Hasta La Motion!

One of our favorite projects from 2013 was Patrick Clair’s launch trailer for Tom Clancy’s The Division, a global conspiracy theory rendered in elegant typography and metaphorical imagery.

With the same understated poignance that is his hallmark, Mr. Clair’s latest project is a title sequence created in collaboration with Antibody (Clair’s studio) and Elastic for HBO’s new series, “True Detective.”

In an interview with Art of the Title, Clair explains:

As we started to plan the movement and animation, we faced some interesting challenges. We wanted the titles to feel like living photographs. But the footage was too kinetic and jumpy and stills were too flat and static. Many shots feature footage that has been digitally slowed to extreme degrees. The digital interpolation and artefacts created by slowing footage down often looks strange or tacky, but we found that in this case it evoked a surreal and floaty mood that perfectly captured what we were after.

Read more in Art of the Title’s excellent interview.

Client: HBO
Air Date: January 12, 2014
Opening Title Sequence: Elastic
Director: Patrick Clair
Executive Producer: Jennifer Sofio Hall
Design/Animation/Compositing: Antibody
Senior Designer: Raoul Marks
Animation + Compositing: Raoul Marks
Animation + Compositing: Patrick Da Cunha
Production: Bridget Walsh
Research: Anna Watanabe
Additional Compositing: Breeder
Compositing: Chris Morris
Compositing: Joyce Ho
Production: Candace Browne
Production: Adam West

In December of last year Halo 4 came out and the world rejoiced. Along with it came a web series called Forward Unto Dawn which was a live action VFX set that brought the Halo universe to life. It opened with 5 fantastic title sequences created by Polynoid a German Design/VFX house.

From the Press Release:

Polynoid’s microfilms illustrate the intense relationship between Cortana, an artificial intelligence entity and indispensable aide to Master Chief, the long-time hero of the Halo series. Set aboard a spacecraft, the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, as it drifts towards imminent doom, Cortana must battle to awaken Master Chief from cryo-stasis before it’s too late.

“For us, Cortana was the centerpiece around which we spun our story,” said Polynoid’s Jan Bitzer. “When we started working out the scenes and shots, we did it under the premise that Cortana is the only ‘alive’ being we could play with.”

With elegantly framed shots, drifting cameras and gloomy lighting, Polynoid emphasized the soul-crushing loneliness aboard the nearly empty spacecraft. To effectively communicate the passing of time, Polynoid switched from the relative calm of zero-gravity to intense time-lapsed action.

“[The time lapse sequence] was technically the most challenging. We spent a lot of time tweaking it; always trying to improve every shot simultaneously to guarantee a consistent quality for the overall piece,” Bitzer noted.

Polynoid and Blacklist collaborated with 343 Industries every step of the way, carefully guarding production from the massive press surrounding “Halo 4.” “Polynoid are gamers, and this was a dream opportunity,” said Blacklist Executive Producer Adina Sales. “This project was a perfect fit for our team.  343 was looking for a sophisticated interpretation and they encouraged us to push the artistic lense.  Polynoid had a clear vision from the outset and we were determined to deliver in spades.  We’re very proud of the results.”

Here you can see a detailed making of that goes through their entire process from conception:

Don’t forget to check out their site page for the sequence for some stills and styleframes!

We dropped them a line to do a little Q&A with Polynoid’s Jan Bitzer and Fabian Pross.  Here’s a snippet but click ‘Full Interview’ to view the entire thing!

Fabian Pross on the FX:

We used Softimage ICE for almost all our effects work. The rampancy is actually not simulated, but a combination of procedural modeling and some keyframes.

Jan Bitzer on the Asset Development

343 Industries provided us with most of the CG assets which we had to bring together on an equal production level. Some elements where very high poly and had to be optimized, while others were simplified game assets and needed detail work.

What made your company interested in taking on the Halo franchise and creating an opening cinematic web series for their game?

JB: The epic Halo universe, the geek factor, science fiction and space, the storyline, the darkness, the mood and the chance to work on an unusual format of creating five individual title sequences – these were all big factors. And then we were pretty stoked to be given the chance to add our little part to the vast amount of artwork that has formed Halo over the years.

Taking on an IP as big as Halo must have come with some pretty unique challenges to keep the storyline and timeline in order. What sort of hurdles did you have to overcome to match everything up?

JB: We did a lot of research on facts and trivia concerning the world of Halo before we started working on the script so that everything was seamless.

Of course we were eager to implement our style and new elements into the Halo glossary — the Cortana Rampancy for example. We had a bit of back and forth about designing the elements of the data sphere and the way the rampancy should look.

Did you have much creative freedom with the project? What sort of things were provided and what were some of the freedoms you enjoyed?

JB: 343 Industries provided us with most of the CG assets which we had to bring together on an equal production level. Some elements where very high poly and had to be optimized, while others were simplified game assets and needed detail work. Besides that, we received style sheets on how to treat certain elements, what to do and what to avoid.

I think the biggest creative freedom besides the creation of the Cortana Rampancy was probably the influence we have through our way of storytelling. We wanted to honor the slow-paced features of a title sequence while at the same time progress in a storyline. The show director Stewart Hendler and 343 Industries where very open to our approach and ideas.

The Cortana rampancy simulations look great! What software did you use for all of the simulations? How difficult was the R&D and were you able to drive the creative force behind the look and feel?

FP: We used Softimage ICE for almost all our effects work. The rampancy is actually not simulated, but a combination of procedural modeling and some keyframes. Since we’ve worked on stuff similar to this in the past, the R&D came along naturally in only a couple of days and the rest was spent tweaking and animating.

In terms of look and feel, the rampancy was in fact the one thing we were able to add to the ‘Halo dictionary.’ We were very happy to design it more or less from scratch and push it through.

To further that question what sort of real life references did you look at to create that effect?

JB: To be honest, none. We studied a lot of recent effects work from “Tron” and “Prometheus.” Those specific looks were procedural animations using Processing, but since we were unfamiliar with that program at the time, we approached it in Softimage with ICE.

With a project this scope there are bound to be some issues that pop up. What were any technical limitations or frustrations your team had with the project?

JB: We struggled a bit with the optimization of the shading and lighting setup. Since this was one of our first excursions into the world of Arnold as primary renderer, we had to learn the do’s and don’ts of handling the renderings – the interior set especially took a while to be production ready.

We had to deal with huge amounts of polygons and a lot of image noise caused by a room full of metal shaders and lots of lights. And then there was all this ice, snow and frost which is a whole different story!
It took us a while to figure out a workflow that gave us the result we wanted.

The time lapse effect looks great and serves really well to further the storyline, what went into the development of that effect?

JB: We pulled some references from the web of ice growing and camera behavior during time lapse effects. We tried to implement all the little flaws that time lapse capturing characterize – things like exposure flickering and small inconsistencies in the camera movement.

The lighting looks fantastic, can you speak about any techniques you used?

JB: Heiko Schneck did a great job on creating the lighting setup for the interior set.

We used Arnold for the rendering. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make use of any diffuse bouncing due to a lot of noise issues, resulting in the combination of an interior set with lots of lights and metallic surfaces. But Arnold is a monster when it comes to high poly counts and its shading capabilities were a big time saver.

Even beyond further reference gathering there must have been troves of concept art to deal with. What sort of inspiration did your team take when working on this project?

JB: Since the “Halo 4″ teaser was already released, we had a strong guideline on the look we needed to achieve. Story wise, the end of our work marks the start of the teaser, specifically when Master Chief wakes up. Naturally, a part of our task was to ‘blend.’ We put our efforts into detail work, refining the shaders and textures and creating a realistic mood.

The new character redesign for Cortana is very human and the Master Chief looks spectacular with tons of new detail. What sort of influence did you have on the character development or how did you reinterpret what you were given?

JB: The time we spent on the characters was mostly targeted towards Cortana’s appearance. Master Chief was an easier task – he came with all the maps so we just did some shading work and kicked him off to render.

Cortana was a different story – she was to appear photo real but very stylized. There was a lot of look development that went into her rendering and quite a bit of back and forth with the client until we settled on the final setup. But it all worked out well at the end!

We all know that both Bungie and 343 Industries/Microsoft are quite fond of hiding little gems in their projects; Are there any fun easter eggs you guys left in the project?

JB: We wish we had! We planned on implementing a bunch of little ‘die hard fan’ surprises, but at the end of production they all got chopped due to edit and shot changes and prioritizing work hours. A bit unromantic, but we do wish we could’ve made it happen.

Posted on Motionographer

Conference openers have become the vehicle of choice for many studios to show what they can do without an overbearing client or agency brief hemming them in. The creative contraints for conference openers are usually very loose (probably owning to the guilt organizers feel for not being able to pay anyone for their work), inviting experimentation and risk-taking that’s hard to find in the commercial world.

While the budgets may be low, the expectations are very high. And for a conference about “the art of the pitch,” the expectations are unusually high.

A Meeting of the Minds

Enter co-directors Anthony Scott Burns and Chris Bahry of Tendril, who created an epic, sci-fi noir opener for the inaugural Style Frames NY event getting underway today.

As usual, the audio deserves as bright a spotlight as the visuals — and in this case, the man behind the audio, John Black (CypherAudio) had a special role to play in this collaboration.

We got the inside scoop on the process behind the project from John Black, Anthony Scott Burns and Chris Bahry of Tendril.

Interview with Anthony Scott Burns, Chris Bahry (Tendril) and John Black (Cypheraudio)

John, let’s start with you, since it many ways this collaboration began with you. Tell us how that came about.

John Black/Cypheraudio: During my initial meeting with Stephen and Heather [of Stash Magazine, organizers of the Style Frames NY event], they asked me who I would be interested in working with to create the opening. I immediately suggested Tendril.

Not only have I been a part of Tendril’s creative team since they launched the company, but Chris and I have collaborated for over ten years. I knew that we could communicate ideas effectively, and I trusted them to create something exceptional.

Knowing that Chris and Anthony had mutual creative respect for each other but had never worked on a project together lead to me suggesting that they combine their styles for something unique.

I also wanted to represent Toronto and really push for an extraordinary experience. Having Stephen give us complete creative freedom was also amazing. He told us not to hold back at all.

Anthony and Chris, how did you frame your collaboration? Was it difficult getting started?

Chris Bahry/Tendril (Co-Director): Anthony and I were on the same wavelength pretty much from the get go. We recognized the project as a chance to express some pent up emotions about the positive and negative aspects of the industry and the somewhat taboo subject of pitching.

Anthony Scott Burns (Co-Director): When I sat down with the guys at Tendril, we all agreed that we didn’t want to do a bunch of render porn. So I went off and thought about what interested me about this process of pitching we all do.

I’m a stupid perfectionist (and I have Asperger’s), so the idea of creating frames of artwork in a matter of days that have to express your complete ideas for something that has “never been done” has always stressed me out beyond belief. But the relief and sometimes euphoria when you pull it off… It’s awesome.

We all make these mental offerings, or sacrifices, to get better at our crafts, and we put our ideas on the table to be judged.

Chris Bahry: The inverted pyramid that shows up in a few places is a hint at an inverted Maslow hierarchy. It was the perfect symbol for us of turning your life upside down to prove your creative self worth.

In our first meet-up at the studio, we came up with the basic kernel of the story, which would center around an individual going through the process of creating a pitch under the pressure of a ticking clock.

We didn’t have the visuals yet, apart from a guy at a desk — and that his pencil would break the second it hit the page — but we knew we wanted it to be visceral. We also decided that we would not show the characters face, so that the character would become a sort of ‘Everyman’ that anyone would be able to identify with.

How did you get from that idea to the final story?

Chris/Bahry: I’d say the early breakthrough came with Anthony taking all this and introducing the ‘gods.’

Anthony Scott Burns: I wrote “The Offering” (read the PDF) as a backbone for me to understand all the imagery we would create. I need to attach logic to the abstract.

Chris Bahry: We all agreed that this was our narrative hinge, so we pulled the best stuff out of our references and made a synopsis to send to Stephen Price. Stephen thought it was really cool, and so the next step was to start developing shots and an animatic.

Chris Bahry: One of the most interesting/fun parts of this was the montage ‘mood’ shots. These are moments like the plate of food that turns to worms, or the creepy man looking at us through binoculars.

Anthony had a bunch of ideas for these, and I had a bunch and we picked our favourites. To keep them coherent, we kept them really stylized and symmetrical so that they would have a very intentional and ‘staged’ quality.

Around this time, Anthony got hard to work at Tendril studio building a full-blown previs/animatic in C4D that laid the foundation for all of the God shots and the overall framework and shotflow. It was a critical and important step, especially when it came to shooting the gods themselves, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Production

Live action is notoriously expensive. How did you guys pull this off?

Chris Bahry: When it came time to shoot, we were very resourceful. Anthony and I would meet up, check our shot ‘task list’ for that day, throw the gear into my Golf and we’d drive around town trying to knock off as many as possible for that day.

It was run and gun no budget shooting the whole way. Most of the live action shots were DOPed by Anthony on his own RedOne with a bunch of Nikon lenses and his Red Pro 50mm, but we also shot quite a lot on a 5D and 7D (the elevator shots that open the piece, for example), especially for the macro stuff.

By the end of our shooting schedule, we had generated a whole library of shots for our editor Chris Murphy to pull from. Some of our favourites didn’t even make the cut!

The black liquidy shots are outtakes from some experimental stuff we had going at the studio and we threw it in really last minute. To us, it almost feels like a ‘molecular level’ view of what’s going on in the guy’s head as the deadline literally creeps up on him from behind.

So you and Anthony were out in the field, shooting like mad. What was the rest of the crew up to?

Chris Bahry: While Anthony and I were running around shooting, a team back at the studio lead by Vini Nascimento pushed forward on the god design while Andrew Vucko, Brad Husband and Renato Ferro pushed hard on environments and props.

Anthony defined the gods according to five attributes of the creative psyche. These attributes help give rhyme and reason to the designs. Anthony had personally made an amazing Zbrush design for the Technology god (the one with the horns).

I had a handful of really loose sketches for what ended up looking like an HR Giger piece (Rest and Play) and The Form and Function (Egyptian looking), Flesh and Blood (the eyeball) and Love and Passion (the nature / tree thing) came out of the brilliant mind of Vini.

At this time, über-artist Ash Thorp volunteered to do some brilliant concept sketches. But our gods had already gone down a very different, dark and unexpected path and we didn’t end up using them in the final work.

What about the costumes?

Chris Bahry: My partner, fashion designer Jessica Mary Clayton created the costumes for us. We asked her to make them almost like a uniform, but with unique touches for each god so that they wouldn’t feel like clones.

What we didn’t tell her is that she’d have to get in and out of them all day on shoot day.

How did you guys handle greenscreen shots?

The last step before compositing and tracking hell was prepping for the greenscreen gods shoot. We could only afford a single day and a grip.

Anthony shot the whole thing and directed the talent, while I ran around setting up lights. One thing we did have was a great Grip (Chris Atkinson). To get the effect of floating, we did two things.

1. We had a teeter totter rig. That allowed us to lift our two actors off the ground for the shot where we see the gods creeping up from behind (check the photos at the assorted shots link).
2. We had a chest harness on aircraft cable that allowed our actors to lean forward. For the flying shots, we’d do a pass on the dolly track and then we’d position that tracking data in 3D along with the footage and add a 3D camera to make it feel like the gods were moving through the space and not the camera! It’s almost a miracle that it worked as well as it did.

Let’s switch gears to audio for a minute. John, can you tell us about the audio process for this project?

John Black/Cypheraudio: Originally, Stephen and I got together and talked about music. He’s an audiophile who knows his stuff, and we got along immediately, aside from both having a proclivity for wearing all black.

[Chris and Anthony] put together a new edit using a track that they chose, and it immediately worked for a very general tempo and feel. We really needed to lock the cut as soon as possible, so I could work on the music and sound design as the shots were compiled, time was always a crucial factor.

I tried several sketches and discussed with Chris and Anthony what they thought would work, what wouldn’t and gradually the track evolved.

Composing for gods

John Black: One thing that we all knew was that when the gods arrived, there had to be a change, a theme introduced. After a few rough ideas, I hit the right progression, and we agreed that it had the effect that was needed.

I then went back and made sure that the music had a gradual progression that built in scenes from the intro into the Gods, then through to the crescendo and follow up.

Was this a different process than your commercial work?

John Black: It is fundamentally different from my commercial work. Although there were directors, I had input in the creative on this in a tangible way. We were making something that we would love first and that would come through to an audience of our peers. It’s not always like that in commercial work, not often enough at all.

Challenges

What was the most challenging aspect of this project?

John Black: Time. I needed to spend enough time to flesh out the ideas, experiment, etc. while the shots basically dictated the timing.

I had to overcome many challenges making the music conform to the edit. I couldn’t change my mind after we’d agreed on the tempo, for instance. I was pleasantly surprised as some of these challenges actually made for more interesting outcomes.

I also really wanted to push for a real cinematic/soundtrack feel for this and do something that is maybe not what I usually do.

Chris Bahry/Tendril: The biggest challenge was reaching the bar we had set for ourselves. It was extremely ambitious both for time and lack of budget.

We had to work with what we had: our own gear, rely on friends and family — basically beg, borrow, and steal the whole way.

And we did some crazy shit. The shot of our guy in the water was achieved just before sundown in duck-shit filled freezing lake Ontario water with five minutes of sunlight to go.

We also broke more than a few laws getting our motorcycle shots under the highway on Toronto’s lakeshore with a friend riding his own Triumph Bonneville.

We got through it by just believing that we would get there. We had just a few shots to go when the Frankenstorm hit NYC. At that point we stepped away and took Christmas. We came back to it a month later for final colour corrects and greenscreen fixes and had a final file ready the night before the big show!

Taking on these non-paying gigs is a lot of work and stress. Why do you do it?

John Black/Cypheraudio: I get a feeling of real satisfaction, and I enjoy even the most stressful parts because I know that I am able to push my technique without having to compromise.

These are the projects that lead to better commercial work. People can see or hear what you are capable of without restrictions. It’s also a sense of belonging to a team striving to make the best work possible, which is important for me, especially because I work alone most of the time.

Anthony, you’re working a bit with Ash Thorp these days, right? What’s that about?

Ash and I are working together on several short and feature film projects right now. Mostly what industry types are calling “Elevated Genre.”

I’ve been developing one for two years, and this is the story that got us on the same page. Over the past six months, we’ve created several other amazing properties together that we are going to slowly unveil to the public.

Thanks everyone for your time and energy. Congratulations on a beautiful project well done.

Credits

Production Company: Tendril Design + Animation
Directed by: Anthony Scott Burns and Chris Bahry
Music and Sound Design: John Black of CypherAudio
Editor: Chris Murphy of Relish Editing
Executive Producer: Kate Bate
Creative Directors: Chris Bahry and Alexandre Torres
Producer: Molly Willows
DOP: Anthony Scott Burns
Costumes: Jessica Mary Clayton
Make-Up: Stacy Hatzinikolas
Grip: Chris Atkinson
PAs: Howard Gordon, Derek Evoy
Man at Computer: Travis Stone
Gods: Iain Soder, Jessica Mary Clayton
Motorcycle Rider: Kris Sharon
Guy with Binoculars: Dennis Pikulyk
Gods Concept Art: Marco Texeira and Vini Nascimento
Additional Gods Concept Art: Ash Thorp
Environment, Prop, and God Design: Anthony Scott Burns, Vini Nascimento, Chris Bahry, Andrew Vucko
3D Modeling: Vini Nascimento, Marcin Porebski, Renato Ferro, Andrew Vucko
3D Rigging: Renato Ferro
3D Animation: Vini Nasicmento, Marcin Porebski, Renato Ferro
Textures: Vini Nasicmento, Renato Ferro
Lighting, Render: Brad Husband
Compositing: Chris Bahry, Anthony Scott Burns, Brad Husband

Posted on Motionographer

I recently watched this film, and while I have mixed feelings about the film itself, the title blew me away. Made by SFAUSTINA Design last year, it’s a typographical feast for the eyes. Some of the type compositions are reminiscent of the golden era of Hollywood in the 1940s (see above, where director’s name, film title, and main actor’s name appear on the same screen). The animation of the type hints at the key visual device that runs throughout the film (lights and reflections), which in turn relates a key element in the story. Catch the full interview with Stephen Faustina and watch the titles in HD, here.

Posted on Motionographer

Dvein has consistently blown my mind with their diverse and staggeringly awesome body of work. When they agreed to create the title sequence for F5, I actually felt bad for them. I thought, “This is too much pressure. The expectations are too high.”

But that didn’t deter them. Not one bit.

I recommend going full screen for the optimal experience. QuickTime version here.

Dvein were intent on creating a title sequence that reflected F5’s speakers, something that captured some hidden aspect of each person. They explain their approach:

When we were invited to make the F5 titles, we wanted them match the eclectic spirit of the conference. The idea was to get the soul of the speakers into the titles in some way.

We asked each speaker to name five objects that inspire them or has something to do with their work. We received all kinds of answers—really interesting objects that gave us a great starting point: wind turbines, microscopes, lights, smoke, lamb rib cage, French bulldog…

The speakers didn’t know what their answers would be used for, but they were the seed for our story. In this way, all the speakers added their bit. There is not a unique authorship but rather a multiple collaboration.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I have to send my deepest gratitude to the entire Dvein team for creating such a wonderful title sequence. Again, there was zero budget. They did this because they love challenging themselves, and they believed in the vision of F5.

Antfood deserves big props for providing the music and sound design. Like the visuals, the soundtrack is a brilliant blend of analog and digital.

Posted on Motionographer