cheetham, John Leonti
Lead Flame Artist: Tara Demarco
Assistant Artists: Mike Plescia, Becky Porter
CG Artists: Robert Sethi, John Leonti, Oscar Gonzalez, Yann Mabille, Meng-Yang Lu, Matt Longwell, Alex Hammond, Chris Bayol, Ross Urien, Juan Brockhaus
You have to really admire the Japanese and their animation. They can take something as mundane as how Google Street View works, and transform it into something so quirky and charming! I really enjoy all the contraptions employed to get the job done, it stokes that little fire in my heart that Wallace and Gromit sparked as a child.
Unfortunately my ability to read Japanese is about on par with my Chinese, so I’ve no idea who created the animation. If you do know, then please let me know.
Made by Pangra!
Plaza Films’ Helen Clemens directs a curious odyssey for Eskimo Joe’s “Losing Friends Over Love” music video. The project’s gentle ambiance is shot through with streaks of tension, creating a compelling narrative arc within a claustrophobic world.
Animated by Pete Commins (Partizan), the video’s faux stop-motion feel, electro-mechanical props and use of room-based vignettes remind me a little of the classic Super Furry Animals “It’s Not the End of the World” video (created by David and Laurent Nicolas), but “Losing Friends” has a look-and-feel all its own, driven as it is by the innocent exploration of the lead character.
Some philosophies of aesthetics enumerate seven primary art forms derived from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s “Lectures on the Aesthetics” and the writings of film theorist Ricciotto Canudo: architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, music, poetry, and cinema.
The order is disputed, and architecture is sometimes shuffled to the third position, as it was by aspiring filmmaker Alex Roman for the title of his breathtaking work in progress, TheThird&TheSeventh, an artful combination of photorealistic architectural renderings and stylish CG cinematography.
In Roman’s able hands, the combination is undeniably poetic. His reverence for light borders on transcendent, and his attention to detail is inspiring. We caught up with Alex for a little background information.
Tell us a little about yourself. Who are you? Where are you from? What do you currently do?
I was born in 1979, in Alacant (Alicante), a city in Spain. I would first like to say that my real name is Jorge Seva, but I use “Alex Roman” as an artistic alias for publishing independent work.
After being trained in traditional painting at a few academies, I discovered this other world called CG. After school, I made the move to Madrid and began working at a visual effects company. That stint did not last too long due to the lack of demand for visual effects in the Spanish market at the time.
It was then that I switched into the VIZ (architectural visualization) business. I have been working for several companies since. After that, I took a sabbatical year for to work on an “already-built work” visualization series, which will be stitched together into a short animated piece.
Were you formally trained in architecture?
Nope, never. But I was very interested in architecture since I was a child. Maybe it’s not too late.
Can you tell us a little about the TheThird&TheSeventh film?
Well, after working in VIZ for years, I realized that there was a huge aesthetic difference between most clients’ commercial demands and photography of already-built structures. The lack of respect for the architecture itself in some “pure” commercial illustration was very frustrating to me. (Well, this is just my opinion, of course.)
Then, I decided to start a personal journey: to experiment with a more cinematographic and/or photographic oriented point of view of some of my favorites architects’ masterpieces.
Hence, the “TheThird&TheSeventh” project…
After thumbing through a book of Frank Lloyd Wright’s sketches once, I chatted with an architect friend of mine about the art of architectural rendering. He told me that sometimes architects intentionally leave sketches vague or messy.
It not only creates wiggle room when it comes to client negotiations, it leaves room for the imagination to paint in details. How would you respond to that idea?
Well, there are of course several purposes behind computer graphics benefits. That “messy” representation style is very useful at a birth-idea/growing-process stages. Also, there are of course many architects that use CG as a sketching oriented tool… why not?
Your sensitivity to light is amazing. How would you describe the interplay between light and architecture?
Thanks! I think architecture is sculpting with light most of the time. There’s neither volume nor colors and materials without light and shadow.
Like Kahn said once: “In the old buildings, the columns were an expression of light. Light, no light, light, no light, light, you see…”
The level of realism in the TheThird&TheSeventh is stunning. Your render times must be incredible. What software and hardware do you use? How long is an average render?
I use 3DS Max and Vray for rendering, Photoshop for texture work, AfterEffects for compositing and color grading and Adobe Premiere for edit it all.
My desktop PC (i7 920) it’s now the only hardware i have. Every frame rendertime may vary from 20 sec to 1:30 hr (720p) It all depends on how complex the scene is.
However, i invested a lot of time in scene optimization for rendering. I think it’s the key for a flexible workflow.
How can we see the full TheThird&TheSeventh film?
I’m finishing the latest shots, fighting with the music—the hardest stage for me—and editing at the moment. We will see it complete around the end of the summer of 2009. I really hope so!
Spesso qualcuno ci dice di essere parecchio “esterofili” pur essendo “motiongraphicspuntoIT” ed in effetti non possiamo negare la netta prevalenza di recensioni su materiale straniero rispetto a quello italiano, ma c’è da ammettere che è proprio quel materiale che spesso diventa fonte di ispirazione e ci insegna qualcosa.
Oggi vorremmo mostrarvi il progetto di Mathieu Gérard (neolaureato in Arte e Tecnologia dell’immagine all’università di Parigi) che ha portato come testi di laurea. Il titolo è “Steel life” un cortometraggio in CG veramente interessante, non è solo bello… è fatto bene. Ovviamente non è piovuto dal cielo, è sicuramente frutto di tanto lavoro.
Forse questa per qualche neolaureato italiano (in materie inerenti ovviamente) potrebbe risultare una provocazione, beh in effetti lo è. In quanti potete vantare un biglietto da visita post laurea (la tesi di laurea dovrebbe esserlo) un progetto già premiato per ben 11 volte? E non ci parlate solo di congiunzioni astrali negative o del docente del mesozoico che vi ha fatto scrivere il papiro con presentazione power point allegata.
I gotta be honest, the real reason I was first attracted to Mesai’s “Alarm,” was for its beautifully soft lighting and rendering. On second pass, I noticed some of subtle character animation. But the story, I felt, dragged.
After talking it over with fellow Motionographer Greg Herman, though, I realized that was exactly the point. We’re pulled into this world where everything is punctuated by alarms, where every moment of stillness is just a preamble to the spine-wrenching squeal of a bell. Thus, the near real-time toaster sequence feels excruciatingly slow, the long ride in the elevator feels like a devilish trick.
Watching it a third time with this in mind, I found myself grinning wildly, enjoying the entire experience immensely.
You can download a 720p version of the film from Mesai, the animation partnership of Moohyun Jang and Jungoo Choo that created “Alarm.” You’ll also find some pre-production stills and a bevvy of test renders in the Alarm Introduction area of the site.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A. during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
