Hasta La Motion!

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/oasis_redberries_thumb.jpg”]25103[/NEWS]Pete Candeland and Passion Paris inject some fruity fun into Oasis Thé with a new campaign from Publicis WAM. The director, famed for his work for virtual band Gorillaz, has created a summery set of spots to advertise the iced tea drink. The campaign sees a trio of fruity characters stumble upon a Land of The Lost-style tribe of tea leafs, and features the wit and energy characteristic of Candeland’s work.

Fast-moving and colourful, the campaign shows a lighter side to Candeland’s work, following the brooding menace of recent Gorillaz music video Stylo. It’s also the first time the multi-award winning director has shot a campaign specifically for the French market.

Pete Candeland began his career at Disney in Sydney where he was hired straight from high school on the strength of his drawing skills. From 1993 – 1999 Candeland worked for animation studios Red Rover and Uli Meyer in London on commercials projects, and for Disney in both Toronto and Los Angeles on the feature film Beauty and the Beast.

Pete joined Passion Pictures as a director in 2000 and began working across many media including design, drawn and computer animation and live action.

In 2001 Candeland and Passion Pictures began a long lasting collaboration with designer Jamie Hewlett and co-creator of the band Gorillaz. This creative team directed 8 award winning music videos for the band from both their albums, Gorillaz (2001) and Demon Days (2005).

In addition to these videos Candeland also directed a series of “live” performances where the band members were created as computer generated characters for the Brit Awards, MTV Europe Awards and the Grammy Awards in 2007 where the band performed on stage with Madonna.

Pete Candeland Commerical & Ident Work
The award winning BBC World Cup idents for 2002 World Cup, featuring manga style caricatures of both the players and the BBC commentary team, and commercials for Super Target, Tizer, Motorola, 3 Mobile, Korean car brand Kia, and Gordon’s Gin, amongst others. In 2008 Candeland and Jamie Hewlett collaborated again on the BBC’s hugely popular titles for the Beijing Olympics featuring the Monkey King and other characters from Chinese mythology.

Games
Candeland has also designed and directed cinematic trailers for music based computer games including Guitar Hero (Xbox) and Rock Band 1 and 2 (Harmonix). He has also recently directed spectacular intro and outro cinematics for the new Harmonix/MTV launch of The Beatles: Rock Band.

The campaign, which consists of a 10s, 30s and 45s spots, will be airing in France, Belgium and Holland across TV, cinema and the internet.

CREDITS
Client Oasis
Title Oasis Thé
Length 45″

Agency: Publicis WAM
Creative director: Florent Inbert
Art director: Emmanuel Lalleve
Copywriter: Ludovic Marocco
Account manager: Joris Vigoroux
TV producer: Timothé Rosenberg

Production Company: Passion Paris Production
Directors: Pete Candeland
Executive Producer: Marc Bodin-Joyeux
Post producer: Emilie Walmsley

PostProduction: Passion Pictures
Producer: Erika Forzy
Production manager: Gilles de Lusignang
3D Coordinator: Helen Lord
Lead direction: Mario Ucci and Rick Thiele
Lead animator: David Sigrist, Nora O’Sullivan, Stuart Doig, Kristian Antonelli
Modelling: Ian Brown, Dan Sweeney, Mattias Bjurstrom
Texturing: Melanie Climent
Development and Particles simulation: Julian Hodgson, Alex Doss, Sajjad Amjad
Matte Painting: Joao Ruas, Max Dennison (Matte Painting UK)
Rendering Team: Claire Michaud, Celine Desrumaux, Yann Benedi
Rigging: Francois Pons
Titles: Stephane Coedel
Colourist: Paul Harrison @MPC
Flame artist: Kamen Markov @ MUNKY
Sound design studio: Wam

RELATED LINKS
www.passion-paris.com

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/roadtrip_car_thumb.jpg”]24996[/NEWS]Mekanism director Michael Langan created a brilliant promo for the 48th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival, held recently at the end of March 2010. The spot was created in slow motion and illustrates … literally …. how the world revolves around film. The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the longest running independent and experimental film festival in the world.

Mekanism have created a ‘making of’ video which explains, in Michael Langans own words, the detailed production process for this vivid and fun animation. Langans initial idea was to create three separate rows of scenery, with the items in the back row built smaller to look further away, whilst moving past the camera more slowly than those in the front.

The process then evolved into taking the scenery onto three cylinders, as a circle creates a seamless loop which is easier to animate. Michael then had the inspired idea to create the core of the cylinders from a stack of giant movie reels – showing that figuratively, the world revolves around film.

To hold all in place, a wooden support structure was built with bike wheels mounted on to a steel dowel, and then the wheels were wrapped in chicken wire to create a base. The road, countryside and general terrain were created from crumpled newspapers, plaster soaked paper towels and a collage of green foam, dirt and lichen.

The building designs were mostly lifted from pictures from the internet, then photo shopped into foldable printable cut-outs, mounted on chipboard and then painted.

A projective geometry trick was used to create the titles, whereby the cut-out letters are skewed if you look at them straight on but appear correct from a different angle. A piece of foam core was held in the position on the set viewpoint that the letters would eventually hang from. A photograph was taken and the letters were positioned onto the foam core in the computer.

The letters were then stretched out digitally to the same dimensions of the actual foam core sheet. The stretched letters were then printed out, mounted and then hung with fishing line in the exact place that the foam core square had originally been placed.

The total shoot took 6 hours and included 800 slow motion ‘burpees’ through the set. The majority of the effects were created in camera with little post production work required, although Langan did shoot a girl on green screen to sit within the travelling car.

The sound track is a song called Campfire by Starling Electric, a group that hails from Ann Arbor.

About Mekanism:
Mekanism is a San Francisco and New York based creative production studio, housing film, animation and digital content creators. We sprinkle our love of good storytelling on viral campaigns, commercials and branded entertainment to inspire measurable brand loyalty.

About Ann Arbor Film Festival:
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is internationally recognized as a premiere showcase for creative, inspiring, and influential films of all types: avant-garde and experimental, story-based narratives, documentaries, and animation. As the longest-running independent and experimental film festival in North America, the AAFF is steeped in a rich tradition of ground-breaking cinema. Thousands of influential filmmakers have showcased early work at the AAFF, including luminaries such as Kenneth Anger, Agnes Varda, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, Gus Van Sant, Barbara Hammer, Lawrence Kasdan, Devo and George Lucas.

The 49th Ann Arbor Film Festival will take place March 22-27, 2011 in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Festival will open the call for submissions July 1, 2010.

RELATED LINKS
www.mekanism.com
www.aafilmfest.org

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/furfangs_gang_thumb.jpg”]24933[/NEWS]The Furfangs is an amusing sci-fi-horror short-movie, with 3D special effects, that tells the story of mysterious and aggressive creatures from outerspace. The short lasts five minutes and was realized by only two people, the director Andrea Ricca and 3D graphic designer Gennaro Acanfora.

This combined live-action 3D production was completed without a budget and received no external contributions to realise the end result. The Furfangs was created using a MiniDV camera and a computer only, and has received great reviews from the film and CG industry press.

The Furfangs follows on from Ricca’s last production the adventure-fantasy short ‘The Guardian’ which was also produced without a budget and with limited equipment. The Guardian was nominated for Best Independent Production at the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards.

CREDITS:Director: Andrea Ricca, 3D Design:Gennaro Acanfora, Compositing: Gennaro Acanfora, Original score: Gianfilippo De Mattia.

Praise for The Furfangs:

CULT REVIEWS
“The five minutes you’ll spend giggling with The Furfangs, surely are five minutes well spent.”

BLOOD THEATRE
“Andrea Ricca proves that all you need to make a great movie is a love of filmmaking. It’s impossible not to like this short flick!”

ROGUE CINEMA
“Andrea Ricca is a great director who’s short films are sure to entertain. It seems that with any film he makes, the enjoyment factor is a given. He’s found his niche in these short films.”

H. HUDSON’S HOUSE OF HORROR
“I am impressed at what two people can do to make such a great looking short film!”

ALL HORROR FILMS
“I really enjoyed it!”

KILLING BOXX
“The Furfangs never fails to entertain and proves that desire and drive can overcome any obstacles.”

3D WORLD
“Mixing live-action and 3D creature characters to create a creepy sci-fi caper.”

FLIX UNLIMITED
“If your looking for ways to get your girlfriend to say “yes” before these tiny little furballs shows up at your door, get your inspiration here. Watch it!”

HAMMER AND BEYOND
“It is amazing what you can come up with with the right attitude and passion for your subject. Personally I’d rather watch these $0 short movies than any number of stratospherically overpriced and overlong Hollywood productions.”

LIVE FOR FILMS
“An excellent sci-fi short.”

BLOODY-DISGUSTING.COM
“Pretty cool.”

MIDNITE MEDIA
“Pretty good. If you have a few minutes, check it out, and help spread the word”

PARADISE OF HORROR
“Here is a movie that has a lot of heart and doesn’t take itself too seriously, and I love it.”

CREEPTURE FEATURE HORROR SHOW
“His movies are so much fun to watch and you can see the gift he has as a storyteller.”

www.andrearicca.com

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/afterlife_christina_thumb.jpg”]24719[/NEWS]Continuing a long history of VFX for feature films, Click 3X Creative Director and Head of VFX Mark Szumski led the team that crafted all of the VFX for the visually stimulating thriller After.Life, directed by Agnieszka Wojtowicz Vosloo and starring Christina Ricci. Click Creative Director Steve Tozzi and Head of CG Anthony Filipakis worked closely with Szumski to create a stunning array of FX, from the creation of alternate worlds to bizarre and fantastic character transformations.

“Our whole team came together for this one,” noted Click 3X owner Peter Corbett. “As we establish Click as a full-service digital studio capable of projects of any size, it’s important that we continue to work on major feature films, so we were thrilled when Agnieszka approached us to bring her terrifying and captivating visions to life.”

Click 3X’s VFX play an integral role in the film, composing important components of many grotesque and surreal scenes. Anna (played by Ricci), looks in the mirror in one scene to find herself emaciated and lifeless, a transformation wrought by Szumski. In another sequence, the CG team built, animated and lit massive tree roots that emerge from the ground to capture Anna. The same group created animated maggots that fill her mouth as the roots swallow her.

In one particularly impressive scene in which Anna removes her own heart from her split-open chest, Szumski showcases his ability to work in both the live-action and VFX realms.

Szumski directed the live-action shoot and spent hours of compositing in Flame to create blood elements on the starlet’s nude body. The Click 3X team also created an elaborate design for the open chest.

In a show of Click’s impressive range, the studio also created entire landscapes. One twisted point in the film finds Anna flung into Limbo, an alternate reality created entirely by Szumski and the CG team.

Limbo is an amazing, otherworldly environment that conveys the sensation of being trapped between life and death, with surroundings that alternately appear to be dead or alive.

“After.Life was a blast to shoot,” stated Szumski. “Everyone stepped up to make this one happen, from Anthony’s CG team to Steve’s creative input to the cooperation of the director on every scene. I’m happy to be contributing to full-length feature work and hope to take more on in the very near future.”

Click here to view trailer.

About Click 3X:
New York-based Click 3X produces cutting-edge visual solutions for commercials, feature films, television, music videos, and broadcast clients around the globe. Founded in 1993, Click 3X has become one of the preeminent providers of innovative media content, housed in an environment led by artists, yet supported by one of the most technologically advanced digital studios in the industry.

With award-winning design, powerful visual effects, and a visionary animation team, Click 3X has worked on array of diverse highly-recognizable projects, including a series of films from academy-award winning directors like Jonathan Demme and Davis Guggenheim, a recent multimedia package for eight HD Time Warner spots, My Home 2.0, a five episode reality TV series for Verizon Fios, and a long line of recent commercials for major brands such as Sharp, Ford, and Goodyear.

CREDITS
Prod Company: Plum Productions
Director: Agnieszka Wojtowicz Vosloo
Editor: Niven Howie
Assistant Editor: Benjamin Howdeshell
Post Production Supervisor: Jonathan Ferrantelli

VFX Co: Click 3X
Head of VFX/ Creative Director: Mark Szumski
Head of CGI: Anthony Filipakis
Creative Director: Steve Tozzi
Executive Producer: Jason Mayo
Producer: Carson Hood
Head of Production: Jared Yeater
VFX Artist(s): Yoshiko Hirata, Jaime Aguirre, Peter Amante, Amanda Amalfi, John Budion
CGI Animator(s): Rob Dollase, Anderson Ko
CGI Lighting: Sung Kim
CGI Modeling & Rigging: Reeves Blakeslee
CGI Modeling & Texturing: Paul Liaw
CGI Animating: Susan Taffe
CGI Lighting: Grace Kim, Rafael Castelblanco
CGI Artist: Jongmoon Woo

Telecine: Technicolor
Colorist: Tim Stipan
Producer: Dana Bloder

RELATED LINKS
www.click3x.com

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[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/bb_insight_thumbnail.jpg”]24665[/NEWS]When ad agency The Brooklyn Brothers approached New York-based design and story-driven creative engagement studio, Loyalkaspar, about collaborating on a campaign for Insight Communication, the U.S. ninth largest cable operator (serving the Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana areas), they knew it would be a test on a number of levels. Not only was the idea creatively challenging, but given the project’s budget restrictions, it would also force them to rethink how to achieve the spectacular results the concept demanded.

”Everyone knows how it is these days: clients want double the work for less than half the budget,” Guy Barnett, Writer, Brooklyn Brothers says. ”And they don’t expect any drop in standards — theirs or ours. This job was even more extreme than usual. But we knew that in partnering with Loyalkaspar we could get it done, without sacrificing the quality of the work. I’m happy to say we were right. You don’t see the struggle to get the job done. All you see is effortless and innovative animation.”

In the end, Loyalkaspar jumped on board with reckless abandon and quickly arrived at a creative solution to work around the budget without compromising the creative, which included bringing in some animation assistance.

”We have a great relationship with The Brooklyn Brothers and love working with them,” says David Herbruck, Loyalkaspar Partner and Director of the ten spot campaign. ”The creative was so good that we didn’t want to simplify it and possibly water-down the end result.”

Because the spots demanded a volume of high-end 3D, Loyalkaspar partnered up with two of the best 3D boutiques out there — Magoo Studios, Soderhamnm, Sweden, and Galaxy 61, Brooklyn, NY.

”We’re worked with Galaxy 61 several times and I knew they had the chops to do this,” Herbruck adds. ”We had never worked with Magoo before but we’re great fans of their work. As luck would have it, this project coincided perfectly with their desire to break into the American market.”

Set to a beautifully hypnotic score by music house Nylon Studios, New York, all 10 of the spots use the Insight logo, which features a bundle of wires, as the catalyst to describe the different benefits their homegrown and customer-first philosophy.

In each spot, wires stretch around the screen forming the visual accompaniment to the folksy voiceover — from rural farmlands to facilitating human connections at a cosmopolitan small business firm, the animation reinforces the brand’s score values of customer service, innovation and any appearance of corporate pretensions.

Recognizing that the process is just as important as the end result is just one of the ways design house Loyalkaspar distinguishes itself from the creative herd. Clients return for that reason. Founded by directors David Herbruck and Beat Baudenbacher, Loyalkaspar has quickly earned a reputation among advertising creatives and network executives as a creative hub where daring creative and innovative execution intersect, resulting in engaging brand experiences.

CREDITS
Client: Insight Communications
Project: 10 spot branding campaign
SVP Brand: Pam Euler Halling
President and Chief Operating Officer: Dinni Jain

Agency: The Brooklyn Brothers, New York

Production/Design: Loyalkaspar, New York
EP / Director: David Herbruck
CD / Designer: Beat Baudenbacher
Senior Producer: Melissa August
Production: Bullet, New York
Producer: Patrick Oliver

Music/Sound Design/Audio Post: Nylon Studios, New York

RELATED LINKS
www.loyalkaspar.com
www.thebrooklynbrothers.com