Review: Gangpol & Mit “Faits Divers”

My first introduction to French duo Gangpol & Mit (Guillaume Castagne and Sylvain Quément) was through their music. It wasn’t until recently that I learned they are as involved in the creation of animation as they are in concocting their unique blend of electronica.

Their latest DVD, Faits Divers (Pictoplasma Publishing), is a collection of 18 audio-visual offspring from Gangpol & Mit’s collaborative relationship. According to Pictoplasma, “Guillaume emails some graphics to Sylvain, who then composes a melody and sends it back – or Sylvain coughs up a tune and has Guillaume translate it into animated worlds.”

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N.A.S.A: Tom Waits and Kool Keith “Spacious Thoughts”

BoingBoing Video brings the N.A.S.A. goods again, this time featuring Tom Waits and Cool Keith, with visuals by Montreal-based Fluorescent Hill (previously featured on Motionographer for their 2008 New Pornographers promo). SCAD professor Jacques Khouri also lent a hand modeling and rigging the 3D star of the project.

Read the interview on BoingBoing.

Shilo: Under Armour “ColdGear, Lindsey Vonn + Dick’s”

The creative forces of Shilo strike again, this time to simulate extreme cold weather conditions for Under Armour, with Dicks Sporting Goods as the testing grounds.

With the goal of promoting Under Armour’s ColdGear product line, Shilo enlisted the talents of its growing creative arm, We Make It Good, and its creative director, Clayton Vomero, who co-wrote the spot’s script with Shilo Creative Director Andre Stringer.

Stringer and Vomero built a narrative around a Cold Abuse Simulator, which tests ColdGear under harsh downhill ski racing conditions. Two-time World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn, one of the most successful American ski racers in history, was enlisted as the ultimate test subject.

To film the action of Vonn facing the Cold Abuse Simulator as realistically as possible, Shilo’s crew found a factory location in Los Angeles and worked with Vonn for two days, filming her on a jostling rig before a giant apparatus that simulated the conditions she’d face on the mountain.

Seemless vfx integration and a solid storyline makes this a campaign to keeps your eyes on. Be sure to check out the making of video via the ski channel, as well as more behind the scenes production stills, courtesy of NBC Olympics.

Flairs – Truckers Delight

I wouldn’t exactly label this as highbrow, more like highfun! It’s pretty crazy and leans heavily on the raunchier side of life. Directed by Jérémie Périn.

Definitely NSFW, but probably worth getting fired for!

Elastic / A52: Honda Accord “Instruments”

Design and VFX team Elastic/A52 rock out for Honda Accord in this highly colorful CG jazz spot, as they show off how much hidden space the new Accord Crosstour really offers.

Appealing to a younger, musically-minded target market, its aesthetic and general concept hits a home run. Design-wise, the palette is alive with energy and pop and the beautifully animated characters have a unique look that works an interesting transitional device.

(Geek Alert!) The Esquire AR Issue

While many other motion studios try to find their way to the interactive future, Psyop teamed up with the digital aces at The Barbarian Group and went there.

The Esquire Augmented Reality issue hit US newsstands Tuesday with a raft of interactive vignettes that employ augmented reality (AR) to bring classic Psyopian illustrations up from the printed page.

The Barbarian Group conceived of the project and it’s their custom nerd voodoo that powers the Psyop-made content featuring cover boy Robert Downey Jr., actor Jeremy Renner and hottie Gillian Jacobs.

Do you read, view or play with the issue? All of the above. It’s like print, motion and interactive media got a little loose together and – bow chicka wow wow! – birthed this futuristic love child.

The experience requires a download from the Esquire site and a physical copy of the December 2009 issue. Or does it? Some clever Googling may get you to at least some of the AR markers.

Bluemotion

Director Yani and Paul Postma of hazazaH and DDB Amsterdam bring us these wonderfully minimal spots for Volkswagen. A cut out tree here a spot light there, two circles and voilà! You have yourself a scene. Straight to the point with no frills and a few creatives twists to take them out of the ordinary and into something special. Appropriate for the agency (DDB) and the client (Volkswagen) that created the famous “Think Small” campaign.

Ben & Julia: Dove Nets

Updated with Q&A

A couple of weeks ago I posted a music video by Ben & Julia for The Main Drag’s song ‘Dove Nets’. Ben (Benoît Créac’h) and Julia (Gaudard) started working together in 2006, and recently moved to Berlin.

There are a few things that made me fall in love with this piece: the diverse illustration/design styles, the use of numerous hand-made pieces, but most of all the ‘Berlinesque’ playfulness of it all.  They have really captured the artistic spirit of the city pretty well in this piece. Although they described this project as a sort of celebration of their recent move, I’m sure this wasn’t their primary aim.

I caught up with the duo, and now have the pleasure of sharing some insight behind their production process with all of you. You can also get more info and credit list on the official site of the video here.

Q&A with Ben & Julia

The Black Dog’s Progress

Deliciously dark is how I’d describe Director Stephen Irwin’s latest offering.

A tragic, darkly animated and powerful journey through the life of one dog as he travels from abusive home to even worse.

On the audio side Sorenious Bonk did an amazing job scoring the soundtrack, creating a truly haunting atmosphere of unease.

Warning: because of the subject matter some folk might deem this as NSFW.

Nokia N900: “Focus Group”

Channeling the same rebel spirit as the recent Verizon adverts for the Motorola Droid, this viral for the Nokia N900 injects the nucleus of a narrative into what could be a fun campaign.

The turn to grittier aesthetics makes sense. Attempts to unseat the incumbent iPhone using the same glossy look as Apple only confuses customers; the trick is to differentiate the brands somehow. Trouble is, Nokia and Motorola have struck the same chord at more or less the same time.

The recently posted Droid “Stealth” spot directed by Rupert Sanders aims at creating the same sense of epic mystery as the Nokia N900 campaign, albeit with a much slicker production value. It’s the J.J. Abrams school of advertising, with phones instead of “mystery boxes.”

Who will win? At this point, it’s hard to say: but it seems that they’ll still be fighting for second place.

“Focus group” was directed by Jack Masters and conceived by agency Jack Morton. The Mill’s Bif (Fabrice Le Nezet, Jules Janaud and Francois Roisin) helmed the post-production efforts.

Thanks to Harm for the tip.