Reel of the Month Club (Dec. 2024): Coat of Arms
December 21, 2024
Check the VFX breakdown to find out just what’s CG and what’s live in this spot from Smuggler’s Adam Berg and the crew at MPC for the release of Xbox Forza 2.”
“The MPC LA VFX team supervised the 3-day shoot in Italy with Adam and created the ‘invisible VFX’ such as recreating 3D scenes of the tilt-shift effect, compositing depth passes, crafting over 40 matte paintings and adding CG racetracks, cars, and explosions.” [Watch]
Director Elliot Lim and the CHRLX crew transform Nick Iluzada‘s illustrations into a smooth and stylish take on the golden age of travel posters for Ritz Carlton Reserve.
[Watch]
Shoreditch animation prodco Golden Wolf sweep you into the world of pro skater Omar Salazar in a 24-second blast of extreme 2D madness for streetwear retailers Doomsayers. Audio by The Confederate Dead. [Watch]
WIZZdesign directors Andy’s and Paris CG house Unit Image push their latest photo-real CG collaboration to a new level for this remake of a classic Bond-inspired spot from 1987. Except for the vehicle interior and the actors, everything after the :18 second mark is CG, including the transition shot from 4/3 to 16/9. Spectacular. [Watch]
Nothing like five quick hits of black comedy to start your day, especially when the character animation is this refined and the bad guys are this cute.
Danny Robashkin at Make in Minneapolis: “It’s another internal project that let’s us have some quick fun in a nice condensed format. The shorts are traditionally animated in Photoshop, with some CG augmentation. Conceptually they’re kind of a return to the earlier shorts we used to do… Less commercial, more fun.” [Watch]
Laurent Witz, who won the Best Animated Short Film Oscar earlier this year for “Mr Hublot,” crafts a thoughtful and uplifting 3D piece for LongLiveNY.org with the aim of raising New York state from the bottom of the organ donor ranks. [Watch]
Wonderfully clean and friendly art direction in this online film for Toon, a thermostat that helps you monitor/manage your energy consumption.
PlusOne: “As Toon can be operated via a tablet, we chose to build the story around this. Realistic 3D, an earthly yet clean color palette and warm sound design were used to achieve a personal and lifelike touch.” Directed and produced by PlusOne in Amsterdam thru Achtung!.
[Watch]
There is no mistaking the pitch work of Brooklyn-based Brazilian director/AD/illustrator/artist and co-founder of ROOF, Vinicius Costa. Each carefully crafted piece combines infinite detail and pumped-up palettes to create enigmatic and whimsical 3D worlds that demand closer inspection.
[Watch]
Nexus directors Factory Fifteen channel Brave New World and 1984 for this sweeping and VFX-heavy vision of a totalitarian dystopia for Ninja Tune artist The Bug (aka producer Kevin Martin) in collaboration with The Creator’s Project. [Watch]
Vancouver-based Irish director/animator/writer Eoin Duffy swept the film fest circuit and made the Academy Awards short list with “The Missing Scarf” a 2D/3D short he describes as an “animated dark-comedy, masquerading as a classic kid-friendly morality-tale.” Narrated with surprising passion by George Takei, [Watch]
Designer/animator/storyteller Eve Weinberg and her Brooklyn studio NeverOddorEven (it’s a palindrome) transforms the dry history of climate science into compelling motion in one of three clips she directed this summer for “Disruption,” a doc sponsored by 350.org.
“The film was intended to do two things: Inform viewers about the science and history of climate change and get people out to the march on Sunday Sept 21st. Now that the march is over, we’ll re-cut the film to make it feature length and distribute it through a channel like Netflix (fingers crossed).” [Watch]
New York design house Gretel rebrands US broadcaster mun2 with a bold, relentless energy “setting firm but flexible guidelines for everything from logo usage, talent photography, iconography, typesetting and animation style.” [Watch]
Partizan director/animator Victor Haegelin follows up the quirky charm of “Professor Kliq” with a more ambitious stop motion project called “Captain 3D.”
The film, which makes beautiful use of 3D-printed replacement facial animation, was shot in August but needs your help to finish the post via this page on crowd funding site Ulule.
[Watch]
Edlyn Capulong recently graduated from the animation program at Sheridan College in Ontario with this short film – a charming mix of 2D animation and miniatures – about “Lucy, who lived in the pines, was once bored out of her mind. But what she would discover, was a thing like no other; an unexpected friend she would find.” [Watch]
