Hasta La Motion!

David Prosser‘s short film, Matter Fisher, makes it’s online debut this week as the winner of Short of the Week‘s Great Film Competition. It’s a lovely mix of high-contrast frame animation and cg, in which a lone fisherman encounters an initially unassuming, hungry ball of matter.

Matter Fisher is the second film we’ve featured of the three Royal College of Art grad films that were honored with a 2011 BAFTA nomination in the Short Animation category (the other two being Matthias Hoegg‘s Thursday and Mikey Please‘s The Eagleman Stag). For more on these three talented dudes, check out the interviews at The Dope Sheet.

David was kind enough to share production images and answer some questions about the film. Check them out here.

Posted on Motionographer

Matthias Hoegg recently joined us to answer some questions about his short film, Thursday. It’s an everyday love story in the not so distant future, where ubiquitous e-access doesn’t necessarily guarantee a connection (and some blackbirds battling technology thrown in too).

Made as his final project at the Royal College of Art, it was recently honored with a BAFTA nomination in the Short Animation category. After a successful festival run, it’s making its full-length online debut here. Huzzah!

Our interview with Matthias after the jump.

The Story

I started out wanting to make a film about everyday life in the future. I thought that a lot of sci-fi and forecasts for the next decades tend to portrait humans as rather cold and anonymous. They always seem to be completely in tune with their super-efficient high tech environment. I wanted to portray a futuristic world and add some friction, some everyday frustration that we experience when we interact with technology today, but also moments that make our mundane lives worthwhile.

With this rather loose idea of the narrative I started doing some experiments for the film’s visual style. In retrospect I also seem to have stumbled upon a lot of the inspiration for the film in one afternoon on my summer holiday visiting my sister in Calgary, Canada. I went up onto a viewing platform in the television tower in the town center and looking through the glass floor, I was struck by the systematic, grid like arrangement of the relatively new North American city. Right after that I went to a museum of the local history and discovered traditional American quilts, which became a big influence on the style as well.

The Look

A lot of these bold graphic quilt patterns seem to suggest three-dimensional geometry. Back home in London I started experimenting with a 3 dimensional interpretation of these patterns using the grid structure that is inherent in 3D. I ended up with these modular designs of the cityscapes that became the setting for Thursday.

I also explored other kinds of patterns that seemed to evoke a sense of everyday environments, like Eduardo Paolozzi’s mosaics on the walls of Tottenham Court Road Underground Station. Paolozzi collaged various patterns and technical plans into what looks like big cross sections of our futuristic lives.

I was also interested in the corporate designs of Transport for London, patterns of tube seats and early adverts for public transport that present the underground as a brave new invention, which just blends into our everyday routines nowadays.

What was the production timeline like? How much time was spent in planning vs. animation? How fluid vs. locked was the edit?

I had all of my final year, from September 2009 to June 2010, at the RCA to work on Thursday. I spent the first three months coming up with designs and experimenting with 3D patterns before putting together an animatic. I did a lot of “test screenings” to get first responses, and probably did five different animatics before I arrived at something that I was happy to lock down. A lot of shots were changed, all the way through to the last minute.

How early on did sound factor into the project?

Sound was a big part of the project and I worked closely with Berlin-based Sound Designer Marian Mentrup, who I had met at the Leipzig Documentary and Animation Festival in 2009 when Thursday was in its early stages.

After seeing my grid-like designs for the cityscape Marian suggested that the soundscape could follow an equally regimented structure. He suggested that we edit the film to a metronome, so that all the shots fit into a sort of time-grid. We wanted to create the impression that the lives of the people in Thursday are organized in a very stubborn way, that they’re going through a strict routine. A lot of people have mentioned that we’ve created a perfect stereotype of a German-German collaboration, but I hope you can take it with a pinch of salt.

Working with this fixed timing reference made it possible to exchange blocks of sound and animation in the process. Often Marian would give me the sound effects for, say, the cleaning vehicle, the alarm clock or the traffic in the city, and I would do the animation based on this time reference.

What were your biggest challenges? Any happy accidents?

One of the biggest challenges was to convince people that the characters were going to work, although they’re pretty sterile and graphic and I think a lot of characterization came through the movement. I also spent a lot of the last few weeks of the project changing the shots at the very end until I came up with something that I was pleased with. I wanted some the narrative to tie up at the end without forcing a conclusion.

A lot of the sound effects were developed by Marian, playing around on his newly bought analog synthesizer. I was a bit skeptical about his improvisations at first, but it turned out to be a really handy way of blocking out the atmosphere for each shot in real time.

What are you personal feelings on cities?

I’d be scared not to live in a big city. If your neighbors don’t know you they’re not going to judge you for staying in your bedroom for two months to finish your graduation film.

In lieu of a celestial viewing room, where would you take someone on a date?

My most recent date with my girlfriend was a long walk through the docklands in East London, past the Thames Flood Barrier, the Tate and Lyle Sugar Factory and a big rusty Recycling Plant, all the places that are normally hidden from view. The biggest benefits was that it looked nothing like the London we see every day. Anywhere to get a bit of perspective, even if it’s not up in space…

Where I didn’t take my girlfriend was the BAFTAs, something I’ll probably be made to regret for a long time. Apparently I have a particular sort of blindness when it comes to spotting celebs, which is no help in a situation like that at all, and she would have been pretty happy to help out. I took Marian instead, which seemed fair, seeing as he made one half of the film.

Why Thursday?

I called it Thursday because I wanted a title that evokes a very mundane, familiar setting. Thursday is approaching the weekend, so you might treat yourself to a little escape from your everyday life, knowing you’ll still have to come back to it the next day. I also considered calling it “Lovebirds”. My last film was called August. The titles seemed to work for the films, although I should really try to snap out of the pattern of using time descriptions next time.

What are you up to next?

At the moment I’m directing two spring-themed sequences for Cbeebies, the Pre-School Kids’ branch of the BBC. It’s character based, 2D and quite snappy, cutesy and colorful stuff and very fun and refreshing to work on.

I’ve also been experimenting with Raster or Picket Fence Animation, the process where you merge several frames of animation into a single still image which animates by dragging a grid across it. I’d like to develop this into a sort of Animation/Graphic Novel hybrid.

I’d definitely like to make another Short Film a little further down the line, which will be a lot more open in terms of technique and will probably involve camera and object tracking and more loose, graphic imagery.

Right now my emphasis is more on commissioned work though and when I’m not directing at Beakus I’m freelancing at different places in London, from more traditional animation studios through to branding and motion graphics. I’m really happy to live in London, where it’s possible to jump between companies and keep developing your work in different contexts.

If you’re lucky enough to be in one of the following cities, Thursday (and some other great shorts) will be on the big screen at these upcoming festivals:

April 12 – 17: Filmfest Dresden, Germany
April 26 – May 1: AniFest 2011, Prague, Czech Republic, in competition
May 3 – 8: 18 Internationales Trickfilm Festival Stuttgart (ITFS), Stuttgart, Germany, in Student Film Competition
May 3 – 8: Animayo, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
June 6 – 11: Annecy International Animation Festival, Annecy, France

Credits
Sound Design and Music by Marian Mentrup
“Thursday’s Space Waltz” written and performed by Marian Mentrup
Published by Kobrow Musikverlag
Additional Animation by Aaron Lampert
Additional Modeling by Mattias Bjurström
Foley Artist Günther Röhn
Mixed at Talking Animals Studio Berlin

Thank You:
RCA Animation 2010, Lauri Warsta, Kristian Andrews, Sylvie Bringas, Sergio Cameira, Tony Fish, Tim Webb, Deborah Levy, Jenny Bull, Steve Smith, Rotor Film Berlin, Passion Pictures, Anette Jung

© Royal College of Art and Matthias Hoegg
2010

Posted on Motionographer

Matatoro, directed by Mauro Carraro, Raphaël Calamote, and Jérémy Pasquet, is a lovely meditation on bullfighting that mixes a lush color palette with well-crafted non-photorealistic 3D rendering. It seems like the short films coming out of France’s animation schools (this one being from Supinfocom Arles) are constantly achieving new ways to tastefully combine traditional illustration styles with 3D. What sets this film apart for me is the unique storytelling point-of-view. Rather than a traditional narrative, the story is more of a stream of consciousness emotional arc (with clever shape-shifting arena crowds to boot!).

Check out concept art for the film here and a bit more on the process in this making-of film. We were lucky enough to catch the filmmakers for a Q&A, check it out after the jump!

Where did the idea of a bullfight come from?

Mauro: Personally, I was charmed and frightened after seeing my first bullfight four years ago in Arles (South France), the reach of the colors, rhythm, symbols, and volumes. The rapport between the matador, the bull and the public permeating continuously – it was all that I searched for in an animation film.

The balance between the watercolor textures and dimensionality is really stunning. There are many times where every frame looks like a key pose, but other times where the camera seamless revolves around a character. Was there any frame animation or was it all 3D? a mix?

Mauro: The approach of the textures on this project was totally different from what we had ever tried before. The goal here was to get as close to a “traditional” result as possible.

Raphael: After various tests with Photoshop, the result was too close to what we were used to seeing in 3D animation, so we decided to print the UV boards out and draw on it traditionally in pencil and paper. We then had to scan the textures obtained for use on 3D objects.

The difficulty of this work was to find the “flow” of pencil lines, a logic in the paths to give an idea of the volume of the characters. So that the textures wouldn’t seem “frozen”, as we are used to seeing, but would seem to “vibrate” as redrawn frame by frame. We made an animation loop of five textured images, at three different sizes (A5, A4, and A3), in order to change the texture depending on the value of the planes. The rest is compositing.

Jeremy: We used 12fps to reinforce the traditional side of animation. In the animation, the keyframes were the most important. They were based on drawings or illustrations taken from pre-production. The movements are as simple as possible, to go to most of the action by focusing on picture composition.

How tightly did you work with the sound designer/composer?

We ask the composer to work on our film more than one year before the final cut! That’s very unusual, but very comfortable for the team. In fact, we met together really late, because of the distance between Paris and Arles.

I sent Pierre Manchot more than ten versions of the storyboard. He made five themes with the piano solo. I chose one and he orchestrated it with a real corrida brass band (fifteen musicians) called Chicuelo II from Arles.

A lot of times, we didn’t understand each other, because the vocabulary of animation and music is really specific… Conditions were really perfect financially, because we had the SIRAR grant for music (delivered by the Aubagne Music Festival and SACEM) that permitted us to have an entire orchestra, a studio, an engineer, and a composer!

During the recording and the mix the whole the team was present, allowing for real discussion between the directors, conductor, and sound engineer.

A lot of the shot framings are very dramatic. How much of the composition was decided upon at the storyboard phase?

The start was three or four handmade drawings, without any connection.

We had just one rule, follow the chronological order of events/choreography in the bullfight. We symbolized the moody public with clapping hands, laughing mouths, judging eyes and angry forks, matching each type with a peculiar universes: an arena, a carousel, a circus, a temple.

We produced more and more drawings and eventually made a musical slideshow to find the structure. The film became an animated picture with cryptic symbols and floating environments.

There was a huge amount of work on the storyboard and image composition, everybody was involved in thinking and giving his ideas. Then we selected the most interesting and most dynamic and dramatic storyboard sequences. Keeping in mind the images made in pre-production for some shots are closer to a painting than a traditional film.

How long did production take?

Production for the film took a year and a half. Three months of pre-production (creation, research, design, writing, story board…) and a full year devoted to the production and post-production.

What are you up to next?

Mauro: I’m preparing a new short film that should be a Switzerland production, about my experience on the Way of St. James.

Raphael: I currently work at Cube Creative, where I’m working on textures, layout, and rendering/compositing. I am waiting to find a little time to make a one-minute short film.

Thanks to Team Matatoro for their time! And a special thanks to Yves Geleyn for helping out with translating the interview.

Credits
Directed by Mauro Carraro, Raphaël Calamote, Jérémy Pasquet
Original music composed by Pierre Manchot
Sound Design by Mathieu Maurice

Produced by Supinfocom Arles – 2010

Posted on Motionographer

We thought you might like to check out the latest stunning animated spot for Areva through Euro RSCG C&O. Directed by H5 through Addict Films, this jaw-dropping visual treat takes you on a whistle-stop tour of the evolving history of energy production with typical H5 flair.

Visit the Areva site for the video in context.

Credits and making-of video after the jump…

Making Of Featurette

Advertiser: AREVA
Agency: Euro RSCG C&O
Advertiser Managers: Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, Vincent Allemand, Paul Macheret, Marie- Raphaelle Robinne, Nathalie Métivier, Elsa Renault
Agency Managers: Laurent Habib, Agathe Bousquet, Lucie Fayard, Juliette d’Arcangues
Executive Creative Director: Jérôme Galinha
Copywriter film: Georges Picaut
Art Director film: Stephane Franck
TV Producer: Virginie Meldener
Copywriter print : Sylvain Louradour
Agency Producer: Christine Meneux

Director: H5
Production Compagny : (ADDICT) Stéphane Kooshmanian, Delphine Rodet
Post-Production Compagny: BUF
Sound Production: Rémy Péronne (La Maison de Production)

Posted on Motionographer

Ever since releasing their first in-house short in 2008, Katelyn, the crew at Autofuss has been toiling diligently in their San Francisco offices, building a body of work that thoughftuly blends live action and CG. In this post, we review their latest output and get some behind-the-scenes goodness after the jump.

Halo: Remember Reach

Autofuss’ latest effort, a collaboration with agency AKQA, is an interactive installation promoting the newest entry in Microsoft’s Halo franchise.

Autofuss puts it nicely:

Visitors [to the Halo Reach website] were able to remotely control the robot by assigning their name to one of 64,000 points of light. The robot would then proceed to physically plot the light in a studio space in San Francisco. Through long exposure videography, a 3D monument of light depicting the game heroes emerged.

It’s one of those intriguing ideas that hinges entirely on execution. What I like about the end product is the way it presents the robotic arm and the light sculptures on equal footing. Both are the focal points, and yet one never upstages the other. Technology making art—and vice versa.

For Autofuss, the project signals a definitive entry into the world of interactive design, one that is increasingly becoming a second home to many motion design firms.

For more making of info on Halo Reach, read Machima’s excellent article.

University of Phoenix

Autofuss has been steadily releasing an elegant series of spots for the University of Phoenix and agency Pereira & O’Dell. The first spot, “Thought Leadership,” presents an abstracted world of architecture and typography populated by University of Phoenix students going about the business of learning.

Still from “Thought Leadership”

The newest two spots, “Quality” and “Access” add new dimensionality and richness to the universe of “Thought Leadership.” We had a chance to chat with Autofuss about the spots, and they generously shared some making-of goodies (after the jump).

Still from “Quality.” Note the increased dimensionality compared to “Thought Leadership.”

What was your favorite aspect of these latest spots?
University of Phoenix students are all over the country, but they are all part of this bigger thing. We got really into thinking about what this thing might look like, and how we might show something that feels big, but also interconnected and approachable.

Once we decided that amazing architecture was going to make this spot cool, we created a reference library of buildings and public spaces by architects like Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Louis Kahn, Richard Meier, Santiago Calatrava, and Renzo Piano. We even brought in some architects and worked with them for a month or so to help us concept the buildings. It was also fun to think in terms of dimensionalizing our previous work. We got to finally break all the boundaries we set up for ourselves last time.

What were some of the technical challenges you faced?
For the shoot, we did a lot of worrying about perspective and lenses, measured everything we could think to measure, calibrated and re-calibrated our automotive robot, pre-vised everything in Maya with a to-scale replica of our studio, sent the camera moves to the robot, built a rig to attach the camera to the roof, built some green sets, programmed a real time compositing system in Max/MSP to get an idea of how it would look, and brought in our actors.

Posted on Motionographer