The Purchase Brothers: Escape from City 17

The Purchase Brothers direct the first in a series of shorts inspired by Half-Life (on a $500 budget)

boolab/Nico Casavecchia: Alzheimer International

The mind is wondrous thing, and capturing the essence of its mysterious machinations is no easy task. It was, however, the task that fell to boolab’s Nico Casavecchia, who directed this ethereal promo for Alzheimer International, an initiative promoted by the Pasqual Maragall Foundation.

I love the level of abstraction at work here. It’s all loosely rooted in the actual physiology of the brain, but it is by no means tethered to science. Rather, the focus is on the poetic nature of memories, something Nico portrays with beautiful effectiveness.

Nico explains:

When I was given the Alzheimer’s project, the idea was to speak about the power of the human mind and the risk of losing an entire life’s memories to the disease. From the beginning, I shied away from certain ideas for developing the spot. I wanted to avoid a picture of the human experience through Super 8 movies and other melodramatic devices at all costs. At the same time, the spectator needed to be able to relate to the spot and perceive the intrinsic drama of losing one’s memory.

I didn’t want to perform a technical exercise that would send a cold message. I decided that the best route possible was to use a soundtrack that would transmit “memories” while the image would be an abstract representation of these sounds. Once this became clear, I designed styleframes to define a look for the bubbles, which represented the memories.

Some technical details:

Using Maya, we created a reactive system that modified the geometric parameters of the bubbles in connection with the soundtrack. For me, it was important that keyframe animation be used as little as possible, but that the objects be permitted to come to life thanks to the actual sounds. Once the soundtrack was finished, we simply let our memory bubbles dance with the sounds, after which we only had to sew the takes together in comp.

Watch this motion test to see the “memory bubbles” reacting to audio input:

Agency: Externa Comunicación (Rory Lambert, Creative Director)

Maya Design: What is Information Architecture?

Maya Design answers, “What is Information Architecture?”

Superfad Uncensored

Back by popular demand! Superfad’s randy spot for Durex, but this time with a little extra love from Motionographer.

Finally! Something we can identify with: condoms blown up like balloon animals humping one another.

Watch Durex “Get it on” and the Outtakes here

To help kick off the weekend, and since it’s possibly one of the greatest viral vids ever, we went behind the scenes with the gang at Superfad NY to see how it went down, literally and figuratively.

Read our XXXclusive interview and watch the bodacious behind the scenes vid Superfad assembled for your viewing pleasure, including, diagrams and the complicated math of condoms humping each other. We hope you enjoy. We sure did.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

“Oh great, here comes Old Man Cone again, rambling about visual essays.”

I know, I know, but I really do believe that when motion design is paired with intelligent writing, you get a brilliant form of persuasive reasoning that sticks in the mind of many contemporary viewers. Case in point: This ambitious and informative animation from Jonathan Jarvis (whose web server is apparently being pounded into oblivion at the moment).

Like most Americans, I became interested in the credit crisis when I heard the wailing cries from Wall St. back in early 2008. I knew they were harbingers of dark days, but I had no idea what the hell had happened or why.

My best introduction came in the form of a This American Life podcast, which does a great job explaining some of the trickier concepts at play. But this new animation is much more my cup of tea. I’m a visual guy. I need you to draw me a picture. Mr. Jarvis has done exactly that, helping my withered noggin create more lasting neural pathways to understanding and retention.

This is a good time to make a distinction regarding visual essay strategies: Jonathan’s animation uses a mostly iconographic approach, which is appropriate given the complexity of this subject matter. He essentially sets up a visual language, which he then layers and remixes to help us comprehend a wide range of related ideas. It works beautifully.

When your subject matter is slightly less technical and the main idea is more about persuasion, metaphoric imagery is usually the preferred tactic. For examples, see pretty much anything Simon Robson has done. Simon agonizes over which metaphor will extend his message, rather than simply illustrate it. He’s as interested in aesthetic and emotional impact as he is clarity.

Jonathan’s animation was completed as part of his thesis for the Media Design Program at Art Center College of Design.

• The Crisis of Credit website
• Jonathan Jarvis’ website
• The Crisis of Credit Visualized on Vimeo

Thanks to Chino for the initial tip, and Jarratt for the nudge.

Sehsucht’s T&A Rorschachs

Ok, I’m as over the ink stuff as the next guy. However; I had make this spot for Beat Uhse, by Sehsucht, a full post if for nothing more than idea alone. For sake of not ruining the simple gag, just give it a watch.

I suppose it could be not safe for work if you’re in the US. But, a nice reminder of how much more open European media is to sexuality.

Credits

Rad-dish for Asics

Rad-dish for Asics