Hasta La Motion!

Back in June 2004, Reason Magazine printed a custom cover for every issue of their magazine (circulation: 40,000). Each subscriber received a magazine with a satellite photo of their neighborhood on the cover, and their home circled in red. An uncomfortable surprise to find in your mailbox, for sure.

More recently, Chris Milk and Google created the interactive musical experience The Wilderness Downtown for Arcade Fire, which utilized HTML5 and Google Maps to put your house directly into the music video.

Hybrid production company B-Reel, who also worked on The Wilderness Downtown, just finished Chaos in Your Town for State Farm Insurance. The experience uses the same “enter your address” starting point to create a customized version of The Mill’s “State of Chaos” campaign. We’ll see if giant robots shooting lasers at your house proves as successful as their last viral hit — OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass” music video.

The New York Times article on the Reason Magazine stunt ends with the quote, “What if you received a magazine that only had stories and ads that you were interested in and pertained to you?” Seven years later, we have RSS readers that bring us only the news we want and iPad apps like FlipBoard and Zite. Not so far off.

For custom content, the inevitable next step is not having to type in your address at all. The applications would just read your computer’s IP address or your mobile device’s GPS location and auto-populate their content with the pertinent data. How hard would it be to have your cable box “know” where it is, and have the commercial streaming to your television integrate your Google Map imagery?

We’re curious to hear your thoughts on how successful this technology is as a marketing tool. How about as a storytelling tool? Will it become another expected facet of production (in the same way we’re often asked to produce complementary TV commercials, internet banners and print ads)? Does anyone find it disconcerting to have their data used to market to them?

Posted on Motionographer

The Mill è uno dei grandi punti di riferimento mondiali per chi fa il nostro lavoro. Pochi giorni fa hanno rilasciato un nuovo showreel dedicato ai settori TV e Film con alcuni dei loro migliori lavori. Dagli effetti speciali per la serie tv Merlin, al 3D delle Cronache di Narnia passando per numerosi blockbuster, The Mill non delude mai. Per chi ancora non li conoscesse, The Mill è stat fondata nel 1990 da Robin Shenfield e Pat Joseph, che attualmente guidano ancora il gruppo formato da più di 500 talenti.

However you may believe the world was created, please allow Johnny Green, Knucklehead and the Mill to show your their version of the story.

Enter a team of rough-and-tumble, blue-collar craftsmen as they release the clouds and the sea, build the mountains and unleash the animals in an effort to explain how a true Guinness pour comes to life.

A nice piece of storytelling here from the production team at Knucklehead, helmed by director Johnny Green. The story is amplified to a beautiful level by seamless vfx work from the Mill, as their contributions give visual life to this concept.

Posted on Motionographer

The Mill’s renowned directing trio, Bif, has conceived a dark and eerie short-film in Dix. Dix, which is French for “ten,” highlights Mark, a tortured man who suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder that forbids him from physically stepping on lines beneath his feet. In many ways, the main characters unnerving anxiety is reminiscent of the childhood mantra that, “If you step on a crack, you break your Mother’s back.” Modernized by Bif, the directorial threesome makes certain to inject their own personal flavor, and does so in a way that is both startling and sobering. Indeed, Marks thoughts become so chilling that, when venturing into his psyche, viewers can fully experience the hellish agony of its main character, and witness a ghastly account of his volatile journey to recovery.

With accolades galore, and enough industry awards to shake a stick at, the appeal of Dix comes from it’s harmonious marriage of storytelling and CG. Incubating within the creative hothouse of The Mill, Bif exemplifies a knack for storytelling that is only matched by their technical savvy, and accentuates The Mill’s loyalty to producing non-commercial, and experimental ventures.

Update: Despite coming across this undeniable gem a bit late, we have, after thoughtful consideration, decided to post it, and even upgraded this former Quickie to a Main course. Better late than never! Bon appétit!

Credits
Production: Autour de Minuit
Actors: Ian Faure (Marc), Lucien Momy (Marc as a child) and Alain Choquet (Monsieur X).
Directing Collective: Bif (Jules Janaud, Fabrice Le Nezet and Francois Roisin).
Producer:Nicholas Schmerkin, Autour de Minuit,
Director of photography: Reynald Capurro.
Post production:The Mill, London,
Post producer: Stephen Vennin.
Sound design: John Baptist St Pol at Dune Sound
Sound mix: Guillaume Leriche.
Music: Raphael Martinez-Bachel (Azel).

Posted on Motionographer