Symmetry by Everynone

Symmetry; another poetic piece made for Radiolab’s program by directing group, Everynone. Understated and beautiful as always.

Kim Dulaney

Kim Dulaney is back with her first update in over three years, and it is quite a massive update at that, with almost 50 new projects on display. She is one of the most talented artists in our industry and her work has only grown more sophisticated over the years.

Much of the work shown was completed during her stay at Psyop, where she was a fulltime designer. Kim is currently lending her talents to all who need it as a freelancer working out of New York.

Also, as if her design work wasn’t daunting enough, Kim has also begun her own line of beautiful jewelery and fashion wear under the name Fortune, which she currently sells on Etsy.

LAIKA/house for Planters

LAIKA/house animation director, Mark Gustafson (fresh off his work as animation director for Fantastic Mr. Fox), teams up with Ringan Ledwidge to create a great stop motion spot for Planters. A nice departure from the old look for Planters, this spot evolves the brand into a more quaint and charming style. There is also a making-of video which includes both a real making of and an additional mock making of brought to you by Mr. Peanut, whose voice was brought to life for the very first time in the brands history by Mr Robert Downey Jr.

Enjoy

Making of…

BUF: VFX for Enter The Void

Gaspar Noé’s new film, Enter The Void, “will kick you in the balls”, as a colleague of mine put it. It’s a psychedelic visual ride that borders on inducing seizures; take the title sequence as a brief example of what I’m talking about. Most of the film’s effects came from the work of French visual effects studio, BUF, who also produced the film. Taking on almost 350 of the films shots over the course of 2 years, BUF added to and even rebuilt many shots to complete the spiritual and hallucinogenic vision of Gaspar Noé.

Check it

The Mill NY: 2010 OFFF Opening Titles

The Mill NY was commissioned to do the OFFF opening titles this year, and took the opportunity to debut their integrated design and animation team. The languid journey they take us on through the forty-five titles for this years OFFF conference displays the immense potential this new division of the Mill has, especially considering the production resources they have at their disposal.

Mill NY staff Jeff Stevens (Design Director), Boo Wong (Senior Design & Content Producer) and Colin Pearsall (Executive Producer/Content) were all kind enough to answer a few questions about this piece and the new division of the Mill.

Splicing up biological elements and reforming them to create brand new species to illustrate the beauty that results from the exchange of ideas at a conference like OFFF is splendid and must have been a joy to work with as a theme…or at least that’s my take on it. Regardless, what led you to your concept and how did you go about developing it?

Jeff Stevens: The original, over arching concept was strength vs beauty and the affinity that each has for the other. At the same time, I wanted to create something that was abstract yet ‘seemingly’ natural. So, creating an environment that was underwater mixed with air began to take shape. Texture was important to me, so when Kim began illustrating, the contours and rawness of materials started to create a landscape and pattern for all of our characters. The best part was that nothing needed to be real. We could have suggested more reality but I think the blend of species, environment, and biomechanics perfectly summed up that affinity I was looking for.

More of the interview here

Credits

Prologue for Robin Hood

Prologue’s treatment for Robin Hood is a study in patient analogue work. Ridley Scott called on the studio create Legends to open the film as well as End and Main Titles. Ridley’s vision for the film required Prologue to treat all the type in a handmade fashion, this meant taking the type out of the computer for most of the process and filming and treating them as handmade elements.

What stuck out to me were the gorgeous end titles that Prologue worked on in collaboration with Italian artist and animator, Gianluigi Toccafondo. I spoke with Prologue’s Creative Director on the project, Henry Hobson about their process for type development for the film and how they worked in collaboration with Toccafondo, here is what he had to say:

The type development was key to our work at Prologue, our idea was to echo Tocafondos effect with our typography. Initially we worked with existing fonts but found them too limiting. So we created a complete custom serif typeface to evoke the adventure, romance, promise, mystery qualities of the movie. We printed out each credit, then hand inked each name, working in 4k meant we could really go to town with really fine details. Manija Emran, one of our typographers, then added amazingly intricate custom flourishes to each letter, not just a full alphabet, but also every single character had its own custom flourish, to produce a truly unique type treatment. Even the locator cards had more love poured into them than most title sequences. During the end credits we printed our comped name cards onto non-porous paper then smudged and distorted by hand each name a dozen times, to produce a living hold and hand made transitions. Principally animated by Georgia Tribuiani, the smudged elements really integrated and transitioned the type into a constantly shifting and flowing sequence.

As a side note, when I was browsing through Prologue’s recent list of work one thing began to become apparent to me, their role in film production has evolved. Prologue was once called upon to vignette a film’s story with their personal treatment as a means to both draw the audience into the story as well as leave them with a final impression of the film. Now it seems that Prologue is called upon to envelope the film with a design system that ties the whole world together. Robin Hood, along with Iron Man 2, Sherlock Holmes and Ninja Assassin, are cases of Prologue’s further involvement with establishing a graphic style for a film.

Click here for the full interview as well as the clips

Credits:

Edouard Salier for Coke

Director Edouard Salier and production company Paranoid US deliver another amazing football themed spot in time for the World Cup. This time working for Coke, they tell a story in almost mythic grandeur of a boy’s quest for a personal and unique celebration. The spot elegantly shows the spirit of the game and isn’t too blatant in it’s delivery. Kudos to Coke for once again trusting in their audience to have some intelligence.

Oh, if anyone is interested, the track is by K’naan

Watch Quest

Credits

Buck brings color (swatches) to Sherwin-Williams’ world

Update: Buck kindly created a making of video for Motionographer to break it down for yall. Also, I sat down with creative leads Orion Tait, Benjamin Langsfeld & Joshua Harvey and asked them a few questions about the project. Watch and learn.

Buck’s latest animation explores a world created by color swatches for paint manufacturer Sherwin-Williams. The first part of a bigger campaign, Buck plans to release two more spots to follow this, which according to creative director Orion Tait, has allowed “a bit more story-telling, which is a natural evolution for the campaign and has officially made this job an office favorite. We love working in the space where storytelling, design and animation meet.”

One of the things I dig the most about this animation is a technique they utilized to pull the spot off within the considerable time constraints they had. I asked Orion if the color grading for the spot was a nightmare since Sherwin-Williams would be considerably more picky then most client on the accuracy of their color choices (imagine color comments along the lines of, “this looks more like Husky Orange than Rave Red”..real names by the way). Orion told me that in order to relieve some of that pressure on the 3d end of the pipeline, Buck decided to render their scenes in grayscale and handle all the color and paint names completely in comp. Making for a much more interactive and controllable color correction experience for Buck.

This technique also accidentally lead to a more unique, illustrative look to the entire spot. A happy accident that creates a gray under-painting to the entire spot leaving it looking..well, more painted then most cg spots would otherwise.

Watch Paint Chips

Credits: