Hasta La Motion!

With a charming jewel tone palete and lovingly wrought 2D animation, designer/director Celyn (Nexus Productions) shows how simplicity and complexity can coexist in “Map Table.”

The spot’s main aim is to convey the modular nature of Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby’s Map Table desk, produced by furniture manufacturer Vitra. But in Celyn’s hands, the story becomes unexpectedly beautiful — and reassuringly human.

Concept – Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby
Direction and Design – Celyn Producer – Beccy McCray 2D Supervisor – Dave Walker
2D animation – Stuart doig
2D animation – Maki Yohikura
2D animation – Manav Dhir 2D animation – Luca Toth Compositor – Alasdair Brotherston Composer – Dan Arthure Studio manager – Natalie Busuttil

One of our favorite projects from 2013 was Patrick Clair’s launch trailer for Tom Clancy’s The Division, a global conspiracy theory rendered in elegant typography and metaphorical imagery.

With the same understated poignance that is his hallmark, Mr. Clair’s latest project is a title sequence created in collaboration with Antibody (Clair’s studio) and Elastic for HBO’s new series, “True Detective.”

In an interview with Art of the Title, Clair explains:

As we started to plan the movement and animation, we faced some interesting challenges. We wanted the titles to feel like living photographs. But the footage was too kinetic and jumpy and stills were too flat and static. Many shots feature footage that has been digitally slowed to extreme degrees. The digital interpolation and artefacts created by slowing footage down often looks strange or tacky, but we found that in this case it evoked a surreal and floaty mood that perfectly captured what we were after.

Read more in Art of the Title’s excellent interview.

Client: HBO
Air Date: January 12, 2014
Opening Title Sequence: Elastic
Director: Patrick Clair
Executive Producer: Jennifer Sofio Hall
Design/Animation/Compositing: Antibody
Senior Designer: Raoul Marks
Animation + Compositing: Raoul Marks
Animation + Compositing: Patrick Da Cunha
Production: Bridget Walsh
Research: Anna Watanabe
Additional Compositing: Breeder
Compositing: Chris Morris
Compositing: Joyce Ho
Production: Candace Browne
Production: Adam West

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.

In Dvein’s latest short, “We Wander,” you won’t find CG fluid sims or virtual Rube Goldbergs of visual oddities. Instead, you’ll find haunting visuals of animals carousing in the dusky liminal spaces between darkness and light, nature and civilization and hunted and hunter.

Each shot crackles with graphical clarity, despite being a live action production. The sound design, foley work and music add a hyperreal edge to every animal movement, creating a surreal, visceral undercurrent to the strange narrative that unfolds.

Directed by Dvein

Cinematography · Dani Robles
Editor · María Antón Cabot
Sound Editor · Eduardo Castro
Foley Artist · Alex F. Capilla
Music · Tomás Virgós
Head of production · Anahí Puig & Sergi Roda
Art Direction · Ana Muñiz
Production manager · Idoia Sánchez
Production assistant · Sara Valderas, Belinda Sánchez
Camera operator · Vivian Rodríguez
Animals · Fauna y Acción
Post-production · Alba Ribera, Lluisa Cuchillo
Producer · Marga Sardá
Type design · Superexpresso

Produced by Agosto & Dvein

Thanks to: Gabriel Azorín, lacasinegra, Rafa Montilla, Marçal Fores, Familia Samitier-Celma

Enjoy the infinite zoom technique employed in two different styles — Psyop zooms into lush landscapes overrun with surreal details in Toshiba “Endless Performance” and Johnny Kelly zooms out through orthographic illustrations of a universe inhabited by books in New York Times Book Review “Holiday Books”. I particularly love the sound design moment by David Kamp where the cutting board syncs with the music.

For more zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom and a boom-boom, check out ZoomQuilt, ZoomQuilt II, and the classic Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames.

Toshiba “Endless Performance” Credits
Brief: Toshiba Encore Tablet
Client: Toshiba
Agency: McCann Enterprise
Exec Creative Director: Will Shepherd
Creative Directors: Mark McCall, Richard Dorey
Account Handlers: Kat Patterson, Tamsin Devereux, Fred Letts
Agency Producer: Holly Edwards
Production Company: Psyop
Creative Directors: Kylie Matulick, Fletcher Moules
Producer: Shannon Alexander
Designer: Paul Kim, Therese Larsson, Paul Mager, Chris Martin, Andrew Park, Velwyn Yossy
Lead Technical Director: Stephen DeLalla, Matt Lavoy
Previz Artist: Victor Garza, Brianne Meyer
Modeler: Larissa Docolas, Rie Ito, Wendy Klein, Brianne Meyer
Texture Artist: Larissa Docolas, Wendy Klein
Rigger: David Bokser, Sean Kealey
Lighter: Robby Branham, Stephen DeLalla
3D Generalist: Stephen DeLalla
3D Animator: David Bokser, Chris Meek, Brianne Meyer
2D Animator: Max Graenitz, Rachel Yonda
Storyboard Artist: Josh Wiesenfeld
Matte Painter: Chris Brock, Edmund Liang, Velwyn Yossy, Paul Kim
Compositor: Katerina Arroyo, Matt Lavoy
Flame Artist: Matt Lavoy
Editor: Lance Pereira
Assistant Producer: Jessica Schlobolm
Music Title & Artist: From Nowhere (Artist: Dan Croll)
Post Production: Psyop / Craft London
Sound Design: Craft London
Media Planning: Rocket

New York Times Book Review “Holiday Books” Credits
Production Company: Nexus
Director + Designer: Johnny Kelly
Producer: Isobel Conroy
Project Lead: Mark Davies
Animation: Sergei Shabarov, Michal Firkowski, Fabrice Fiteni, Mark Davies
3D Rendering: Michal Firkowski, Jeremi Boutelet, Mark Davies
3D Modeller: Florent Rousseau
Compositing: Elliott Kajdan
Client: New York Times Book Review
Art Direction: Nicholas Blechman
Music & Sound Design: David Kamp