Call for Entries: AIGA 365 Design Competition

Call for Entries: AIGA 365 Design Competition

(Partial) Cream O’ the Crop Update

The votes are in! We’ve updated the Studios and Prodcos on the Cream O’ the Crop.

Brian Alvarez

The blogfolio of Brian Alvarez, recent vfx/motion design graduate from SCAD

Gary: Another great Supinfocom short

Those damn Supinfocom kids do it again! Gary, a short film created by Clement Soulmagnon, Yann Benedi, Sebastien Eballard and Quentin Charillet is a unique vision of a boy struggle with his sexual coming of age. In a time when we are so used to crispy 3d animations with cutesy round beavers and big eyed rabbits as the main characters, that only emulate what Pixar churns out on a yearly basis, I find animations with this illustrative style and somewhat risque storyline to be a far cut above the rest.The Supinfocom and Gobelins students have learned a very hard and important lesson with their software and that is to not let it dictate their style. With each animation that comes out of these schools I find that style exploration is a lengthy process and then they bend the software to meet their needs.

I was able to get in touch with some of the crew and ask them some questions about their film. Its a long interview but make sure to read it, there are some gems of information and techniques about their production not to be missed. Read it here.

Make sure to go to the official Gary website to check out images of their lengthy design and research process. Also if you are wondering, Clement is in Paris working as a young director with Gary Levesque under the name, Viking & Viking. Yann is in London working as a director and illustrator. Sebastien works as a TD and lead animator for Mathematic in Paris and Quentin is freelancing as a 3d animator.

Scintillation by Xavier Chassaing

Scintillation is a remarkable experimental piece by young director Xavier Chassaing. This piece stands on it’s own purely for its visuals, but the technique and craft that went into the production sets this film apart. What looks like film is in fact 35,000 photographs with a mix of 3d mapped projections. Being a young director, Xavier doesn’t have the facilities and financial backing that a commercial piece will grant. Instead he had to work under what he calls “the classic dogma which is ‘What can you do with what you have…’” I think this sums up Xavier’s process pretty well. Here is what he had to say to me about his technical process for Scintillation:

What I have was an apartment, a small DSLR camera, a small computer and a small videoprojector. I also made a contraption who looks like a motion control but with the particularity of moving extremely slow who allowed me to take sequences of pictures with long exposure. (1frame per second, with 1 second of exposure). Even the best camera can not compete with this kind of sensitivity if they shoot at normal speed. So, I did everything myself from the 3d animation that I project on object, building the machine, the editing etc..

Built a contraption that acts like a motion control!? Yeah, wow. Xavier also enlisted Mathieu Caulet to help color grade on a flame in the end and worked closely with sound designer Fedaden throughout the entire process to score his piece.

Scintillation reveals that cash flow isn’t necessarily the foundation for a great project. In cases when you have nothing, a little ingenuity can make a diamond out of shit. This is an important thing to remember in these times when budgets are being slashed and we all have less to live under the dogma of “what can you do with what you have”?

Thanks for the tip Garry

Logan: Lexus Rx

There is not much info yet on these eight fully-CG spots for the Lexus RX, but i’m sure that Logan’s name on the director’s chair means you guys probably don’t wanna miss this!

Cool idea: Shake the World

This is a cool idea. Help make it happen!