Director Lea Esmaili Joins Blinkink for UK Representation
November 21, 2024
Ticktockrobot director and first-time father, Jun Iwakawa draws on his background in print and graphic design for “Handle With Care,” his rough guide to caring for a newborn baby – an off-kilter mix of dry humor, factual information and an early aughts-inspired aesthetic. [Watch]
Just when we were sure we’d seen enough football advertising to last a lifetime, director Anders Schroder and the Frame team in Copenhagen hit us with this carefully choreographed matrix of CG fun to promo the Superliga (Danish soccer league) broadcasts on TV3 Sport/Viasat. [Watch]
Hornet’s Yves Geleyn, who established his animated animal-wrangling skills last Christmas co-directing the blow-out success “The Bear & The Hare,” keeps the charm of that multi-award winning John Lewis spot but slides the technique sideways into hand-crafted wooden puppets for Rice Krispies thru Leo Burnett, London.
Watch Geleyn’s previous adventure with woody puppetry here. [Watch]
Imaginary Forces‘ directors Dan Gregoras and Jeremy Cox keep the pallet minimal and the details intriguing in the title sequence for the new WGN original series “Manhattan.” Set in Los Alamos, NM, in 1943, the show “chronicles the lives and families of the scientists building the world’s deadliest weapon, and exposes a world full of secrets and consequences.” [Watch]
More smile-inducing 3D character animation work from Supinfocom students complete with the mandatory manic chase sequence and a scene-stealing narcoleptic ninja Granny. “Escarface” was co-directed by Eva Navaux, Burcu Sankur, Vincent Meunier, Lionel Arnold, Dario Sabato, Pierre Plouzeau. [Watch]
Nexus directing duo Smith & Foulkes swept the film festival circuit and collected an Oscar nom for best animated short when they unleashed “This Way Up,” their 10-minute, CG slapstick ode to death, hell and dogged father/son perseverance back in 2008.
Now online for the first time, the film’s charm proves timeless with insightful character work, masterful dark-comic timing, sombre atmospheric design and a delightful/definitive vision of the underworld. [Watch]
Halifax character designer/director/animator Joel Mackenzie fires up a full-on barrage of his skills for indie-rocker (and fellow Haligonian) Rich Aucoin’s new track “Yelling in Sleep.”
Mackenzie sums up the plot like this: “A reformed lumberjack must harness the power of nature in order to fight an 8-bit mutant wasp monster that is destroying his friends and his home.” [Watch]
ManvsMachine‘s fertile relationship with Nike continues with the design and execution of this intense, geometry-heavy 3D work – the centerpiece for the launch campaign of the Mercurial Superfly football boot. MvsM also handled the campaign’s print and in-store retail assets which you can see here with some behind the scenes insights. Superb audio by Resonate. [Watch]
Ringling College students Michael Bidinger and Michelle Kwon hit every beat perfectly in their graduation film, a four-minute romantic comedy called “Jinxy Jenkins, Lucky Lou.”
The refined character design, animation subtleties and clever story arc (combined with the breezy original core by Mason Self and sound design by Nick Ainsworth) make it easy to forget you’re watching a student film and not the trailer for a new Disney feature. [Watch]
The Method Design team in New York twist classical Middle Eastern architecture into a hyper-detailed and carefully lit 3D broadcast promo toolkit designed by Danny Yount and Prodigal Pictures for FX Network’s new drama “Tyrant.”
According to Method: “The abstract frames will allow for the addition of text elements and a set of transitional elements were also provided. The artists paid particular attention to creating a detailed version of the logo treatment which is revealed front and center. The Method crew’s toolkit included Maya, V-Ray and Nuke.” [Watch]
The four members of new French directing collective Brutus (Thibaud Clergue, Aurélien Duhayon, Sébastien Iglesias and Camille Perrin) all graduated from the animation program at the Arles campus of Supinfocom in 2012 and just dropped us their first short film: a grindhouse-flavored concoction of speed and death called “Horde.”
“We tried to find an original look for this film so we mixed different kinds of renders. We also mixed different kinds of animation like a pose to pose in 12 fps for the characters, and a more fluid animation for clothes and props. We mainly used 3ds Max with V-Ray, Mari, Flash, Photoshop and After Effects.” [Watch]
No doubt time-lapse films are everywhere these days and some say the time for time-lapse has lapsed. But director Timothy Melville and cinematographer Nathan Kaso are out the convince you otherwise with this sweeping branded film for Australian car maker Holden, shot over seven nights across the wilderness of Tasmania.
“We travelled over 2,000km through the barren hills of Queenstown, to the vibrant streets of Hobart and finished on the dolerite plateau of Ben Lomond National Park. We captured nearly 20,000 still images, shooting from dusk until dawn and averaged just four hours sleep per day.” [Watch]
LOL and NSFW, The Onion nails it with this behind the scenes “Sneak Peek At Ninja Turtles’ Hyper-Realistic CGI Genitals.” Laugh (and cry) here. [Watch]
All is not what it seems in the aptly named “Scale,” a lovingly rendered 3D short directed by Annie Hua, Arthur Graff, Kevin Monnier and Ouirich Bounthavy in pursuit of their Master’s degree at ATI in Paris. Music by Alexandre Chaigneau. [Watch]
