F5 Schedule of Speakers

The schedule of speakers for F5 is now online!

A brief run-down: Things get started both days around 11am and run until the early evening, with lunch and afternoon breaks for you to grab a drink from the bar and mingle a bit.

By the way, our remaining tickets are moving along at a pretty good clip. I see a sell out on the horizon…

Digital Domain Campaigns for Lexus

Hot off the heels of Benjamin Button’s Oscar success, Digital Domain’s commercial division shows us what they’ve been up to with a three-spot campaign for the 2010 Lexus RX. They’ve been getting plenty of airtime on TV, but in case you’ve missed them, take a look:

• Assembled
• City
• Intersection

The spots were directed by Carl Erik Rinsch and had some top notch talent on board with DP Claudio Miranda (nominated for an Oscar for cinematography) and production designer Donald Graham Burt (won the Oscar for set design).

The first two spots are filled with a beautiful blend of visual effects and live action, while the third spot is mostly live action with a sparse graphic touch. Some of my favorite moments from “Assembled” are the conveyor belt moving almost snake-like over the black leather couch and the pull-out shot of the car being assembled by robotic arms on the street.

“City” has its own share of visually rich shots and easily convinces you that a whole city of cars and buildings were literally hoisted up for your traffic-free pleasure.

If you haven’t already had your fill of car commercials, take some time to browse Digital Domain’s ever-growing library of 45+ automotive spots in the Advertising / Automotive section of their website.

If you’re a fan of Digital Domain’s work, remember that Ed Ulbrich, Executive Vice President and President of Commercials Division, will be speaking at F5.

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Poll: In these troubled times…

Photo by Nature Explorer

Back in November, we asked Motionographer readers how they were doing financially. At that point in time, pieces of the sky had already started falling, but the full economic Armageddon hadn’t hit everywhere yet.

Our poll results were mixed, but mostly positive. 67% of the 5,134 voters were either maintaining the status quo or doing better than ever. 22% were making less money, and 14% (or 720 people) had been laid off and/or couldn’t find work.

As promised, I want to revisit the poll now, just to see what’s changed. This is far from scientific, but it might give us some indicator of a shift. We’ll keep re-posting this poll every four months or so. Please post your personal experiences in the comments. It’s good for people to hear the stories (both good and bad) behind the numbers.

[poll id="7"]

Parasol Island: IKEA PS

Here’s a nice one-two punch for IKEA PS and agency Nordpol. First, the jab to your occipital lobe from Parasol Island. This ethereal journey through a world of textures and displaced objects is a pleasantly relaxing transition from the world of the mundane to the magical land of IKEA PS.

It also serves as a bridge to the IKEA PS website, where the surreal adventure continues in a lightly-interactive product showcase created by Ikea Communications with production support from studio Kokokaka.

(Thanks, Peter and Leandro!)

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Andre Maat & Superelectric: Fox Cult IDs

Directing duo Superelectric (Henk Loorbach) & Andre Maat created this series ( part 1 / part 2 ) of idents for Fox Cult (Italy). Produced with Pool Worldwide, these pieces were an off-shoot of a music video Superelectric had done for Kraak n Smack. Simple, seamless and clever executions make each one of these 17 idents an enjoyable watch. Additionally, the palette and quirk of their art direction keep them planted in the Dutch world of whimsy.

You may have also caught this video I posted in January for De Staat. Keep your eyes on these fellas in 09.

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Strukt: Toca Me 2009

The talented people over at Strukt had a big act to follow after Dvein’s opening titles for last years Toca Me conference, but they pulled off something fantastic.

They took the theme “Hit by Inspiration” quite literally and ran with it. The blooming spheres visit every desaturated color of the spectrum, but still live in the same world and make me wish that tiny little balls of inspiration would fall from the sky and bonk me on the head.

Watch it here

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yU+Co: The Watchmen Titles

NOTE: This title sequence was removed at the request of Warner Bros. I will never understand Hollywood’s approach to free publicity. Persistent souls will still find the titles elsewhere online.

yU+Co and director Zach Snyder teamed up to create this epic title sequence for the eagerly anticipated “The Watchmen”, which opened in theaters today.

The title sequence sets up the movie by traveling through several stylized time periods beginning in 1939 and ending in 1985. Vintage superheroes take stage as dynamic slow motion and selective movement empower each shot with beauty and intrigue.

From the yU+Co release:

The challenge for yU+co. was integrating titles into an already edited six-minute sequence that was built without the placement of titles in mind. In order to make the titles feel like an organic part of the sequence, Yu and his creative team wove meticulous detail into the type design. Rather then simply lay 2D type onto the foreground of the live action, it is incorporated in 3D into each scene.

According to Director Zach Snyder (via Fandango);

From the very beginning I wanted to do a cool title sequence for the movie and it was actually the thing that got me started drawing Watchmen because they were trying to figure out how much this movie was going to cost. I said it’s really impossible to say until I start drawing the movie and a get a sense of what the movie is…

So I literally went to the beginning of the movie and started drawing. It was funny because I had the music—I was pretty positive that it was going to be Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Then it started to take shape for me as we really find out where we are in the world, and that’s how that sequence came about, tracing the alternate history.

The result is an imagined yet nostalgetic superhero landscape, setting up the film to be, hopefully, as inspired as the title sequence itself.