Bronte: by Ari & Jason for Gotye

Bronte (official film clip) from Gotye on Vimeo.

One of my favorite musicians, Wally de Backer (more commonly known as Gotye), recently released a fantastic new album Making Mirrors, and along with it, a bunch of great music videos by a number of Australian animators-filmmakers. I’m thrilled to find out that Ari Gibson and Jason Pamment (whom I got to know about through their “Sometimes the Stars” video for another Australian band, The Audreys, and Ari’s co-directed film, The Cat Piano) made one of those. Wally/Gotye is well known for his passion in supporting other Australian artists by collaborating with them. (You might remember Picture Drift’s work for his first hit single, “Heart’s A Mess.”)

The song “Bronte” is about a family saying goodbye to their old dog. Ari and Jason once again created a lush, beautiful backdrop for the story to unfold, as alive and whimsical as the characters that inhabit it. In contrast to “Sometimes the Stars,” the atmosphere is a less stark, but it is just as moving.

Read interview and behind-the-scenes work here…

Posted on Motionographer

Motion Theory: Target “A Better Bullseye”


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

Cocoe : Fondo Del Agua (Water Fund)

What’s not to like about this? To me, anyway, this is another one of those ‘tick-all-the-right-boxes’ kind of spot. Cocoe, the Madrid-based multidisciplinary design studio, was commissioned by Shackleton, to create this spot for the Spanish government, which promotes:

“Fondo de cooperación para agua y saneamiento”- a public institution dealing with water supply and sanitation tasks- is a project that meets one of the “millennium goals”: reduce the proportion of  people without sustainable access to safe water and basic sanitation by 2015.’

It supports a humanitarian cause, carries a social message. (tick). Stylistically, it’s adorable, friendly and very accessible. (tick). Technically, it’s well executed, the animation of the characters, especially the little girl and her dog, simply delightful. (tick).

Just like the Story of Kakenya which was posted last week, pieces like this gives me hope, that as animators and designers, we can use our skills for the greater good! Keep ‘em coming, I’d say!


Posted on Motionographer

Peppermelon Fresh Projects

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

Fido’s Energy Giant

rwegiant
Swedish Animation Studio Fido flexes their muscles to animate this story about building the sustainable future for RWE. Together with German agency Jung von Matt, they developed the main character and and the story of being big and proud of it.

“The challenge was to create a character that is not a creature that people fear nor a human being” says Jens Pfau from JVM. The biggest challenges in the four-month production time were the facial expessions, skin and hair of the character and to define that “special edge that makes the world magical.”

Originally conceived as an in-house corporate video, the clip will premier in German cinemas to mark the launch of the new Harry Potter film. “If people like him, he might have a long future, doing some good deeds.”

(Here’s the video in english language.)

Posted on Motionographer

Mainframe Rebrand Nickelodeon

Nick Rebrand

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

David O’Reilly: When You’re Smiling

Pictoplasma, the global clearing house for contemporary character design and art, commissioned director David O’Reilly to create the show open for Pictopia, the Pictoplasma exhibition taking place in Berlin this week.

davidoreilly_picto01

Set to a hollow yet pleasing rendition of “When You’re Smiling,” O’Reilly tells the story of a skeleton looking for character parts in a warehouse-like digital space. Once the pieces are chosen, he replaces himself with the bits to create a generic but adorable little guy who walks through a mirror onto a stage.

WYS sparked some discussion at Motionographer headquarters. Although it seems innocent enough on the surface, O’Reilly’s film is subtly subversive: The central figure transforms itself from a human form into a clichéd icon, one assembled from samples of Japanese pop culture—a tendency that’s obvious in much of the character work at exhibitions like Pictopia.

In broader terms, “When You’re Smiling sets up a debate about the nature of animation and character design as triggers for empathy,” said Motionographer’s Justin Cone. Do characters—especially simplified, cuddly critters—act as psychological mirrors for audiences? If so, what sort of relationship is that? What kind of stories does that encourage/discourage? Are some stories being left behind?

As the opening for a gathering about character design, O’Reilly’s film couldn’t be more appropriate. It once again shows his penchant for intelligent iconoclasm expressed through engaging narrative. He reminds me of Brad Bird’s famous insistence that animation isn’t a genre, it’s an artform.

Watch When You’re Smiling

Posted on Motionographer

Made for Each Other

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

Ahoy, Nathan Love!

oz_467

The Chips Ahoy Cookie Campaign has long been based on creative kookiness and comedic timing. Who best to execute this vision? 

Look no further than Nathan Love, where you’ll find a hodgepodge of toys, pornified coloring books, melted baby dolls and gilded pipes (the plumbing kind, of course). A true blend of creative chaos and total genius.

Marching to the beat of their own drum, and charged with replicating Oz and the classic cookie character, Nathan perfectly synthesizes the old stop motion campaign with new advances of 3D animation, kicking personality and style up a notch, while maintaining the hand crafted look and feel. 

And the animation? It’s Nathan Love, duh. Keeping with the classic, Cookie enters the house of Auntie Em as a bounding mess of emotions- an effortless task for Nathaners.

Some of you will scoff at the swap from stop-mo to CG. Fear nothing, friends. Cookie is in good hands, for the gang at Nathan is the real deal, a conglomerate of crafty artists and well, talented storytellers. 

Stay tuned for Cookie part two, blazing the motion trails very soon.


CLIENT
Client: Kraft

AGENCY
Agency: DraftFCB
EVP Head of Production: Paddy Giordano
Producer: Michelle Carman
SVP / Managing Director: Patricia Messeroux
EVP Executive Creative Director: Sandy Greenberg
EVP Executive Creative Director: Terri Meyer
SVP / Creative Director: Gerald Cuesta
SVP / Creative Director: Howard Ronay

Senior Business Manager: Jennifer Rubin

Account Supervisor: Kelly Megel
Assistant Account Executive: April Blackmon
Music Producer: Gregory Grene


DIRECTOR
Director: Nathan Love
Executive Producer: Mike Harry
Producer: Derrick Huang
Creative Directors: Joe & Kate Burrascano
Character Design / Storyboards: Brad Johansen
Editing / After Effects Lead: Chase Massingill
After Effects: Mike Milyavsky
Animation Leads: Jeff Lopez, Dan Vislocky
Animators: Kevin Phelps, Ryan Moran, David Han
Character TD’s: Sean Kealey, Ylli Orana

Lighting & Rendering Lead: Mats Andersson
Texture / Lighting / Composite Artists: Sylvia Apostal, Denis Kozyrev, Anca Risca
Modeling: Tony Jung, B.F. Tsang, Luis E Perez
FX: Mothana Hussein
Pipeline TD’s: Sarah Elizabeth Clemens, Jesse Clemens, Jessica Monteiro
Scratch-Track Foley Artists: Nicholas “the Biggant” Dratch, Michael Impollonia, Chase Massingill, Fayna Sanchez, Kate Burrascano


SOUND
Voice-Over Talent
Chip: Max Casella
AVO: Paul Spencer
Witch (Oz): Harriet Carmichael

Reporter (Rocky): Brad Abelle
Adrian (Rocky): Talia Shire
Music Composer: Mark Isham
Sound Lounge: Tom Jucarone
Manic: Producer- Becca Smith
Flame Artist: Johnny Starace
Pirate Toronto: Engineer- Chris Tate

Posted on Motionographer

Ahoy, Nathan Love!

Smith & Foulkes: Coke “Avatar”

coke-avatar03

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”