See What’s Possible Challenge Winners

I’ve been biting my nails to see who was going to take home the grand prize for the Adobe Photoshop See What’s Possible Challenge presented by the good people at Cut&Paste.

The winning entry, “Explore” by 3 Wagons Deep, is a solid choice. It’s impeccably fluid and cleverly built around the themes of progress and possibility.

3 Wagons Deep is the alter ego of TJ Sochor, who’s currently working the mean streets of LA as a freelancer.

Check out the other SWP finalists here, including the People’s Choice Award. Some fantastic work in the mix.

David O’Reilly: Please Say Something

I don’t pretend to understand the work of David O’Reilly. Maybe the best way to think of his intentionally crude visual style and warped narratives are as the cultural bleed-off of the Information Age. His new series, Please Say Something, centers on a cat and mouse couple that struggle against the banalities of everyday life in the city. It’s strange and glitchy and a little morose. And I like it.

Thanks to Nathan Barley for the tip!

Bjork: Wanderlust

Bjork’s highly anticipated “Wanderlust” music video hit the web recently with great fanfare. Over a year in the making, the video was a huge undertaking that involved the carefully orchestrated efforts of a massive crew.

Directed by Encyclopedia Pictura (on Ghost Robot’s roster) with post-production handled by UVPHACTORY, the experience feels more like a short film than a simple music video. Props to Bjork and her label, One Little Indian Records, for having the courage (and bank accounts) to pull off such a feat.

“Wanderlust” premiered on March 12th and was originally intended to be viewed in anaglyphic 3D. There will apparently be details about how to get free 3D glasses on Bjork’s site.

The making-of video below is definitely worth checking out:

Full credits

Linkage

UVPHACTORY
Encyclopedia Pictura
Ghost Robot
One Little Indian

Interview with Bjork on NYTimes
Interview with Encyclopedia Pictura at studiodaily

Christopher Mills for The Acorn

[flv:http://motionographer.com/media/curious/mills_theacorn.flv 468 263]QuickTime 960×540 | QuickTime 640×360

Curious Pictures’ Christopher Mills brought his lively directorial style to bear on “Flood Pt. 1,” a lively new music video for The Acorn.

As with Christopher’s other projects, the visuals are a mish-mash of media in 2.5D space. The frenetic camera work creates a disorienting effect as we zoom and pitch endlessly through vignette after vignette. It’s not all chaos, though. The music and visuals are remarkably well-matched, and as the video progresses, Mills’ authorial hand becomes more and more evident.

Mills has a knack for texture—not just the visual kind (although that’s there in spades)—but a kind of temporal texture. The way we jump forward and then hover uncertainly on a scene before leaping backwards and lurching into a new setting reminds me the way memory works. We scan our mental landscapes, patching together a narrative from the disembodied images that float and whirl about like debris in a river. It’s messy, but it works somehow.

Watch QuickTime 960×540 | Watch QuickTime 640×360

Flying North For the Winter

[flv:http://motionographer.com/media/passionpictures/Penguins.flv 468 263] Watch high-res on Beam.tv | Watch on BBC News

This delightful promo for BBC’s iPlayer is a perfectly executed bit of April Foolishness. Monty Python’s Terry Jones delivers a thoroughly BBC performance as the astonished nature documentarian witnessing the impossible scene.

“Penguins” was directed by Vince Squibb from Gorgeous and the animation, which was all done at Passion Pictures, was directed by Darren Walsh. The Mill also helped with post-production.

Full credits

Genndy Tartakovsky for Willpower

Watch “Warning” | Watch “Willpower”

From the first frames of these two new spots directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, you’ll recognize his trademark style. If you’ve ever caught a few seconds of Dexter’s Lab, Samurai Jack or The Powerpuff Girls, you’re familiar with Genndy’s retrotastic flair, on full display here for GlaxoSmithKline and agency Arnold Worldwide NY.

You might also want to check out Genndy’s director reel over at the Orphanage Commercial Productions site.

Have a Cup of Cappuccino Studio

I’m loving the portfolio of Cappuccino Studio, a new animation studio based in Paris. Their character design is consistently adorable, and their use of texture and novel rendering techniques add visual interest to their projects. It doesn’t even matter that I can’t understand a word of the voiceover tracks; their work transcends language.

Webby-in-Motion Contest

Webby-in-Motion is a special collaborative contest presented by Adobe and The Webby Awards where we ask motion designers, illustrators, animators and other talented creative minds to design a 20-second category introduction animation/video for The Webby Awards Gala in NYC on June 10, 2008. Since we know that that sort of thing can often be time-consuming, creatively draining, mind-numbing, frustrating and sometimes even dangerous, we offer the grand-prize winner this sweet foursome:

• VIP trip for two to the star-studded Webby Awards in New York City
• $10,000 cash
• Adobe® Creative Suite® 3 Master Collection
• Prize package from Stash, including an interview on Feed

Full details here

The Mill for New Balance

[flv:http://motionographermedia.com/themill/mill-new-balance.flv 468 351] QuickTime version (640×480)

I sat on this moody New Balance spot for a while. The visuals are stunning. With set designs that reference early German Expressionist films and a palette suffused with warm tones, the protagonist’s tortured passion for running is beautifully realized.

But the voiceover almost kills the whole spot—hence my hesitation in posting it. I thought at first I was in for an ironic “Real Men of Genius” gag, but as the script progressed, I just scratched my head in confusion. I have a suggestion. Mute the soundtrack and queue up some Philip Glass or Brian Eno instead.

As always, The Mill handled the post-production flawlessly. Never slamming unnecessary effects down our throats, they opted instead for understated surreality.

More info on The Mill’s project page | Full credits

Thanks to Matt Lambert and Alex Capehart for the nudges!

Larry Cuba: Star Wars Computer Animation

This making-of video from Larry Cuba explains how he created the computer animation sequence used during the Death Star briefing scene in Star Wars Episode IV. Looking back at the dawn of CG imagery is always interesting for a nerd like me, but it’s even more fascinating when you consider that Larry thought of himself more as an experimental filmmaker than anything else.

In Larry’s own words, from an interview with Video and the Arts Magazine:

It seems the major assumed goal is to push the state of the art technologically. I’m not interested in that. My work is not part of that big race for the flashiest, zoomiest, most chrome, most glass, most super-rendered image. My interest is experimental animation as the design of form in motion, independent of any particular technology used to create it. The underlying problems of design in motion are universal to everyone working in this tradition whether they use the computer or not. So in that sense what I do is not “computer art.”

Other Larry Cuba works
Excerpt from Calculated Movements (previously posted as a Quickie)
Arabesque (created with John Whitney)

Big thanks to Russell Hirtzel for the tip!