Director Lea Esmaili Joins Blinkink for UK Representation
November 21, 2024
Back in January we posted about the Kickstarter for “Auroras,” LA director Niles Heckman‘s seven-minute sci-fi short film about “love, separation, and having to say goodbye.” The campaign raised $12,656 (surpassing the $10K goal) to complete the film’s audio and feature-level VFX set pieces. [Watch]
The 13th episode of The Creative Influence, Sandbox Studios‘ series of interviews with “creative professionals on the edge of their field” features New York graphic designer and Pentagram partner Michael Bierut. [Watch]
The annual AICP ad orgy in NY is a classy, multi-day affair inducting exceptional TV spots and other branded motion work into MOMA’s permanent collection.
The 2014 Next Awards Show open (above) created by Trollbäck + Company and the AICP Sponsor Reel (below) by Venice VFX studio The Mission both reflect the upscale and creative nature of the audience while taking very divergent approaches to tone and technique:
T+Co’s open included seven screens, generative coding, live-action and traditional 2D/3D animation complemented by five LED cubes and an LED curtain surrounding the main projection screen. The mission on the other hand takes a straight up CG approach, crafting a surreal, elegant and minimalist piece from Maya, Mudbox, Zbrush, Flame, Adobe CC and V-Ray.
Supply & Demand director/DP David Holm (an alumnus of Superfad, Digital Kitchen and Brand New School) jolts Tesla out of green into growling with this intense fusion of neck-snapping editing by Ben Jordan at Work Post, NYC and surgical sound design by Joe Mount @ Wave Studios in London. David Holm: “My [Watch]
MPC won the only VFX Film Craft Gold Lion handed out at Cannes this year for this complex and ambitious :90 Assassins Creed, Black Flag: “Defy” spot directed by Adam Berg at Stink thru the Sid Lee agency in Paris. Have a look at how MPC’s VFX team, led by Franck Lambertz and Fabian Frank pulled it off, then watch the finished spot below.
Alex Topaller and Dan Shapiro (aka NY directing duo Aggressive) light up this beautiful music video for the Cris Cab track “Loves Me Not” with a clever and mesmerizing ceiling of photo-real CG light bulbs. Extra bonus points for the elegant/minimalist set, muted palette and seamless integration that keep the intriguing lighting device from slipping into gimmickry. [Watch]
The second teaser/trailer for PostPanic co-founder Mischa Rozema’s feature film debut ‘SUNDAYS’ deepens the air of dystopian sci-fi mystery with more glimpses of the ambitious VFX all held together by a VO from lead actor Brian Petsos.
The film, which “promises to challenge the viewer with philosophical questions about the future of humanity” was shot in Mexico city, is now in post and will release in the second half of 2014.
Here’s the first teaser/trailer in case you missed it:
Another standout from season 5 of Motionpoems: “Western Civilization” by poet/author Peter Jay Shippy (channeling Hunter S. Thompson) as interpreted by director/animator Alicia Reece of Minneapolis motion house Neighbor with a compelling and appropriately unsettling mix of live-action and 2D work. [Watch]
1stAveMachine‘s Aaron Duffy and Bob Partington share directing credit with OK Go’s Damian Kulash Jr. and conjure all manner of tricky, one-take, in-camera optical trickery to nudge the video for “The Writing’s On the Wall” (from the upcoming album Hungry Ghosts) into the land of How-the-crap-did-they-do-that and I-need-to-watch-that-again.
The often cloying and predicable genre of breakfast-cereal-animation gets a refreshing graphic update in this snappy and exhuberant :30 mix of 2D and 3D talent from directors Emile Rademeyer and Phil Meatchem at FSM Create thru JWT Sydney. [Watch]
Matias Vigliano and Dante Zaballa (aka Parquerama Studios) create psychotropic and loop-filled animated worlds blending pencils, markers and After Effects. Much to our delight, they just sent us their latest collaboration: a non-sensical, vibrant and amorphous tale called “Big Bang Dog.” Vigliano and Zaballa: “Cartoons [Watch]
Powerful and ambitious new full CG spot driven by motion capture for Amnesty International directed by Onur Senturk, co-produced by Troublemakers.tv with post and animation handled by studio One More all via TBWA Paris, “Pens” keeps up the battle to inspire communities to defend their fundamental human rights [Watch]
Directors Todd Mueller, Laurent Ledru and a massive Psyop crew continue Samsung’s World Cup sci-fi adventure treating us to the first half of “The Match” to save Earth written by feature writers Brian McCauley Johnson and Marc Hyman and called by famous football broadcaster Martin Tyler. [Watch]
Fresh off a successful run on the festival circuit, German 2D animator Merlin Fluegel‘s latest short “ECHO” brims with peculiar behavior and unexpected scenarios.
According to Fluegel, the film “is about how childhood reverberates; about complicated relationships, and a departure to pastures new.” Sound design: Jonatan Schwenk. [Watch]
