Vinicius Costa Updates

Vinicius Costa, director and art director at 1st Ave Machine, just finished a complete overhaul of his website, including a brand new look and a pile of fresh new work. Normally I would post this as a quickie, but inside this new site is a link to “follow” Vinicius. No, not quite in the stalker sort of sense (although he does link to his facebook page…), but rather he is giving everyone a glance into the creative process behind many of his projects. In this flickr page you will find styleframes (win or lose) as well as production images that reveal the inner workings of his projects.

Follow Vinicius on his flickr page as well as his blog

Blur Takes Us Back To Hell

This past Sunday, the standard superbowl advertisements focused on beer, babes and general safe tomfoolery, were briefly interrupted with a stirring glimpse of Hell. Videogame monarch EA tapped Wieden+Kennedy back last spring to create a massive ad campaign dubbed “Nine Months of Hell” in anticipation of the Dante’s Inferno’s launch, which was capped with Sunday’s superbowl ad. Blur was in charge of the production, proving that they are still one of the best when it comes to videogame cinematics. The choice to use the moody classic song “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers as a contrast to the violent imagery was very similar to Joseph Kosinski’s Gears of War trailer, but still effective.

To go along with the massive ad campaign will be a series of nine animated shorts ala Animatrix. Nine different directors will create shorts about each circle of hell that Dante descends through on his journey to save Beatrice (which I’m sure will be very close to Dante Alighieri original text).

Dan Gregoras

When it comes to individual talent in our community there are a few of us that enjoy receiving some attention for our work. We build websites, mingle at industry events and a few of us even take it upon ourselves to write for high profile blogs….This is why I believe that for every person who was once on our recently departed individual cream of the crop list there are at least ten other people in our industry whose work could easily be deemed worthy to be showcased there. In this regard, one of the leading benefits of contributing to this blog is the opportunity to “discover” some of these unsung talents.

So, with that in mind, allow me to introduce Dan Gregoras, a long time staff employee at 1st Ave Machine who recently cut loose to join the freelance market.

Gregoras has been working at 1st Ave Machine since its inception several years ago. While there he helped on everything from design to technical direction. Looking at his listing of roles for any of 1st Ave’s high profile projects is enough to gauge how talented he is. He has the rare combination of a personal artistic voice (check his drawings and paintings) and highly sophisticated technical skills. Dan was a very integral part of bringing 1st Ave Machine to the high level of esteem it currently has and is now getting the attention he deserves for his years of hard work “undercover” work there.

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.

Offline by Matthew Santoro

Good Monday morning Motionographer readers. Maybe you are confused as to why we are starting this week out by posting a trailer for some big budget sci-fi movie. Would it make you more interested to know that this trailer for a short film was produced entirely by a single person?

Matthew Santoro, a Senior VFX artist who has worked on large scale productions such as “300″ and “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”, is the sole talent behind this epic sci-fi piece. Santoro draws upon his vfx background to make guerrilla style filming look like a highly polished Hollywood flick, yet due to this being his own creation there is a unique life to his aesthetics and effects. In his own words, “I directed, edit, animated, composed, built costumes/ props and bled over this thing for almost 2 years”. Santoro has the creative versatility and drive most wistfully desire, a combination of skills that leads us to expect big thing from him in the future. First and foremost will be the opportunity this short has opened for him, which is to create a feature length film based in the same world.

I got a chance to ask the man himself a few questions about this project and his plans for the future.

I’m guessing that this started as a one man production and has since grown. How many others are now involved in this production?

Well the trailer that you just watched was basically a one-man production. I had to put the thing together from the ground up. Of course with a little help from my friends. Which meant anyone willing to deal with the consequences of possible getting busted for sneaking onto rooftops in the middle of the night. There were parts of this project that I literally filmed in my apartment using cardboard boxes, cheap hardware store lights, and a half-broken fog machine. I built the costumes using model parts and superglue. Most of the time my actors where doubling as crew even my dad (Charlie Santoro) who was playing that scary guy with the silver hair.

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Jesus2000

A hip short created by another crop of brilliant students at Gobelins by the names of Rémi Bastie, Jean-Baptiste Cumont, Clément Desnos, Jonathan Djob Nkondo and Nicolas Pegon. A cute idea that is carried along by energetic Flash animation, which seems to be a focus that is growing in popularity at Gobelins. Maybe we can look forward to a rise in flash animation quality for film and television in the coming years if this trend continues.

Not to mention that this is another short produced entirely at Wizz Design who helped produce another short, Flying V: Virgile, earlier this year.

Encyclopedia Pictura Asks, How Will You Create The Universe?

Encyclopedia Pictura has struck again! The directing trio recently finished a personal animation entitled, “How Will You Create the Universe?”, inspired by the creature evolution concepts put forth by the video game Spore. Using that idea as a spring board, Encyclopedia Pictura explores what would evolve from a world if they were gods (as well as ask the viewers what they would create through verse). While creating a Universe can be hard, Encyclopedia Pictura puts all the odd pieces together just right to make a quirky, lush world that is unique to their vision.

Their sculpted style has evolved itself with the help of CG masters Tippett Studio, who brought their highly detailed designs to life. Tippet may be one of the few studios with the ability to take this style and intricate design and make something that even better looking then the stills. This animation could have easily looked like cgi trying to be claymation or borrowed from other more trendy 3d styles, instead Encyclopedia Pictura and Tippet created something brand new.

Enjoy.

EDIT: We discovered that this was in fact originally created a year ago for a Spore ad campaign that was ultimately killed. Kudos to Encyclopedia Pictura for taking the initiative and finishing this project. Shame the client couldn’t conceive what amazing attention this spot would have given their brand.