Syndrome takes Pause in Melbourne

Syndrome Studio creates the opening titles for the 2014 Pause Fest in Melbourne, Australia. Executive Producer, Monica Blackburn describes the project as “a dream project with full creative freedom” in which “we envisioned the sequence as a journey through a surreal, living art installation piece. Visually representing each aspect of the festival – start-ups, motion, gaming, web and creativity – as physical objects that combine and interlock to form a whole, the open underlines the festival’s theme, “everything is connected”.

The mixture of dated and futuristic technologies, of dusty machinery and glossy interfaces, shape this wonderful homage to the creative process, in which live action and CG merge seamlessly to form a lyrical technological dance.

Music and Sound Design by Echoic.

Tim Borgmann

Oggi vi presentiamo l’ottimo lavoro di Tim Borgmann, freelance tedesco specializzato in animazione 3d dal 1997.
In particolare vi mostriamo uno degli ultimi lavori svolti del quale è presente da pochi giorni anche il making of. Quello che ci ha colpito di più dei lavori di Tim Borgmann è la qualità e l’assoluta padronanza di tecniche per l’animazione particellare 3d […]

Mothership for Sprint “Firsts”

Mothership is back. Directors Dael Oates and David Rosenbaum —in collaboration with Goodby Silverstein & Partners— have joined forces to create the studios latest spot, Firsts. The ad displays an elaborately choreographed domino effect that, one by one, topples the world’s technological and cultural “firsts.” While visual effects were contributed by Mothership’s sister facility, Digital Domain, Oates and Rosenbaum, who do not regularly direct as a duo, came together to handle this complex and ambitious project, which includes all live-action and the digital integration of hundreds of all-CG elements.

UPDATE: The previously featured video has now been swapped out with an extended :60 version.

Posted on Motionographer

Pixels by Patrick Jean

Wow, tons of you have just sent this in, and it’s appearing everywhere on the internet this morning. And no wonder! Patrick Jean’s new film Pixels is a great short film. We’ve seen the techniques here before, but this execution is ambitious, clever and well-realized. And it’s the details that truly make it fun to watch. The Tetris blocks filling in the skyscrapers, Frogger leaping between cabs, and Donkey Kong on the Empire State. I really like the Atari logo appearing on the Death Star building down in lower Manhattan, too. Poor NYC, though. Always the victim of someone’s VFX disaster …

One More Production is the company responsible, and they’ve got a ton of other great work as well.


Credits:
Written, directed by : Patrick Jean
Director of Photograhy : Matias Boucard
SFX by Patrick Jean and guests
Produced by One More Production

Posted on Motionographer

Review: Visual Effects for Directors

vfx-for-directors
I have to admit that I was wary of reviewing Hollywood Camera Work’s Visual Effects for Directors. When the package arrived, I groaned. Seven DVDs. All about visual effects. “Great,” I thought. “When I get bored, I’ll watch paint dry instead.”

How wrong I was.

VFX for Directors, it turns out, is actually fun. Although densely educational, the material makes sense—and more importantly—it feels relevant to the art of digitally enhanced storytelling. Every chapter had me saying, “Oh, so that’s how that works.”

Smarter Directors = Happier Productions

The overarching goal of the seven-disc series is to empower visual effects artists and filmmakers in general to make sound decisions so that post-production time can be spent creating the best visual effects possible. The course is aimed at newcomers to the world of vfx, but it doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to technical details.

Touching on the history of visual effects and CG imaging when necessary, the course delves into the “how” behind digital image-making. The result is a richer understanding of vfx—it’s no longer a “black box” or a magic wand. And that means that in addition to making smarter decisions, directors can also be more efficient (and less annoying) when working with others in the post-production chain.

Depth and Breadth

If you’re looking for step-by-step instructions on how to model a Tyrannosaurus rex in Maya, this isn’t the series for you.

If, however, you want to understand everything it takes to realistically pull off a shot of a Tyrannosaurus rex trudging through the forest before munching on a squealing paleontologist, then you’ll be more than pleased with what VFX for Directors has to offer.

The creators of VFX for Directors literally spent years working up the tutorials, and you get a sense of their commitment right from the start. Countless live action and CG shots are woven into the instruction with nearly 1,000 examples of digital effects in total.

wreck

The CG samples are mostly rendered at draft quality, since it’d be cost prohibitive to fully polish each and every shot. This doesn’t get in the way of the instruction, though. In fact, it helps isolate the topic at hand, highlighting only the necessary aspects of a given shot.

The series covers a staggering array of topics, including sexy stuff like the simulation of massive swarms, crowd replication, virtual set creation and digital stunt doubles—to touch on only a few. (See Hollywood Camera Work for a full list.)

Because the series focuses primarily on the underlying principles of vfx, the in-software instruction is relatively timeless. Most of the software packages used in the series are familiar—for example, Maya (for 3D and particle systems), Fusion (for compositing) and BodyPaint (for texturing)—but the coverage is broad enough that it can be generalized to any major package for any part of the vfx workflow. Again, you won’t be going step-by-step, chasing cursors through the UIs, but you will learn, for example, what a Merge node does and why it’s important.

You’ll also learn loads of practical on-set information, like how to properly light a cyc or how to shoot for planar tracking. There’s even a section on building your own cyc from scratch. (Note to self: stop by Home Depot tomorrow.)

Criticisms

It’s hard to find serious fault with VFX for Directors. Hollywood Camera Work knocked themselves out to create a practical, comprehensible course.

My only small criticism has to do with the direction of the narrator. While professional, the narration is very staccato, with slightly too-long pauses after each sentence. In defense of Hollywood Camera Work, this does allow for easier digestion of new concepts and terminology.

Bottom Line

Whether you’re working alone or planning a larger project, Hollywood Camera Work’s Visual Effects for Directors provides an excellent base for understanding visual effects and directing appropriately. Currently the course is offered for $329. Considering the amount and quality of instruction you get, that’s an incredibly good deal.

You might want to go deeper on select topics, but I can’t imagine a more comprehensive introduction to the general subject. I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in visual effects and filmmaking.

The entire course, by the way, is available as a box set of DVDs or via download. Nice to have that option. See Hollywood Camera Work for more information.

As with all reviews on Motionographer, I was not compensated for this review. I received a copy of the course, which was used for the sole purpose of writing this review.

Posted on Motionographer

How To Do Every Visual Effect Ever (Pretty Much)

Smashing Magazine has posted a list of Best Tutorials For Cinematic Visual Effects. The post links to 62 techniques ranging from the 007 Intro to Meteor Crashes. So this one post contains all the knowledge you would need to make a tent-pole VFX feature or start your own effects boutique. Right? Seriously, if all this information was available to me when I got started, it would have been much harder to impress people by showing them a chrome sphere on a checkerboard.

(LINK) to the full post


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Guy Spends Two Years Making Movie About A Guy Who Lives Inside Google Sketch-Up

That “guy” is Bruce Branit, one of the creators of 405:The Movie and film he made is called World Builder. It was shot fully on greenscreen in 1 day and then spent about two years in post most of the work being done by Branit himself. The results are pretty impressive even if the ending is a bit maudlin. Sit back and relax with some popcorn the clip is a bit long.

(VIA Gizmodo)


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Forget Benjamin Button – Pistol Youth Does The Golden Girls


Pistol Youth – In My Eyes from Pistol Youth on Vimeo.

Face replacement guerilla style. Weird thing is, Bea Arthur actually looks less man-ish in this clip than she did in the show.

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Students Get Some Love From VES


The Making of HN5: Part 2 from Nathan Matsuda on Vimeo.

Last year Steven Spielberg spoke at the 6th Annual Visual Effects Society Awards and called for the creation of new category for Best Visual Effects in a Student Project. Well the VES manned-up and this year there are four nominees in this category. They are…

HANGAR NUMBER FIVE -Nathan Matsuda

LA MAIN DES MAITRES -Adrien CaYuS Toupet, Clement Delatre, Vivien Looky Chauvet

OUR WONDERFUL NATURE-Tomer Eshed, Dennis Rettkowski, Tomer Eshed, Dennis Rettkowski

PLASTIC – Transformation Sequence- Sandy Widyanata, Courtney Wise

When you get a chance, check out what the whippersnappers are up to. Congrats to all the nominees!

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Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it)


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Caught this vid on Nmancer’s TekLog and the sad thing is, it’s better than all the prequels.

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