Modern Post Ups Mike DeFilipps to EP VFX & Finishing in NYC
April 7, 2025
Unrest in the Ukraine dominates the headlines but, as the Caracas-based Totuma crew and Irene Ramírez make clear in this new infographic poster, the unrelenting political chaos and violence in Venezuela has rendered their homeland one of the most dangerous on the planet with 24,763 homicides in 2013 or one murder every 20 minutes.
Totuma CD Hubert Reinfeild: “As designers and visual communicators we have to make something, so we did this poster and a sculpture to try capturing the essence of (at least one) of the reasons young Venezuelan students are protesting and dying.
“Between 1999 and 2013 there have been 200,509 violent deaths in Venezuela. In comparison, in the Iraq War there where 189,000 casualties (this is data from March 2003 to February 2013).
“In Venezuela there’s no official war, but every 20 minutes someone gets murdered. They aren’t just numbers, on the last month and a half thirteen people have died in a even worst scenario, if that’s possible, by the government forces.
“Until the actual government (or the next one) equally values the life off ALL venezuelans (regardless of their political views), we’ll have a nation divided by hate and we’ll carry over our shoulders and conciseness the sad title of being one of the most dangerous countries in the world.”
Poster: Irene Ramírez, adapted by Totuma. [Watch]
Three-time Oscar-nominated director/animator Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville, L’illusionniste, The Old Lady and the Pigeons) and London animation force th1ng responded to Matt Groening’s invite to create a Simpson’s couch gag with this appropriately over-the-top Gaulish interpretation. Previous guest couch [Watch]
Almost seven years after it first stormed onto the festival circuit, French director/illustrator Franck Dion‘s inventive and stylish animated short “Monsieur COK” still brings smiles despite its melancholy subject and palette. The film keeps your attention for almost 10 minutes with snappy pacing, intriguing character [Watch]
Inventive and minimalist character work keeps Utrecht studio Job, Joris & Marieke on our must-watch list. Like this music video for instance: a monochrome romp with dark undercurrents for fellow Dutchman Job Roggeveen and his collaborative musical project called Happy Camper. “The Daily Drumbeat is a sunny song [Watch]
Best known for the polarizing film projects “Waking Life” and “A Scanner Darkly,” American director/producer Tommy Pallotta mixes fantasy-fueled animation sequences into his new feature doc (co-directed with Dutch new-media producer Femke Wolting) called the LAST HIJACK, “a true tale of survival in Somalia told from the pirate’s perspective.”
[Watch]
Strange Beast director/animator Andy Martin worries about you. Specifically, he worries about the possible side effects of your auto-portraiture obsession (beyond the obvious problem that nobody looks good shot up close with a wide angle lens). “Selfie” was created for the Pictoplasma #Characterselfie project. [Watch]
Approached by NBC “to help emulate the gritty undertones” of the network’s hit drama Blacklist without revealing details of the show itself, MPC NY inserts a sweeping CG domino sequence into stark live footage shot in and above the Mojave Desert. The process started with a 3D previz and six life-sized reference sculptures [Watch]
Parisian character masters Supamonks bust free from their commercial work to unleash a wave of medieval mayhem in this manic and blood-soaked animated comedy produced at the request of real monks in the south of France (Les Frères de la Sainte Famille) to promote their new soda called Holypop. Seriously. [Watch]
We carry very few fashion films on Stash but this new spot from director/photographer Floria Sigismondi thru Quad with VFX by Digital District grabbed our attention for its reverential depiction of “a Solar Goddess awakening to the light” shot in the stunning Castello di Sammezzano in Tuscany and set to the [Watch]
Director Tomek Baginski and a massive crew from Platige Image in Warsaw wrangle the stars of History Channel’s Vikings into a powerful promo augmented with dramatic and seamless CG. Tomek Baginski: “All marketing materials were shot at the same time, so we only had each actor for an hour. That meant [Watch]
The vast majority of inflight safety videos deserve to be ignored because they’re benign and boring. Virgin Atlantic on the other hand treat the mandatory clips as edutainment and just replaced theirs (created by Nexus back in 2002) with this ambitious epic produced over six months by London’s Art&Graft who won [Watch]
Valentine’s Day is behind us but the message of this spot for telecom giant Orange still rings true. Adapted from an African fairy tale by Troublemakers director Scott Benson for French agency Marcel with music and sound by Chris Canavaggio and Sean Henry. [Watch]
Chicago’s Leviathan set the tone for FITC Amsterdam 2014 with an intense and dramatic micro/macro exploration of a painter’s material world all shot with cameras and motion control rigs custom-built for the project.
Leviathan CD Bradon Webb, “We designed the narrative by building an uplifting experience of expanding possibilities for the audience. We discussed the artistic process and how ideas can emerge, for example, from within tiny drops. Our research led us to a great inspirational story about getting out there and following your passion, and that’s what we set out to tell.”
Blink Ink director Noah Harris and crew craft a frenetic and riveting fusion of 3D-printed stop-motion elements and 2D animation for Bristol producer Julio Bashmore’s “Peppermint,” proving once again that killer visuals can rescue mind-numbing dance tracks. Lead stop-motion animator was Andy Biddle, and post credits [Watch]
