Hasta La Motion!

Target has good taste. By enlisting Motion Theory, the studio has left its mark on the rich history of Target advertising and embarked on a project that sets itself apart from the usual Motion Theory repertoire—creating a different approach for the themselves and a fresh perspective for the client.

In A Better Bullseye, the studio has delivered a piece that fits easily into the Target aesthetic, but remains unique. Gone are the typical Warholian graphics and pop-art visuals of previous Target campaigns; in are the good, old fashioned methods of character based advertising.

By setting the location of the spot in a factory, the piece hopes to convey the spirit of teamwork and efficiency that keep the Target brand strong and healthy. Beginning with an establishing shot of the famous bullseye, factory employees work together to fully stock the towering icon like a refrigerator. The attention to detail, as explained by director Chris Riehl, was not to be ignored:

“The team and I explored every possible detail you see from the memorable cast of characters to the host of strangely specific heavy machinery and vehicles which we hope comes through when watching the spot.”

The character design of the piece—like the Target aesthetic—is distinctively retro and in many ways, resembles the 60′s style design of Pixar’s, The Incredibles. In a production schedule described as “condensed,” the team of artists—similar to the factory workers in the spot—worked feverishly to create something high-end for a mega-mart that has a commitment to good design.

Posted on Motionographer

Peppermelon updates! My favourite in this batch is the MTV ‘Los Premios 3009′ (MTV Awards 2009). It features eye-popping futuristic imagining of the 3 main cities: Bogota (top section), Mexico City (middle), and Buenos Aires (bottom). I recommend playing the HD teaser for the most satisfying viewing experience. Also, don’t miss the design rationale here.

Two other favourites of mine : Fox’s Retro Classifica (left, below) and Zilveren Kruis (right, below). Both features very well-considered character and environment designs, yet each is very different from the other.

Without a doubt, Peppermelon has sealed their reputation as one of the best and most versatile studios in the industry.

Posted on Motionographer

London based Mainframe recently showed what they are capable of with an epic rebranding of Nickelodeon. Unusually for Nick, they let the design take the centre stage, with their flagship characters tagging along to enjoy the ride.

View Rebrand
View Breakdown

I had chance for a quick catch-up with Mainframe’s Managing Director Adam Jenn and team Mainframe for a little Q&A session:

What tools did you use to create the spots?

The main tool of choice was Maya for all the 3D modeling, rigging and animation. Each shot was tracked using SynthEyes and outputted to Maya for the main scene work and also to After Effects for the later compositing stages. Once the animation was completed, an average of 5-6 different render passes were outputted allowing a greater level of fine tuning within the composite. Final colour grading was all handled within After Effects.

On a project of this magnitude you must of had to please a lot of people. Could you please give us a little insight into the whole creative process?

When the process started we were commissioned by the UK team to create the idents just for the UK channel. As the project developed other territories got behind the work but at present we’re not allowed to talk about which other countries will be using the idents.

The idea devised by our client—the creative director at Nickelodeon, Peter Drake—was to try and really connect with the fantastical side of kids’ imagination. Mainframe was brought in to work with in-house Art Director, Akin Akinsiku, to produce all of the idents from Akin’s ideas and the commissioned illustrators’ sketches.

It was never the intention to create something for other designers to marvel at; it was always about something that would blow the kids away. Akin is a very exacting guy to work with, but I really think the results merit all the hard work everyone put into the project.

Technically, working for so many markets was pretty challenging with each ident having to be reversioned with kid, without kid, Nick branded + Nickelodeon branded, HD, SD 4:3, SD 16:9, PAL and NTSC frame rates. That’s quite a number of variations for each ident.

Each sting seems to have it’s own unique look to it, yet retains an element that keeps it all under the same umbrella. Was this a conscious decision from the start? How did you go about coming up with the look / looks?

When the project started, the idea was to commission as many as ten different illustrators to bring their own look and feel to each ident. As the boards started coming in, it was clear that although there was some amazing work coming back it wasn’t really sitting very well together as a rebrand, and the work of Will Barras was really standing out.

It was a pretty tough decision to make but the client opted to proceed with Will’s illustrations for all of the idents. One of our major tasks was to bring Will Barras’s sketches to life and build environments that they’d sit comfortably in. Because of the sheer quantity of work, our 3D team also created a lot of extra characters and environments for the scenes from scratch.

Many of Nick’s well-known characters make subtle cameos in the these vignettes. This is unusual (and refreshing) considering the way most network rebrands (see Cartoon Network) put the characters up front and center under a blazing spotlight.

Did the idea to treat Nick’s characters in this way come from Mainframe? Or did it come from Nick?

Originally there weren’t going to be any of the Nickelodeon properties in the idents at all but in the end Nickelodeon felt that a subtle nod to the characters was the way to go. The clients wanted to connect with the audience and entertain them rather than sell to them.

CREDITS:
Channel: Nickleodeon UK
Nickleodeon Clients: Peter Drake (Creative Director+Original Concept), Akin Akinsiku (Director And Art Director)
Nickelodeon Producers Will Poole, July Knight

Mainframe:
Producer: Adam Jenns
Animation Team:
Marcus Moresby
Carl Fairweather
Arvid Niklasson
Jimmy Johansson
Mickael Abensur
Jerone Dernoncourt
Call Allman

Illustrator:
Will Barras

Sound:
Ian Chatham at Blue Post Production

Posted on Motionographer

As part of Frito Lay’s “Made for Each Other” campaign, two Motionographer favorites have created two decidedly adorable mini-shorts about finding true love. Although they’re radically different in style, both spots pack a tidy narrative into their confines.

First up is “Two Hears Are Better Than One,” created by Nexus Productions’ Tom & Mark with illustrator Adrian Johnson.

Next up is the 3D complement to the first spot. “Love & Sockets” has Blacklist’s David Lobser written all over it, from the outlandish characters to the expansive sets.

Both spots drive viewers to the Made for Each Other website, which is chock full of cute character design.

Credits
2 Heart Are Better Than One (Magnets)
Production Company (animation): Nexus Productions
Director: Tom & Mark with Adrian Johnson
Executive Producers: Chris O’Reilly & Charlotte Bavasso
Head of Production: Julia Parfitt
Producer: Luke Youngman
Production Assistant: Denise Abraham
Key Animator: Valentina Ventimiglia
Compositor: Luke Carpenter

Love & Sockets (Light bulb)
Production Company (animation): Blacklist
Director: David Lobser
Animation Company: Little Sister
Animation: Peter Richardson, Ian Brauner
Rigging: Gwen Murray, Yaron Canetti
Modeling: David Avetisov
Matte Painter: Kristian Merc
Executive Producer: Adina Sales & Aaron Kisner

Posted on Motionographer

Made for Each Other

Oscar-nominated directing duo Smith & Foulkes (Nexus Productions) put their powers to use for Coca Cola and Weiden+Kennedy Portland in an endearing Super Bowl spot entitled “Avatars.”

Playing with the idea that most of us live double lives—one digital, one physical—the :60 project features oodles of alter-egos designed and brought to life by Smith & Foulkes.

Smith & Foulkes explain their approach:

The challenge for us was to film the live action in a documentary style, incidentally observing moments of human behaviour, and then animating the Avatars into the footage in a very naturalistic way.  It wasn’t about crazy 3d characters running amok, more about the everyday human behaviour of idly sitting around in parks and coffee shops.

We initially shot the footage on very long lenses to give the sense of the observational camera, before starting the huge technical challenge of believably replacing humans with Avatars in each shot.

I especially like the care S&F showed in creating the digital counterparts for each person. It’s as if they crawled inside the brain of each character to discover what idealized image of themselves would manifest itself in digital space.

Obviously there was a lot of fun to be had in casting each Avatar for each human, showing how people might select their online identity.  Some would be a complete fantasy, while others a slightly more exciting version of their real selves.

The track is “Stranger in the Crowd” performed by Cee-Lo Green of Gnarls Barkley (and originally made famous by Elvis Preseley).

Posted on Motionographer

Smith & Foulkes: Coke “Avatar”