Troika’s “Cloud” in the atrium at Heathrow Airport

   Post from: Motionographer

It’s been a while since Capacity has updated—and from them that’s usually a good sign. They’ve just put up some of their recent blood, sweat and tears, including two projects for Cartoon Network, one for CMT, and one for NFL Network.

Last but not least is the epically bad ass CN Master Control spot. It looks like Capacity had a ton of fun with that one; the character design alone is worthy of applause.

   Post from: Motionographer

Okay okay, enough already. We’ve known about the Psyop “buyout” now for almost two weeks, but we didn’t report it because it’s industry news and not a spot for Zune or something. After tons of email inquiring about it, I’ve decided to refer readers to the definitive response from Psyop’s CEO, Justin Booth-Clibborn.

In addition to explaining that the deal isn’t really a buyout in the traditional sense, Booth-Clibborn explains that “day-to-day running remains in the hands of the people who are running Psyop right now. My role will change a little bit, obviously being the CEO of a public company brings with it some responsibilities that I haven’t faced up to now, but I’ll be very much involved in what I do now, the public running of the company.”

Please read the full interview before predicting the end of the world. Thanks to Booth-Clibborn and Creativity Online for providing such a lucid account of the arrangement.

   Post from: Motionographer

I don’t often get tingles from the work posted here, but this new short film directed by Phillip Van had my entire body covered in goosebumps.

“And She Stares Longingly At What She Has Lost” is one part of a five-part exquisite corpse project launched by Little Minx partnered with RSA Films. In addition to Van, four other directors—Chris Nelson, Malik Hassan Sayeed, Josh Miller, and Laurent Briet—responded to the last line of text of the previous director’s script.

Using a script as the creative baton is an interesting approach to creating an exquisite corpse. The result is a set of high-end short films that share an ephemeral thread—a conceptual rather than visual commonality.

As always, Method nailed the visuals and brought Van’s ideas to life in exquisite detail. The balance between fantasy and hyper-reality is one of the things that makes this piece tick. Each image is so charged with symbolic and emotional content.

Some technical bits from the release:

“Phillip had this idea of a man made out of water, someone who is not quite there,” says Caudron, Lead 2D VFX Artist on the project. “It was essential that he be a palpable presence, but also that he seem otherworldly. It was quite a challenge to appropriately balance the real and surreal worlds.”

To nail down a realistic image, the animation team scanned the real life actor into a 3D model, which gave them the man’s complete geometry with which to work:

“The 3D model was a huge help,” says Caudron. “We were able to apply all our lighting and water effects in a series of layers. The character ended up being very layer-heavy, but it sped things up considerably.”

In creating the gnarled and twisted forest that represents the hardships of life, Boyd was reticent at first, but quickly enthused by the challenge:

“Forest scenes are notoriously difficult to render, due to all the detail,” he explains. “We got so into this project, however, that we started looking for new ways to work and new things to learn. Almost everything was shot against bluescreen, with just a few plants and shrubs around the set, so it was up to us to create the forest. To render the entire thing, I used a system called ‘delayed reads.’ With the geometry of one 3D tree, we were able to have the system procedurally create unique trees at render time. While 3D trees are typically so dense in information that you can’t have more than one open at a time, we were able to render out 100 or so each time. It was tremendously helpful.”

Full credits

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After 7 years as a CG artist, Zeb shares the ups and downs of working for small, medium and large companies

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A while back, we posted a spot for non-profit helpline Samaritans entitled “Doodle” that featured the animation work of Christian Bevilacqua (among others). Christian is back for Samaritans, this time directing “Vectorscope,” produced by Therapy Films.

“Vectorscope” employs a few tried and true mograph devices (namely the ubiquitous ribbon), but it has some poignantly innovative new tricks up its sleeve as well. The transition from bird to barbed wire is especially nice.

Samaritans should be heartily applauded for funding such lyrical work and eschewing the standard approach to this sort of messaging.

Full credits

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National Television channeled modernist aesthetics of yesteryear in “Dots” and “Pattern,” two new spots for British lending agency Fair & Square.

“Dots” really does it for me. The narrative element bolsters the voiceover’s message without ever departing from the campaign’s minimalist look.

What’s funny is that without the jazz soundtrack, posterized time effect and flickering luminescence, these spots wouldn’t feel as retro as they do. I’m not complaining; I’m just wondering if that was a conscious decision on the part of the agency to target a different audience, or if the idea of flat, full frame rate vector graphics is simply out of vogue.

Watch “Dots” | Watch “Pattern”

Source: CR Blog

   Post from: Motionographer

I sometimes forget just how much can be done with today’s technology and a boatload (literally, in this instance) of hard work and determination. Case in point is this amazing bit of vfx work from three graphic designers working for BBC’s Timewatch (currently only available in the UK) to recreate the carnage and mayhem that was the Omaha Beach invasion of World War II.

Aside from the unforgivable music choice, watching the making-of montage is as much fun as beholding the end result. It’s clear that these three lads were motivated by an uncommon passion to pull off this feat. Based on the Timewatch production blog, their names are Neil Wilson, Steve Flynn and Colin Thornton. More from the blog (although it’s pretty evident in the featurette):

They are here for two days to film some basic drama reconstruction sequences that will form the basis of their D-Day landing scene. In order to catch low tide when the beach is at its widest, we head for the beach at dawn whereupon the three boys spent several exhausting hours dress up in the uniforms and run up and down the sand, as I operate the Z1 camera.

They carefully plan it so that each run is in a different part of the frame. That way, when they are back in the office, they can layer these frames up in the computer until it looks like there are hundreds of men landing on the beach – rather than just three. Later they will drop in beach obstacles and landing crafts, based on images they have gathered from books – and also small explosions, filmed separately again.

As well as the beach landing scene, they have to film a sequence of cliff climbing at Pointe du Hoc – to illustrate what Ike and his fellow Rangers had to do on D-Day. We find a small 10ft sand dune which the boys clamber up head-on into the camera. I help hold up the green screen making sure it fills the frame behind the boys. The green screen means that when it comes to the edit, they can drop in a different background – in this case, the sea and Pointe du Hoc cliff-line.

Thanks to Andi Rusu for the tip!

   Post from: Motionographer

Now I know this isn’t the first Zune related post we’ve made here at Motionographer towers, far from it. But before you groan, close your browser and go and do some work (God forbid) this is a Zune project with a difference…

Zune have charged Brazil based mograph impresarios Lobo with the task of creating this film which will be pre-loaded and live on every new Zune purchased, from here on in.
“The goal of the animation was to express the experience of sharing through innovative design and irreverence. When you give, it will eventually come back to you”, so stated by Lobo’s press release.

When i first saw this, i wondered whether it missed some of the eclecticism and anarchism i tend to associate with Lobo’s work. In short, i never know what to expect from them. And i love this about them. But then it struck me: Here’s a piece that has to speak to all consumers, in all markets, transcend all language barriers and communicate the essence of what Zune stands for. Now that’s a huge ask, and i think Lobo have pulled it off in fine style.

On my first viewing I ‘got’ radio, music, sharing and connectivity. And i think this pretty much sums it up (Please anyone let me know if I’ve missed any finer points of the intended messaging).

I think this project and the whole Zune venture sums up the huge leaps of faith (and cash) Microsoft have been willing to motion graphics and its ability as a medium to communicate their message. And that’s good news for all of us…

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No Boundries 2, a cute “interactive” bit of stop-motion work (via cpluv)

   Post from: Motionographer