Lovely stylised illustrative video by Jens & Anna at Picasso Pictures. Good news for Kentuckians? For behind-the-scenes info including concept art sketches and more, visit Jens & Anna’s project page here.
Over the last several years, Buck has made a point of creating elegantly clever PSAs for causes they believe in. For their latest visual essay, they partnered with Idaho-based agency Drake Cooper to spread the message of the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation.
With charming audio from Echolab, the spot has a folksy quality befitting its subject matter. As usual for Buck, the transitions serve up delightful surprises by the eye-full while visual metaphors peppered throughout the poignant script give the spot equal measures of weight and wit.
Here’s a gorgeous new public service announcement directed by Jack-Antoine Charlot of Bonzom, the French team whose work you remember from Mika’s Lollipop. This go-round sees them creating a psychedelic and fantastic world for Credits:
Client: Global Fund
Title: Baby In The Sky
Agency: Global Fund
Production Company: Passion Paris Production
Directors: Jack Antoine Charlot@Bonzom
Executive Producer: Marc Bodin-Joyeux & Claire Potel
Animation Production: JSCB (Je Suis Bien Content)
Production manager: Marc Jousset, Perrine Capron
Script Scenario & Idée Originale: Olivier BARDY & Jack Antoine Charlot
Storyboard: Kalkaire
Art Developement: Kalkaire
Animation: Guillaume Delaunay, Dimitri Lecoussis, Damien Barrau, Davy Durand
Compositing: François Leroy, Jimmy Audoin
Sound Design studio: Dîner au Motel
Sound Designer: Michael Fakesch & Stéphane Papin
Voice Over: Carla Bruni Sarkozy
Music: Amy Winehouse / Universal “Black is back”
Reach Out is an interesting new PSA campaign by the Ad Council through DDB New York that attempts to raise awareness of teen suicide prevention with short films based on the stories of teens themselves. These four spots also showcase the work of several directors working in very distinct styles of film-making and animation. Who-Fu and Mirrorshade working with Guru Studios, both use their own takes on stylized animation; while Santamaria and Pandapanther explore live-action in new methods that aren’t typical of their commercial work. It’s great for us to see the wide range of expression in this campaign as well as compare the various approaches to the material by the different teams. Nice work, all!
Update: So we just got sent all 11 films in this campaign, and the rest are just as worthy of a look: including great cel animation from Steve May, marionettes from Boolab, graphic illustrations from Lesley Barnes and more from Adam Pierce, Jo Lawrence and Cal Brunker. Great to see all these different styles of work, done for a great cause as well.
Hornet Inc.’s Santa Maria built a mixed media playground for the Ronald McDonald House and agency Leo Burnett in this 2′38″ spot.
2D, 3D, stop-action, claymation, practical, digital—there’s just about everything in here. My favorite moments are the bursts of cheerful, hand-hewn type.
I’m fairly certain folks will be divided over this one: half feeling that it’s a happy ensemble of imagery, the other half feeling it goes a bit too far. Personally, I like it, and I think it works. It’s as if an entire morning of Saturday cartoons from my childhood has been condensed into an elaborate nugget. It’s warm, earnest and pure.
Posted on Motionographer
Buck has created two more spots for Cactus, the agency behind the Own Your C anti-smoking campaign, which has produced some remarkable motion work. “Ravens” and “Dragons” aren’t part of that series, though; they’re targeted to parents who smoke around their children.
The spots are entirely CG, which I assume was as much a budgetary decision as a creative one. But that decision also gave Buck complete control over the lighting and camera work, both of which contribute greatly to a mounting sense of tension in each spot.
Honestly, I could watch these just for the lighting alone. In “Dragons,” the pools of light (or stretches of darkness, if you’re a pessimist) create pockets of warmth that seem to slip away before they can be fully embraced, while the cemetery tones of “Ravens” suggest an ashen wasteland matched only by the smokers’ lungs.
Watch both spots on Buck’s site.
Thanks for the tip, Damien!
FOR DRAGONS:
– Creative Director: Ryan Honey
– Executive Producer: Maurie Enochson
– Producer: Jason Cohon
– Associate Creative Director: Jeremy Sahlman
– VFX Supervisor: Doug Wilkinson
– Art Director: Bradley Munkowitz
– Character Animation: Matt Everton
– FX TD: Gene Arvan
– Lead 3D Artist: Jens Lindgren
– 3D Artists: John Niehuss, Randa Mohtady, Thomas Madreiter, Mike Colarik, Kyle Raffile, Csaba Letay, Ivan Sokol
– Lead Compositor: Patrick Scruggs
– 2D Artists: Ian Kim, James Rydesky, Jon Gorman, Joe Mullen
– Editor: Aristides Zamora
– Audio: Cypher Audio
– Software: Maya, After Effects
CACTUS
– Strategic Director: Joe Conrad
– Creative Director: Norm Shearer
– Associate Creative Director: Jeff Strahl
– Associate Creative Director: Brian Watson
– Producer: Danielle Bryan
– Account Director: Amy Taylor
– Account Executive: Shanna Grimes
FOR RAVENS:
BUCK
– Creative Director: Ryan Honey
– Executive Producer: Maurie Enochson
– Producer: Nick Terzich
– Associate Producer: Eric Badros
– Associate Creative Director: Jeremy Sahlman
– VFX Supervisor: Doug Wilkinson
– Art Director: Bradley Munkowitz
– Character Animation: Matt Everton, Frantz Vidal
– FX TD: Dave Rindner
– Lead 3D Artist: Jens Lindgren
– Artists: Randa Mohtady, Henry Foster, Frances Yeh, Ivan Sokol, Doug Appleton, Sebastian Nozon
– Lead Compositor: Moses Journey
– Editor: Aristides Zamora
– Audio: Cypher Audio
– Software: Maya, After Effects
CACTUS
– Strategic Director: Joe Conrad
– Creative Director: Norm Shearer
– Associate Creative Director: Jeff Strahl
– Associate Creative Director: Brian Watson
– Producer: Danielle Bryan
– Account Director: Amy Taylor
– Account Executive: Shanna Grime
Posted on Motionographer
The mind is wondrous thing, and capturing the essence of its mysterious machinations is no easy task. It was, however, the task that fell to boolab’s Nico Casavecchia, who directed this ethereal promo for Alzheimer International, an initiative promoted by the Pasqual Maragall Foundation.
I love the level of abstraction at work here. It’s all loosely rooted in the actual physiology of the brain, but it is by no means tethered to science. Rather, the focus is on the poetic nature of memories, something Nico portrays with beautiful effectiveness.
Nico explains:
When I was given the Alzheimer’s project, the idea was to speak about the power of the human mind and the risk of losing an entire life’s memories to the disease. From the beginning, I shied away from certain ideas for developing the spot. I wanted to avoid a picture of the human experience through Super 8 movies and other melodramatic devices at all costs. At the same time, the spectator needed to be able to relate to the spot and perceive the intrinsic drama of losing one’s memory.
I didn’t want to perform a technical exercise that would send a cold message. I decided that the best route possible was to use a soundtrack that would transmit “memories” while the image would be an abstract representation of these sounds. Once this became clear, I designed styleframes to define a look for the bubbles, which represented the memories.
Some technical details:
Using Maya, we created a reactive system that modified the geometric parameters of the bubbles in connection with the soundtrack. For me, it was important that keyframe animation be used as little as possible, but that the objects be permitted to come to life thanks to the actual sounds. Once the soundtrack was finished, we simply let our memory bubbles dance with the sounds, after which we only had to sew the takes together in comp.
Watch this motion test to see the “memory bubbles” reacting to audio input:
Agency: Externa Comunicación (Rory Lambert, Creative Director)
Posted on Motionographer
Aardman director Steve Harding-Hill mixed 3D and 2D animation with a great sense of comedic timing to nudge Britons off the couch and into the great outdoors—or at least to the nearest park.
Working with agency M&C Saatchi for UK’s Department of Health, “Change4Life” tells the story of makind’s epic journey to obesity with tongue lodged firmly in cheek, using laughter instead of lectures to educate and motivate viewers.
The hybrid animation style is as playful as the palette, and Harding-Hill did a great job casting the faceless stars of the spot as lovable little creations.
Like many “stop-motion” spots of late, “Change4Life” used CG to create the illusion of good ol’ analogue clay. It’s expertly done here, and I suspect we’ll only see more of it in the future.
Says Harding-Hill:
We wanted things to be stop motion like, not too slick and stylized. We ended up making photocopies of our drawings, sticking them to polyboard, and shooting them with still cameras. Our backgrounds were created like theater sets, flat and layered up.
The black lines were crucial to the overall graphic sensibility and also made it possible for us to do some 2D animation and mix things up a bit.
The companion website features the same characters and lists practical tips for living a healthier lifestyle.
Posted on Motionographer
This one nearly slipped by the radar. “The Boy Who Didnʼt Stop, Look & Listen” is the first installment in a three-part series for the Department for Transport THINK! Child Road Safety campaign in the UK.
Leo Burnett set up the series for success by penning “Tales from the Road,” an eerie set of nursery rhymes that show kids what might happen when basic safety rules are ignored.
In the hands of Nexus Productions’ Smith & Foulkes, the stories become painterly visions that are one part children’s book illustration and one part nightmare. They walk a fine line between quiet and creepy, crawling under your skin in the process.
Says Smith & Foulkes, “We wanted these commercials to act as a pause in a child’s TV viewing, holding the gaze of the immobile injured characters almost painfully long as a contrast to the hi-energy multi-coloured frenzy of your average childrenʼs programming break.”
Pay attention to the little details, like the quivering crutch as the boy reaches for his ball or the subtle dimensionality of the vignetting during camera moves. It’s all beautifully realized down to the finest detail in typical Smith & Foulkes fashion.
Stay tuned for parts two and three of the series. They’re worth the wait.
Client: Department for Transport
Title: ‘The Boy who didn’t Stop, Look & Listen’
Length: 1 x 40″
Production Company: Nexus Productions
Director: Smith & Foulkes
Executive Producers: Chris O’Reilly and Charlotte Bavasso
Head of Production: Julia Parfitt
Producer: Melody Sylvester
Production Assistant: Denise Abraham
Character Designer: Mustashrik Mahbub
Project Lead: Mark Davies
Further credits from Leo Burnett:
Executive Creative Director: Jonathan Burley
Creative Directors: Guy Moore and Tony Malcolm
Copywriter: Christopher Birch
Art director: Caroline Rawlings
Planner (creative agency): Nick Docherty
Media agency: Carat
Planner (media agency): Laura Braithwaite
Editor N/A – animation
Audio post-production: Anthony Moore @ Factory
Exposure: National television
Posted on Motionographer
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A. during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
