Hasta La Motion!

Superfad Seattle has just released a new short film called Preguntas Hermosas, a beautiful tale of a time shared between two people told through a combination of “Poema X” by Pablo Neruda and “Under the Harvest Moon” by Carl Sandburg. As explained by Director David Viau, “The story unfolds in three parts; a fond remembrance, loss, and then finally acceptance.”

With cinematic transitions and methodical pacing, Preguntas Hermosas casts dark characters in epic worlds for its arresting narrative. The film’s narrator, Gabriel Puerto, complements the score and adds depth to the amazing visual journey. The camera work shows great restraint, leaning more toward a practical approach to cinematography in the CG environment.

David was kind enough to share some of his thoughts and a bit of the process, after the jump:

“My initial plan was to do a personal short film, but the idea was embraced by the office and quickly became more than a one man show. It was primarily done during off hours, nights and weekends, or during the dead zone waiting for client feedback. We really owe a lot to our friends and colleagues who collaborated with us on this.

“Anyone that’s ever tried to do a personal project and balance that with all of the paying work knows that it’s a crazy undertaking. The folks and Clatter & Din and Lightpress here in Seattle were amazing and jumped right in. Christi O’Donnell who wrote the score is an amazing talent. Gabriel Puerto who did the voice over sort of fell into our laps, and the moment we heard him speak we knew he was perfect. We worked in Maya, XSI, C4D, Photoshop, After Effects using Red Giant plug-ins and Final Cut.”

Production Company: Superfad

Directed by David Viau

Executive Producers: Chris Volckmann and Will Hyde

Narrator: Gabriel Puerto

Adapted from the Poems Poema X by Pablo Neruda and Under the Harvest Moon by Carl Sandburg

3D Artists: Dade Orgeron, Robin Scher, Phiphat Pinyosophon, Andrew Butterworth, Tom Oakerson, Alex O’Donnell, Carlos Stevens, David Viau, Paulo Dias
Phiphat Pinyosophon, Jordan Blit

Animation and Compositing: David Viau, Loren Judah, Carlos Stevens, Justin Pae, Paulo Dias, David Viau, Tom Oakerson

Subtitle Animation: Will Hyde

Editor: Ryan Haug

Finishing: Lightpress
Colorist: Jeff Tillotson

Audio: Clatter and Din
Sound Design and Mixing: John Buroker

Original Score: Christi O’Donnell
Pianist: Christi O’Donnell
Violinist: David Liu

Posted on Motionographer

And yet another spot for Amnesty from a powerhouse French directing-collective brings us “Russian Dolls” from BIF, produced by Rods.

Despite the lack of CG on this one, the narrative techniques share major similarities in their refined simplicity and symbolism to Pleix’s Death Penalty piece. Its audio also turns a table-top into a landscape for drama.

Although this spot is coming via La Chose rather than TBWA, in the case of Pleix’s piece, Amnesty has always found ways to address large issues in visually universal terms while still delivering the same impact as being completely literal.

Agency : La Chose, Paris
Creative Director : Pascal Grégoire
Creative Team : Axel Didon, Kevin Colinet, Benjamin Parent

Production Company : Rods Films
Director: BIF
Executive Producer : Alexandre Richardot
Line Producer : Julie Piganiol
Production Manager : Emeline Courtecuisse
1rst AD : Severine Bouvier
Production Assistant : Thibaud Noyer
DOP : Nicolas Loir
Camera Assistant : Vincent Toubel
Electrics : Olivier Benoist, Romain Droy
Grips : Stephane Germain, Gael Leroux
Painter : Virginie Louis
SFX : JC Spadaccini

Post Production : BIF

Sound : Kouz Production

Posted on Motionographer

Collective Approach is a graphic design consultancy based in London.

Prologue’s treatment for Robin Hood is a study in patient analogue work. Ridley Scott called on the studio create Legends to open the film as well as End and Main Titles. Ridley’s vision for the film required Prologue to treat all the type in a handmade fashion, this meant taking the type out of the computer for most of the process and filming and treating them as handmade elements.

What stuck out to me were the gorgeous end titles that Prologue worked on in collaboration with Italian artist and animator, Gianluigi Toccafondo. I spoke with Prologue’s Creative Director on the project, Henry Hobson about their process for type development for the film and how they worked in collaboration with Toccafondo, here is what he had to say:

The type development was key to our work at Prologue, our idea was to echo Tocafondos effect with our typography. Initially we worked with existing fonts but found them too limiting. So we created a complete custom serif typeface to evoke the adventure, romance, promise, mystery qualities of the movie. We printed out each credit, then hand inked each name, working in 4k meant we could really go to town with really fine details. Manija Emran, one of our typographers, then added amazingly intricate custom flourishes to each letter, not just a full alphabet, but also every single character had its own custom flourish, to produce a truly unique type treatment. Even the locator cards had more love poured into them than most title sequences. During the end credits we printed our comped name cards onto non-porous paper then smudged and distorted by hand each name a dozen times, to produce a living hold and hand made transitions. Principally animated by Georgia Tribuiani, the smudged elements really integrated and transitioned the type into a constantly shifting and flowing sequence.

As a side note, when I was browsing through Prologue’s recent list of work one thing began to become apparent to me, their role in film production has evolved. Prologue was once called upon to vignette a film’s story with their personal treatment as a means to both draw the audience into the story as well as leave them with a final impression of the film. Now it seems that Prologue is called upon to envelope the film with a design system that ties the whole world together. Robin Hood, along with Iron Man 2, Sherlock Holmes and Ninja Assassin, are cases of Prologue’s further involvement with establishing a graphic style for a film.

Click here for the full interview as well as the clips

Director – Ridley Scott

Animated illustration -Gianluigi Toccafonda

Creative Director & Design – Henry Hobson

Producer – Unjoo Lee Byars

Typographic Design & Illustration – Manija Emran

Animators – Jorge Almeida, Cris Kong, Georgia Tribuiani, Stephen Villari

Executive Producer – Kyle Cooper

Posted on Motionographer

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