The phones have been ringing off the hooks here at Motionographer HQ, with angry members of the motion-going public wondering why Adam Gault’s ‘Living and Dying Part 1’ wasn’t posted as a feature. So before someone burns my car out, here it is…
This latest instalment from Adam brings to life a series of striking paintings by Stefanie Augustine, all representing different aspects of the natural world. Says Adam:
“It is a personal piece. Honestly, the inspiration came mostly from Stefanie. She had made the first couple of paintings a while back, and when I saw them I thought they would be really great to animate. Luckily, she was kind enough to let me steal her work. i started making key-frames, and we further expanded on the idea, adding more scenes to make a more fully developed piece.
Stefanie’s sister, Alison, produced the great sound track. We’re planning to make several more animations based on the same theme, but each part may utilize different formats or technique.”
As far as I know this is Adam’s second personal project after the much-lauded ‘Lantern Fishes’. I’ve never made a secret of my appreciation of Adam’s work. To my mind he’s definitely one of THE directors to watch…
This is kind of a super-Quickie: In collaboration with Oscar Magnuson Spectacles, Stockholm-based Important Looking Pirates created some interesting animations for an installation. Each undersea critter is crafted from what looks like parts of glasses (an appropriate choice, given their collaborator’s business). The sound design adds a wonderful eeriness to each of the videos.
Digital Domain’s full gamut of skills are on display in their latest work for Mazda. The advert is nearly 100% CG, from the cityscape to the fluid simulation and everything in between, it’s all beautifully crafted, rendered and composited.
The only letdown, for me, were the live actors. The visibly caked make-up, twisted costume material and semi-android behavior kinda ruined the homogeneity upon which the spot relies. Splitting hairs? Sure, but when everything is so spot on, those things jump out at me.
Interestingly, Psyop showed their pitch boards for this same spot at Inspire 08. I wish they’d won they job, if only because their narrative was more compelling than the hints of animatronic domination laced throughout the DD version. Oh well, the customer’s always right. Right?
Digital Kitchen teamed up with Wexley School for Girls to create a motion graphics infused sphere that lived on NYC’s South Street Seaport, and was there to promote both the re-launch of Microsoft Windows Live as well as the 25th anniversary of Operation Smile. Visitors of the Seaport were invited to upload their faces through kiosks, which were then deployed into the animation using a custom processing applications programed by Firstborn.
This takes me all the way back to my college Survey of New Media class, and reminds me how great it is to see motion graphics in new forms of media being shared with people who wouldn’t normally have an appreciation for the kind of work we do.
A while back we posted a Quickie about Aniboom and Radiohead hosting a video contest to promote the band’s latest album, “In Rainbows”.
The contest is now in the semi-finals, and although Flight404 (aka Robert Hodgin) didn’t make the cut, his submission for the song “Weird Fishes: Arpeggi” is one of breathtaking beauty.
The abstract underwater aesthetic flows perfectly with the song, creating a sort of subconscious storyline, hypnotizing the viewer with stunning radiating spheres (one of his trademarks), mind boggling particles, surreal tentacles, and a school of… weird fish, all perfectly linked to the audio.
The piece was created—like most of Robert’s work—with Processing (the open source programming language), this time without any post or editing work.
Robert initially did not want to submit the piece. According to his blog: “My piece just doesn’t feel Radioheadish,” but he changed his mind after receiving lots of comments asking to submit it. Hooray for democracy.
Make sure to visit Flight404/Robert Hodgin’s blog to read more about his submission and other Processing experiments. There’s some really great stuff there.
On a side note, Robert is also a part of Matt Pyke’s “Advanced Beauty” project, which premiers this Friday, May 9th at Lovebytes 2008.
