Going offline for updates!

Just a notice that VFXtalk will be offline for the next 12 hours for updates! The new VFXtalk will be bigger and better and we are sure that you will be thrilled with the announcements that will follow!!!

Houdini Demo Reel 2011

[NEWS=”http://www.vfxtalk.com/news/2011/houdini_reel_thumb.jpg”]33233[/NEWS]Check out the hot new demo reel from Houdini! This reel highlights some of the amazing work created by Houdini artists over the last year. From feature films to commercials to student projects and video game cinematics, it is wonderful to see what can be accomplished with Houdini’s visual effects and animation tools.

Find out more about the power of Houdini at http://www.sidefx.com

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An Open Letter To VFX Artists And The Entertainment Industry At Large Visual Effects

Original Source

As an Honorary Society, VES has led the way in promoting the incredible work of VFX artists but so far no one has stood up to lead the way on the business side of our business. No one has been able to speak out for unrepresented artists and facilities – or the craft as a whole – in any meaningful way.

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that the state of the visual effects industry is unsettled. Artists and visual effects companies are working longer hours for less income, delivering more amazing VFX under ever diminishing schedules, carrying larger financial burdens while others are profiting greatly from our work. As a result, there has been a lot of discussion recently about visual effects and its role in the entertainment industry. Many feel VFX artists are being taken advantage of and many others feel that VFX facilities are operating under unsustainable competitive restraints and profit margins. There have been calls for the creation of a VFX union to represent artists’ interests while others have pushed to create a trade organization for VFX facilities to better navigate today’s economic complexities.

As globalization intensifies, the process of creating visual effects is becoming more and more commoditized. Many wonder if the current business model for our industry is sustainable over the long term. Indeed, multiplying blogs are questioning why artists are forced to work crazy overtime hours for weeks or months on end without health benefits and VFX facilities are forced to take on shows at a loss just to keep their pipelines going and their doors open (they hope).

As good as we are at creating and manipulating amazing and ground breaking images, VFX professionals have done a terrible job of marketing ourselves to the business side of the industry. In short, no one has been able to harness the collective power of our efforts, talents, and passions into a strong, unified voice representing the industry as a whole.

VES may not have the power of collective bargaining, but we do have the power of a voice that’s 2,400 artists strong in 23 countries — and the VES Board of Directors has decided that now is the time to use it. We are the only viable organization that can speak to the needs and concerns of everyone involved in VFX to meet the challenges of a changing global industry and our place within it.

The work we do helps a lot of people make a lot of money, but it’s not being shared on an equal basis, nor is the respect that’s due us, especially considering that 44 of the top 50 films of all time are visual effects driven(http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross).

For VFX ARTISTS (NOT computer geeks, NOT nerds), we do not receive the kind of respect that measures up to the role visual effects plays in the bottom line. And that’s expressed in a number of very obvious ways:

Credits – we are frequently listed incompletely and below where we should be in the crawl.
Benefits – in the US, you likely do not have ready access to health care. Or a vision plan. Or a pension plan. Outside the US, unless you’re a citizen of a country with national health care, you likely do not have health care coverage either. Or have the ability to build hours for your pension. Or are eligible to receive residuals. On a UNION show we are the ONLY department that is not union and therefore not receiving the same benefits as everyone else on the set.
Working conditions – if you are a freelancer (it’s generally agreed that almost half of all visual effects workers are freelancers), because you are not covered by collective bargaining, you may be forced to work 70 – 100 hour weeks for months on end in order to meet a delivery date. And for that privilege (in the U.S.) you will also likely be considered an Independent Contractor and have to file a 1099 – and then pay the employer’s share of the tax contribution.

Many small to medium-sized VFX companies around the world are struggling to survive (or have gone out of business – (RIP Café FX, Asylum, Illusion Arts and many others). By now almost everyone in the industry is familiar with the quote from a few years ago by an unidentified studio executive that if he ‘didn’t put at least one VFX company out of business on a show, he wasn’t doing his job.’

The concern exists at every level of the VFX chain — artist, facility and studio – how the impact of a “Fix” would affect the industry. Would it drive work elsewhere? Would it cut into the dwindling profit margins of VFX companies and put them out of business? Would it make VFX artists unhireable?

No matter one’s perspective, the interests of VFX artists can no longer be ignored.

In the coming weeks and months, VES will shine a spotlight on the issues facing the artists, facilities and studios by way of editorial pieces in the trades and VFX blogs, virtual Town Hall meetings, a VFX Artists’ Bill of Rights and a VFX CEO’s Forum (for the companies that actually provide the jobs that everyone is working so hard to safeguard).

There are solutions and we will find them.

We want the studios to make a respectable profit. We want facilities to survive and thrive in this ever changing fiscal environment. And we want artists to have high quality jobs with the commensurate amount of respect for the work they do on a daily basis. Therefore, VES will take the lead by organizing meetings with all participants in our industry in which we will make sure that all the issues discussed above are put on the table.

We are the VES and the time to step up has arrived. VES 2.0 is here and ready to lead.

If you’d like to share a comment with us you can contact us at eitherleadership@visualeffectssociety.com or through the leadership forum on the VES website at: http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/…adership-forum.

Stay tuned!

Eric Roth
VES Executive Director

VFX Talk & Imagineer Announce Mocha Pro Contest Winner!

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/swatch_thumb.jpg”]30709[/NEWS]VFXTalk are pleased to announce the results of the VFX Talk & Imagineer Systems mocha Pro Contest, the first in a series of new VFXTalk sponsored contests for 2011. These special sponsored contests will run independently from the VFXTalk Challenges, and involve some incredible industry sponsors.

The brief for the mocha Pro contest was open; entrants simply needed to enter an interesting, creative and challenging piece of work, created using any of Imagineer’s products. The mocha Pro contest was judged by the teams at VFX Talk and Imagineer Systems, and the winner, Bruno Isana, receives a prize of a full license for Mocha Pro.

The judges felt that the winning entry ‘Switch Watch’ was “an exceptional piece that really demonstrated a creative approach to mocha, that was professionally produced in a very short period of time!”

The Process
The winner, Bruno Isana, notes the process behind some of the shots.

Front Newspaper shot: On this shot, first i created a tracking of the newspaper with mocha by tracking the entire surface. I filmed with a canon 7D and i have a slight rolling shutter deformation due to the shaking of the camera. So, by tracking the entire surface of the newspaper, Mocha followed the movement and the rolling shutter deformation.

I made a roto on my thumb and linked it to the tracked layer. After i aligned the mocha surface with the “Align Surface” button on the entire image and i made a layer with the new newspaper front page and i did the integration.

Newspaper Back shot: On this shot, to avoid a jump cut, i had to modify the shot and put the right newspaper back and tracked it with mocha.

Watch shot: The first time i tried to track the screen on this shot, it went away because of the thumb that come in the tracking area. During the planning of this short film, I saw some training videos on the imagineer systems website, and I remember a video which talked about this kind of situation. So i added a layer over the tracking one that followed the thumb to extract it from the tracking. I launched the tracking and it worked great. Then, I made a roto on the hand and the thumb linked to the tracking layer for the “swtiching background”.

Roto A shot: For this roto, i first made a tracking of my head and a roto shape linked to the tracked layer. I adjusted the shape when my skin deformed, and then did another roto shape for my body and it was done.

About Mocha Pro
Leveraging more than 8 years of engineering research and development, mocha Pro offers digital media artists a powerful, intuitive and innovative planar tracking-based solution with a streamlined interface, accelerated workflow and the power to easily track and manipulate shots not possible with traditional solutions. mocha Pro is the ideal VFX complement for film/video post production, creative motion graphics and 2D-3D conversion pipelines.

mocha Pro delivers all the planar tracking and rotoscoping tools from award winning software, mocha and adds compositing tools for match moving, auto image and wire removal, clean plate generation, lens distortion correction and stabilization, to deliver an all-in-one master VFX tool set. By combining the best of legacy products mokey and monet, Imagineer now offers one product with all the features. mocha Pro’s remove module is the industry’s most unique alternative to painting, cloning & manual tracking.

About Imagineer Systems
Imagineer Systems develops powerful, accessible desktop visual effects software applications for film, video and broadcast post production markets. In 2000, Imagineer Systems revolutionized visual effects software tracking with the creation of its industry renowned, award winning Planar Tracking image analysis engine, and has made its mark on such marquee Hollywood blockbuster productions as Alice in Wonderland, Iron Man 2, Shutter Island, Invictus, G-Force and the Harry Potter series.

RELATED LINKS

Contest Thread Here:
 http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/imagine…ro-t30117.html
Learn more:
 www.imagineersystems.com/products/mochapro


Download a fully working 15 day trial of mocha Pro:
 www.imagineersystems.com/download-view


Digital-Tutors Release Exciting New Training

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/digital_tutors_whatsnew_thumb.jpg”]NEWS [/NEWS]Digital-Tutors have announced a unique and exciting release in the introduction of the Beginner’s Guide, a free fundamental learning series for new artists that takes an introductory look at essential 2D and 3D terms, definitions and guidelines

In addition the respected industry training company can offer 8 production-based courses that go several steps beyond a novice level, that are for Digital-Tutors subscribers only. Adding to the excitement is the announcement of the largest free online CG training site. Digital-Tutors are now providing hundreds upon hundreds of high-quality, complimentary videos to learning the basics of CG.

Digital-Tutors New Training Programmes:

  • Beginner’s Guide – An All-New Series of Introductory Training

  • Beginner’s Guide to CINEMA 4D

  • Beginner’s Guide to Maya 2011

  • Beginner’s Guide to Shading Networks in Maya 2011
  • 
Beginner’s Guide to Animation in Maya 2011

  • Beginner’s Guide to Rigging in Maya 2011

  • Beginner’s Guide to Modeling in Maya 2011

  • Beginner’s Guide to Nuke 6.2

  • Beginner’s Guide to Image Editing in Photoshop CS5
  • 
Beginner’s Guide to ZBrush 4

View all: http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/trai…beginner_guide

Subscriber Exclusive – New Production-based Courses

  • Creating a Handgun in ZBrush 4

  • Presentation Techniques in ZBrush 4

  • Building a Logo for a Law Firm in Illustrator CS5
  • 
Creating a Grunge Concert Poster in Photoshop
  • CS5
Exploring Animation Principles in Maya 2011: Staging

  • Exploring Animation Principles in Maya 2011: Solid Drawing
  • 
Exploring Animation Principles in 3ds Max 2011: Solid Drawing
  • 
Utilizing Shading Networks in Maya 2011

View All: www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php

RELATED LINKS:
Have a subscription? Sign in: http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/my_account.php
Interested in a membership? Visit: www.digitaltutors.com/09/pricing.php

http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/trai…beginner_guide
www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php
http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/trai…=9999&view=all

Contact Digital-Tutors at www.digitaltutors.com

MPC LA Recruitment Roadshow March 8 – 10

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/mpc_small_thumb.jpg”]30611[/NEWS]After a successful European and Australian tour last year, MPC’s recruitment team are getting ready to set off to the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles for another round of talent scouting. On March 8 – 10, MPC’s Recruitment Team will be in Downtown Los Angeles to once again find a host of creative, talented and overall exciting individuals to join the world-leading VFX company.


And with 2011 already extremely busy with shows including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, X-Men: First Class, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Sherlock Holmes 2 as well as newly confirmed projects; John Carter of Mars; Wrath of the Titans, 47 Ronin and a new Ridley Scott project, there really is no better time to join MPC! 



So…If you think you fit the bill and have the drive, passion and talent to work for MPC, why not visit the MPC Recruitment Team on March 8 – 10.



Simply email at rectruitment-roadshow@moving-picture.com with your CV and reel and MPC will reply with an invitation with the exact time and venue. 

In the meantime, you can also keep up to date with all MPC recruitment news at www.moving-picture.com/jobs, or follow MPC on Twitter (mpc_vfx) or become a fan on Facebook.

RELATED LINKS
www.moving-picture.com/jobs

Zoic Blow Up Simon Cowell For X Factor Promo

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/xfactor_cowell_thumb.jpg”]30243[/NEWS]Fox’s new show The X Factor had a dramatic introduction during the Super Bowl as thousands of Xs came together to form the show’s host Simon Cowell. The reverse explosion of Cowell was produced by Fox, Three (One) O, Park Village Productions in collaboration with effects powerhouse Zoic Studios.

To create the effect, a variety of plaster forms simulating Simon Cowell’s legs, torso and head were detonated at high speed (1000-1500 fps) and shot on the Zoic Studios Stage.

A week later on a London sound stage, high-speed principal photography captured multiple angles of Simon Cowell, both static and spinning on a turntable, against an all-black environment with heavy backlight.

Additionally, Simon Cowell was 3D scanned to provide high-resolution textures for the eventual 3D model of his full body. Autodesk’s Maya was then used to fracture and explode the 3D model.

The compositing challenge was to integrate all the live-action elements from the explosion shoot, principal photography, and CG passes of Simon’s fracturing shell, individual body parts, and various “X” shapes, to create the illusion of Simon being formed from the ground up. The results were premiered during the Super Bowl and online via social media.

Zoic is an award-winning Digital Studio involved in producing high-end visual effects and animation for feature films, episodic television, commercials, videogames, and interactive media.

Spanning from visual effects, to live action production and specialty shooting, Zoic Studios’ imprint can be seen on “V”, “Human Target,” “Fringe”, and “True Blood”, spots for ESPN, Killzone 2, Mountain Dew, NASCAR, and Tour de France, as well as numerous gaming projects for EA, Activision, Pandemic and Sony. Zoic Studios has offices in Los Angeles and Vancouver.

TOOLS
Autodesk Maya & Flame
Autodesk’s Fracture-FX Plug-In
The Foundry’s Nuke

CREDITS

Client: FOX Broadcasting Company
Joe Earley, President, Marketing & Communications
Michael Vamosy, SVP, Design
Brian Dollenmayer, SVP, On Air Promo Creative
Dean Norris, SVP, Marketing & Special Projects, Special Ops.
Barry Alexander, VP, On Air Promo Creative
Justin Owens, VP, Broadcast Design
Julio Cabral, Creative Director, On Air Promo Creative
Golareh Safarian, Director, Special Projects & Production, Special Ops.

Production Company (US): Three (ONE) O
Executive Producer: Elaine R. Sibert
Director: Norry Niven

Production Company (UK): Park Village Productions
Executive Producer: Nikki Chapman
Senior Producer: Kate Phillips
Line Producer: Mikey Levelle

Visual Effects: Zoic Studios
Creative Director: Andrew Orloff
VFX supervisor: Doug Ludwig
CG Supervisor: Andy Wilkoff
Executive Producer: Gina Fiore
Head of Production: Barbara Genicoff
VFX Producer: Erin Hicke
Compositing Supervisor/Flame compositor: Chris Irving
Lead Compositor: Jon Chesson
Compositor: Johnny Renzulli, Rodrigo Dorsch
3D team: Lochlon Johnston, Chris Barischoff, Eric Rosenthal
VFX coordinator: Andrew Gilson
Zoic Stage – Production manager: James Turek
Zoic Stage Special Effects Supervisor: John Stirber
Zoic Stage – Director of Photography: Barry Walton
Zoic Engineering and Render Support: Saker Klippsten, Mike Romey, Paul Ghezzo, An Dang, Jason Bueno, Ramzi Daouk and Marshall Huffman
3D scanning Company: 4Dmax
3D fracture software provided by Fracture-FX

RELATED LINKS
www.zoicstudios.com

Digital-Tutors New Training – February 2011

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/digital_tutors_thumb.jpg”]30218[/NEWS]Digital-Tutors new training for February 2011 has arrived! This month’s release is jam packed with 15 courses and reveals the very first structured training for Lagoa, unique ZBrush courses, a variety of tutorials for Autodesk DEC software and Adobe’s Creation Suite as well as V-Ray, HDR Light Studio and Nuke training.

Since 2001, Digital-Tutors has been an innovator and leader in creating and releasing project-based training that provides artists around the world with award-winning educational solutions and services developed by a high-qualified team of experienced educators and industry professionals. Digital-Tutors is dedicated to providing students, professionals, universities, studios, production companies and many other organizations with an online, all-access training library and a new, full-featured educational platform.


Digital-Tutors Partners

Digital-Tutors have been privileged to create and maintain strong partnerships with leading software developers including Autodesk, Pixologic, Houdini, Luxology, Next Limit, Adobe, Pixar, eyeon, Lighmap, MAXON and Microsoft in the development and production of certified training material.

Through these strategic relationships, Digital-Tutors been able to ensure that artists of all skill levels learn the most current tools, tips, and techniques to effectively creating the next-generation of feature films, commercials, video games, visual effects, and new media.

The full list of new courses is as follows:
Using Lagoa in Softimage 2011 SAP
Image-Based Keyer in Nuke 6.2
Utilizing Render Elements in V-Ray for Maya 2011
New Features in HDR Light Studio 2.0
Creating Game Weapons in CINEMA 4D and ZBrush 4
Projection Painting with Spotlight in ZBrush 4
Creating Game Characters with 3ds Max 2011 and ZBrush 4
Rendering Enhancements in ZBrush 4
Working with Anchored Objects in InDesign CS5
Using Photoshop CS5 to Alter the Lighting of an Image
Creating Billboard Artwork in Photoshop CS5
Multi-Part Greenscreen Keying in Composite 2011
Animating Game Characters in Maya 2011
Rigging Game Characters in Maya 2011
Exploring Animation Principles in 3ds Max 2011: Anticipation

And check out the new, very cool course release video: www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php

RELATED LINKS
Login to your account: www.digitaltutors.com/09/my_account.php
Learn about subscriptions: www.digitaltutors.com/09/pricing.php

MPC & Sky Creative Look to the Skyline For Movie Channel

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/skychannel_thumb.jpg”]30167[/NEWS]MPC has joined forces with Sky Creative to create a stunning stereo campaign to promote their film channel. Directed by Esther Wallace and Nick Tarte and produced by Sharon Kersley, the spot travels through different genres, unveiling epic stereo landscapes.

‘It is about escapism (explain the directors).* This is our invitation to our audience to enter another world.* We wanted to create a 360 pan around massive, epic landscapes populated by movie iconography. The journey takes us through a range of emotions – in a similar way that a movie would do. It’s a peek into movie moments.’

MPC was involved from an early stage, developing the Directors’ vision with mood frames to create the right feel for each of the scenes. *The five main genres were represented by different landscapes; desert for western, space for sci fi, city for romantic comedy, country for period drama and ice for family. *

To unveil each of the genres, a 360 degree camera move was chosen, passing through the different landscapes. *MPC was responsible for creating fully CG environments and rebuilding live action shots, all in stereo.

‘This was a job that required very specific timings and planning from 3D previz – explains 3D Supervisor Duncan McWilliam – If we could prove all the permutations worked in a previz accurate to real world scale scenarios then we knew the shoot would work…..give or take! We spent plenty of time here checking and double-checking, it felt like a NASA project. So when we turned up on set and it all worked and cut together just right the sense of satisfaction was great.’

A stereo camera on a circular dolly track was used to capture the live action footage on each of the locations. *One of the main challenges was keeping the images sharp while moving the camera at a high speed. To achieve this, the footage was slowed to half the speed and later interlaced to avoid strobing.

Sourcing paired lenses and calibration after every transit was essential as the alignment had to be so accurate. McWilliam comments ‘If there’s once really big thing I’ve learned from the stereo VFX supervision, it’s make sure you take a LIDAR scan of every location. The old ways of running around measuring the set no longer cut it and to track stereo back at the post house is bloody tricky without know dimensions of nearly everything.’

2D Supervisor Matthew Unwin explains; ‘Tracking all the scenes in stereo with a 20 second shot plus transition duration was proving challenging.* Creative briefs were constantly being updated so the team settled to develop the matte paintings and assets for the cg scenes. Now with real plates we were able to update our previs edit and solve the transitional issues.

The scale of each scene was the same physically but the creative scale needed to be different. The brief was to have an epic scale but in scenes such as space-scape the scenes looked flat in stereo. An impressive epic painting in the distance was all very well but in stereo it required foreground elements. We had spaceships but added swirling motion trails and then a foreground canyon edge with interactive dust to solve the problem.’

Stereographer Chris Vincze explains; ‘As the stereographer on the project my job was to create a 3D stereoscopic environment that matched the directors’ vision, giving the landscapes an epic quality that matched the movie references. The challenge was to strike a balance between having enough depth in the scene to make the 3D interesting, while keeping the scale feeling right. I wanted it to feel like looking out of a window at a real landscape. The challenge was to maintain consistency of depth throughout five different landscapes which were shot in different locations and make it feel like one changing landscape, so I worked extensively with the previs team to set an interaxial distance (the distance between the two cameras) that would work over all the landscapes.’



During the shoot, Chris Vincze worked with the camera rig tech to ensure the minimal amount of rig alignment errors and make sure that everything in the scene fit into the ‘depth budget’ defined by our stereo camera set-up, so everything would be comfortable to watch in the final film.

After the shoot, the plates had to be corrected to balance out any remaining camera rig alignment errors, and any differences between the two lenses. They also had to be colour corrected to account for the difference caused by the mirrored 3d rig.

This process was done in the Foundry’s Ocula plug-in.

Keeping the right scale meant that almost everything was set behind the screen, so to enhance the 3d effect MPC worked with the directors and cg teams to add in additional foreground elements.

For example the light trails on the spaceships, dust clouds, butterflies and pigeons were all added in to balance the ‘depth budget’ and make the scene more interesting in 3D. This was especially important in scenes such as the spacescape where the buildings in the city were huge and distant, so you wouldn’t see any parallax difference or real depth in reality.

THE LANDSCAPES

The country landscape

The country scene was the first to be shot at the gardens of Blenheim Palace in England. Real conifers and bushes were placed to enhance the real transition and cast practical shadows over the picnicing family in a period drama scene. The landscape and lake was to be replaced.


Having found a city location which was to precede the country scene, the challenge was to find a New York street with specific criteria. Most of the dramatic locations have high towering buildings either side, which meant most of the action would be in shadow and not open to the countryside.

A location was found with 1 storey buildings to one side. The shot would need to be flipped with all signage corrected. MPC setup a 3d previz of the shot using google maps for reference. Once signed off the tech rec was done with precise stills and measurements which was integrated into the evolving edit. The team headed to New York with the limitations of height due to mayors office restrictions. A specific tilt angle had been set and this was now slightly compromised. The choreography of the street we had about an hour to shoot with the correct light due to flaring and loss of long shadows for the noisier romantic feel of the genre.


The City


The cityscape was a real challenge due to the height regulation issue which we knew would come back to haunt us. The transition to countryscape looked like the street was below the level of the lake so we needed to provide a solution. In Nuke, all the buildings were projected around the street and the first two transitional shot structures. We were able to cheat the perspective and lower the buildings then create a European cafe lakeside scene with jetty. The lake was actually raised slightly to blend at the correct level.

In mono this is all relatively straighforward but in stereo all had to be checked constantly. However, recreating the entire scene enabled the creatives to develop a city for signoff while we were setting up the transition. A real wall structure was replaced in cg and added foliage, shot in country lake location on bluescreen with the correct lighting helped soften the structure.


The Desert


The shoot team carried on to monument valley, where an intense wrangling of horses over a huge distance was shot.

The move of the camera on a dolly track had to be done twice. Once linear for the loop and in-between scenes and secondly for a slowdown transition where the same linear entrypoint would transition to a move which slowed to a stop with a ten second living hold. *This meant choreography of action was crucial. That said wrangling a group of horses with these instructions with riders was rather limited. *Interactive dust and horses travelling close to camera were added.

The depth budget was tricky in this case as the foreground riders were pushed in stereo but then the buttes (rear canyon formations), which were 1km away, were flat. Slight depth was forced but then we were travelling into space-scape where the depth wanted to be in the distance. The foregorund elements were added in space as previously mentioned but the transitions we realised in each case had to be constantly tweaked for depth consideration.


The Icescape


The icescape and planetscape both were evolving creatively up to the end which was possible as they were completey cg scenes. The difficulty was solving the scale issues from the cg world to real world items which needed to feature. Over the transitions picnic people, fairies over cracking ice, a galleon ship , penguins to horses. These all had to work together both in the loop and in their individual genre holding scenes for 10 seconds.

‘*We were embarking on a project that we knew would be challenging both creatively and technically. So it was extremely important to us that we found a post house that was prepared to be collaborative from the word go.

MPC helped us obtain our goal – to create our magical movie world!

Their knowledge & experience in the commercial & film world was crucial to help us provide an ident that has high production values. Every member of the team’s skills were utilised. It was testing. It was a pleasure working with MPC!’

Esther Wallace and Nick Tarte – Designer/Director



CREDITS

Client: Sky Network Marketing / Sky Movies
Agency: Sky Creative


Agency Producer: Sharon Kersley


Executive Creative Director: Clare McDonald


Creative Directors: Esther Wallace, Nick Tarte and Craig Marsh


DOP: Magnus Auggustenn

Post: MPC


Post Producers: Justin Brukman, Gen McMahn, Michael Stanish, Vittorio Giannini


VFX Supervisors: Matthew Unwin and Duncan McWilliam


VFX Team: Chrys Aldred, James Bailey, Jason Brown, Remi Cauzid, Maurizio De Angelis, Lacopo diLuigi, Michael Diprose, Dominic Edwards, Adam Elkins, Darren Fereday, Ahmed Garraph, Andreas Graichen, Michael Gregory, Liam Griffin, Alex Harding, Joey Harris, Richard Hopkins, Nicholas Illingworth, Spiros Kalomiris, Carsten Keller, Adam Leary, Duncan McWilliam, Jorge Montiel Meurer, Prashant Nair, Maru Ocantos, Vicky Osborn, Mikael Pettersson, Christophe Plouvier, Fiona Russell, Jim Spratling, Janak Thacker, Charlotte Tyson, Matthew Unwin, Fabio Zaveti



RELATED LINKS
www.moving-picture.com

Nexus Create Unpredictable Life for Honda

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/nexus_honda_thumb.jpg”]30025[/NEWS]Leading animation studio Nexus, and their directing duo Smith & Foulkes, have created another piece of animation fantasy for Wieden + Kennedy and the new Honda Jazz. ‘This Unpredictable Life’ is a breathtaking mix of volumetric lighting and magical particles bringing to life a beautiful fantasy world through which we take an amazing trip.

Cleverly playing out the central premise of the ad, that life is an unknowable journey, the film combines simplicity and sophistication with an uncomplicated but engaging central character starkly contrasted against a series of deliciously complex and abstract backgrounds. Set to a cinematic poem, we follow our hero as he swoops and wheels through life’s journey.

The film begins with a giant shoal of babies. Our camera picks out one individual and so begins our hero’s odyssey. We follow him through all the trials and tribulations of childhood and teens, right through to coming of age as an adult, falling in love and having a family of his own.

hrough frame after frame of stunning animation the film culminates in the arrival of the Honda Jazz itself. The seats fly into frame neatly catching our character’s family and all their attendant paraphernalia to showcase the car’s flexibility and the multitude of seat formations.

Ben Cowell, ‘Head of 3D’ at Nexus, said, “From my very first discussions about the ambitions for this project it was clear that it would be one of the biggest challenges we have faced at Nexus. When describing the vision for the environments the phrase ‘Painting with Particles’ was used on more than one occasion, often in conjunction with the word ‘epic’.

Every project raises the bar for the studio; in this case we would be creating 60 seconds of epic volumetric environments rendered in HD and all of which had to be believably 3D. The studio pulled together and we are really happy with the final result.

Nexus directors Smith & Foulkes added, “The team at Wieden + Kennedy asked us to visually interpret their beautifully poetic script, a fantastic opportunity of endless possibilities that doesn’t come along very often. How can you encapsulate the unpredictable randomness of growing up, falling in love and starting a family. In 60 seconds.

Our simple plan centred the story on a hero who would encounter all manner of epic silliness as he navigates his way through the different stages of his life. From a playful stream of babies, he travels through the distractions of childhood and the responsibilities of adulthood, spontaneously reacting to whatever life throws at him. The choreography of his journey was very important, the constant flow of his movement through unexpected twists and turns reflecting life’s unpredictable nature.

Visually, we wanted our hero to be a very simply designed character contrasting with a highly complex world. We used layers of particles to immerse him in a mysterious dreamlike space. Our 3D team were somewhat annoyed when they realised just how much of their painstaking background work ended up completely shrouded in a mysterious dreamlike space. But its nice to know its there.”

About Nexus
Nexus is an independent production company and animation studio based in London, with a worldwide reputation for creative storytelling across a range of media. Nexus work includes an Oscar nominated short, Grammy nominated and MTV Award winning music videos, and Cannes Grand Prix, Gold Lions, and Black D&AD pencil winning commercials.

Nexus is dedicated to the development of unique voices in filmmaking, with a roster of directing talent working with multi-disciplinary skills in animation, live-action and interactive media. The studio’s production, animation, post-production staff and facilities support them, with Nexus being a home for both the people and the technology to create some of the most innovative work in entertainment and branded content. Nexus brings together artists and technical talent to work in a collaborative atmosphere to make exciting, talked about creative content.

CREDITS
Client: Honda
Title: This Unpredictable Life
Length: 60”, (30” & 20” cutdowns)

Agency: Wieden and Kennedy London
Creative Directors: Sam Heath, Chris Groom
Agency Producer: James Guy

Production Company: Nexus
Directors: Smith & Foulkes
Nexus ECD: Chris O Reilly
Exec Producer: Julia Parfitt
Producer: Tracey Cooper
CG Supervisor: Ben Cowell
Animation: Nexus
Production Manager: Jo Bierton

Compositing: Time Based Arts

Sound Design: Aaron Reynolds @ Wave
Music: Bruno Coulais

3D Animation
Michael Greenwood
Mark Davies
Eoin Coughlan
Keith Ribbon
Alberto Lara
Stuart Doig
Reece Millidge
Antoine Bourruel
Welles Bussett

Concept Artist: Ronald Kurniwan
Further Design: Blind Salida, Chris Martin

3D Modelling:
Matt Clark
James Hardingham
Dan Crossland
Ben Merrick
Andrew Hickinbottom
Dara Cazamea

Matte Painting:
Geoffroi Ridel
Florian Casper

Lighting and Rendering:
Michael Greenwood
Mark Davies
Matt Clark
Jay Harwood
Jerome Haupert
Richard Moss
Wayne Kresil
Anthony Arnoux
Ben Blundell

VFX TD
Ludovik Boden
Rodi Kaya
Michal Firkowski
Richard Moss
Mattias Muller
Hristo Velev

Rigging: Iker J de los Mozos
Pipeline TD: Mark Tsang
Studio Systems Support: Patrick Hearn
Render Support: Callum Welsh

RELATED LINKS
www.nexusproductions.com