Jun 14

Superfad : Preguntas Hermosas

Posted in: Animation, cg, Design, Film, General, poetry, Preguntas Hermosas, seattle, storytelling, Suderfad, vfx

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

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Apr 23

Oh, Hello for SIFF

Posted in: 2D animation, cel, film fest, General, oh hello, seattle, siff

Seattle based studio Oh, Hello bring their signature style of cel animation to the Seattle International Film Fest. Like their previous work for the Pacific Science Center, their brand of animation is a much more lively take on how a film festival can bring an exciting and playful approach to its identity, while still maintaining its love of film.

I asked the guys at Oh, Hello to share some info on the project…

WONGDOODY came to us with the concept of an infinite pullback, going through world after world to convey SIFF 2010’s theme of “Inside Out”. Our immediate reaction was that we wanted to somehow incorporate the festival’s rich history and depth of movies into that basic structure.

As the largest film festival in North America, SIFF plays A LOT of movies from all over the world and the more research we did, the more of our favorites we found. Also, SIFF is a film fan festival, so we wanted to do something that was a call out to the fan culture. We tried to load as many film references into the background and foreground of each scene as we could. Another call out to film fans was to try and incorporate the spirit of all these amazing film posters that fans are now drawing and posting on their flickr, deviantart, facebook, etc. Our take on that was to animate the entire spot, creating something new yet recognizable.

Production Co.: Oh, Hello
Creative directors: Dan Brown, Thai Tran
2D Animators: Dan Brown, Thai Tran, Yassir Rasan, Lee Grambush
3D Animators: Lee Grambush
Compositing: Dan Brown, Thai Tran, Lee Grambush
Rotosope and illustration: Yassir Rasan, Leslie Ann Kam
Producer: Nathan F. Barr

Also, check out their new work for Nike.

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Mar 11

Superfad: Sony “Eye Candy”

Posted in: Carlos Stevens, color, Design, eye candy, General, highspeed camera, live action, make believe, seattle, sony, Superfad, vivid imagery, Will Hyde

Superfad Seattle brings more than just eye candy to this surreal exploration of live action and vfx for Sony Bravia HDTV.  Unfolding in three parts, “Birth of Color,”  ”Explosion of Color,” and “Release of Color,” the piece takes us on a dreamlike journey, with each section visually manifesting Sony’s global brand message of “make.believe”.

Drawing from the theatrical world of fashion photography, Superfad chose spherical objects to represent the dot in “make.believe” and serve as a thread that runs throughout the piece.

For an extra bonus, we’re including both the final piece and a behind the scenes video in HD. Also check out the process frames and style boards sent from Directors Will Hyde and Carlos Stevens.

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Apr 10

Making Of: Seattle International Film Festival 2009

Posted in: cel animation, General, making of, seattle

Our previous post about Digital Kitchen’s work for the Seattle International Film Festival tickled my curiosity: How exactly were the animation rigs set up? How did they maintain control over the acetate layers?

So I asked DK if they’d be willing to share some making-of morsels, and they came through with the goods!

A little explanation from DK:

In executing the piece, we created a small set-up in our Seattle studio consisting of two rear-illuminated lightboxes made of 5 panes of glass layered on top of a diffusion layer. Each layer of glass had an element that was either animated frame by frame or was static to create the environment.

For example, a scene might have a layer of diffusion, a painted layer, a layer of characters that we could articulate, and a layer of organic materials, etc. that created the environment. We mounted a Canon Rebel XSi over animation stands, and connected directly to a Mac Pro workstation running the stop-motion software Dragon.

DK also acknowledges their inspiration for the project:

DK developed an approach that not only fit within the overarching campaign, but celebrated the hand-made qualities of early stop motion animation as well as the universality and diversity of SIFF – films from around the world that range from the highest production value to the most raw, stripped down filmmaking.

In doing so, DK sought to pay homage to one of the oldest feature-length films, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, by German animator Lotte Reiniger, and also drew inspiration from the work of Jamie Caliri, Kara Walker, Kim Keever, and the Quay Brothers.

Check out the finished project on Digital Kitchen’s site.

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