Uncle Shriek's World of idents

Goodbye World of Idents - Hello dotmogo!

2011-08-03T10:54:00.000+01:00

Much pedalling has been going on behind the scenes at World of Idents - I have been setting up a replacement stand-alone blog called "dotmogo"

"Why the change?" I hear you ask - well, when I set up World of Idents it was a bit of an experiment - just to see how it would work and if it was popular. Two years later I realised that, although I have many readers, I wanted to open up the remit beyond idents and broadcast graphics and cover animation and VFX as well as the film industry and commercials.

Many people are always asking me about jobs - people that are free to work, or companies that are looking for people, so I realised that I had to have a job board as well as the directory of companies and freelancers. It's a free service for the next two months, so give it a try

With my new multipage format I can fit more in and cover more topics.

I'm still in Beta stage - so please let me have any constructive critisism - I want to make this the best resource for the UK motion graphic community that I can...

see you at dotmogo

CG Studiomap - location based CG fun!

2011-07-25T16:26:00.000+01:00

As you know by know - I am all for building our beautiful motion graphic/animation/VFX community and I recently stumbled accross a fun way of doing that - the CG Studio map. - click here to have a play and add your studio or service

Created in 2010, CGStudioMap.com is a map-based website aimed at gathering and sharing information on CG studios worldwide. This new generation tool was developed by professional members of the CG and web development communities, focusing efforts on user friendly interfaces.

At the moment there 1757 studios in the database, from all different countries around the world - virtual reality in Uruguay, I hear you say? no problem - just contact 3ymedio... There are only 88 companies listed in Greater London - so I'm sure most of you have not added your name already.

The other thing I liked is that you can browse not only by general area, eg "animation" but also by software skill, eg cinema 4d, Maya etc

TheCGStudioMap.com team is comprised of :
Jordi Riera - founder and manager of PR - who also works at MPC in London. Laurent Ripoche, project lead, and admin, Thomas Pinaud, main web developer, Hervé Greme in charge of design and ergonomics.

Have a play, don't delay!

The Wombats "Techno Fan" video

2011-07-19T11:38:00.000+01:00

Check out this beautiful music video for The Wombats by The Found Collective. Collaborating with Memo Akten to use C++ and OpenFrameworks, they created a custom application to process the footage. The result is a beautiful triangulating pattern that gives an indie band a techno reference, as though the technique was inspired by the lyrics. The stills rendered out of this system are simply jaw-dropping and combine with the original footage excellently. I knew I was a techno fan, this video just confirmed it.

CREDITS
Director: Barney Steel, Production: The Found Collective Compositing/Post: Raoul Paulet, Barney Steele James Medcraft, Software development: Memo Akten, Client: Warner Music

MIE - London Wasps v St. George's Dragon Army for 188BET

2011-07-15T12:45:00.005+01:00

One for the rugby fans out there....I thought this was a really fun spot leveraging the idea of the London Wasps rugby team fighting a symbolic Welsh dragon as a sponsorship association with betting company188BET. They enlisted the help of rugby players Dave Walder, Simon Shaw, Riki Flutey, Joe Worsley, Serge Betson, Rob Webber and Ben Broster to fight a bunch of invading dragons, like a sort of live video game.

I was amazed when Joe Marshall of MIE told me: "It was all in camera/live projections, no post. You incorporate the look of the building into the animation to create an optical illusion.... The players could see what we see..." and they were interacting with the dragons in real time. He further explained - "director and sometime copy writer, Ben Jones, came to us to help realise an idea he was working on with ad agency, Pitch.

The concept was based around 3D mapping projections, where you incorporate the shape of a building into the animation you are going to project onto it, to create an exciting optical illusion. The results worked really well, and the players at London Wasps had a great time filming the viral, even though I don't think they were as scared as they made out..."

Class - just sorry I didn't get to posting this earlier.

Credits:Director:Ben Jones, Producer:Joe Marshall, Production Company Helimax Films / MiE, Animation:MiE, Agency: Pitch

UK Motion Graphic census - last chance

2011-07-12T14:56:00.000+01:00

Hi, a reminder that this year See No Evil joined forces with Bran Dougherty-Johnson to get the first UK Motion Graphic Design Census.

Although it asks about earnings - It's totally anonymous. Please, help us to spread this link and get a better view of our industry in UK.
It will only take a few minutes to fill this in and it will do so much for our industry. This census will be closing soon. Take it here

Motionographer (with Bran Dougherty-Johnson and Jake Sargeant) have already done a census for the motion/VFX community in the USA - it's a fascinating read of who gets paid what. You can look at the results of the 2009 US census by going here and downloading the PDF

I had a look at a previous census (mainly US) - and there are some fascinating stats in there, such as average earnings of different levels of designer/creative director etc. As well as average ages and hourly rates. So definitely worth it to see how you compare to everyone else in the industry.

Megaforce video for The Greeks by "Is Tropical"

2011-07-08T16:22:00.002+01:00

Been a bit slow posting recently - due to much action in the background setting up "dotmogo" a new improved version of the "World of Idents", due to be launched in the next week or so. anyway enough about me...

Is Tropical have just released a single called "The Greeks" with an outrageous spoof gangster pop promo using children. This is not as dodgy as it sounds! Megaforce the dynamic French directors were asked to come up with an idea by Kitsune the French record label and this is what happened...

When asked to explain what they had in mind they came up with the following:

"We’ve been wanting to make such a video since the age of 6 ! Part Rumblefish, part Die Hard, part Akira, we wanted to work together to create something both visually appealing and aesthetically relevant to the band. We like kids, we like gangs, we really like daydreaming and imagination; the video straddles the line between nostalgia and the visual death-porn of our generation – the action film. Don’t get carried away by politics – this is a straight-up kid brawl the way it played out in your head when you were stealing your mums mascara to be like Arnie in Predator. It isn’t a shocking rebuke to our drama queen, populist news culture either – just naive, blissful shoot-yr-mate until he’s definitely dead war-games – the way you wish it still could be."

Apart from praising what is a simple idea done very well, I love the extra layer of thrill you get from the sound effects - it was certainly what was in my head at that age (and probably now as well, if I'm honest...)

The band "Is tropical" is playing alongside The Scissor Sisters at Lovebox in Victoria Park, London on Sunday July 17th at 14:00

Credits
Directed by Megaforce, Record Label : Kitsune, Animation : Seven, Production : EL NINO, post Machine Molle, Producer : Jules DIENG, AE : Gianni MANNO /Francois PELLAE, Sound design : Laurent D’HERBECOURT / Tranquille Le Chat

I'm also chucking in their recent Cadbury's Charity shop" commercial as well - as it also has a slightly surreal sense of humour....

Record player made from only from paper

2011-06-27T16:04:00.000+01:00

strictly speaking this is not a post about motion graphics, however I am allowed to wander off-topic from time to time arn't I....?

This is one of the coolest ideas I've seen for a while - very analogue, but brilliant design.

Designer Kelli Anderson concocted a novel approach to the wedding invitation for her friends Karen and Mike: turn the paper invite into a playable sound device. The couple even made and recorded their own song for the occasion.

The device itself plays music without electricity or circuits. You may recall the FlexiDisc, the inexpensive records (normally made of vinyl, not paper), as seen in magazines, books, and comics. Here, a sewing needle is the entire playback mechanism, amplified by the paper and the kinetic energy of a person using their hand to rotate the disc. Working with her partner and music podcaster Daniel, Kelli turned to the power of geometry.

They discovered that the “tent” needed two loosely-swinging bends to allow the record needle to travel as freely as possible. By creating two parallel folds, they made the angle at the peak of the tent variable as needed.

At the beginning of the track, the ideal angle of this peak is about 15 degrees. By the end of the track, the arm needed to stretch further towards the center of the flexi, with an ideal peak angle of about 35 degrees.

Paper Record Player from kellianderson on Vimeo.
If you do want to play the results on a proper turntable, you can drop the same flexidisc on your (electrically-powered) record player for better sound. For more details, go on to Kelli’s blog: A Paper Record Player - and listen to the song the couple wrote for everybody.

I think there is something so cool about this idea - that you can play a message or music without any electricity - something that might come in handy when all the oil runs out and we move into a post-technology world....or failing that just a hell of a nice way to get a party invitation.

Resonance - OFFF festival

2011-06-20T12:30:00.001+01:00

As promised, here is the amazingly ambitious Resonance video - brought together by SR Partners. It is a collaborative project with over 30 of the cream of independent visual and audio designers / studios.

Animators and Audio Designers were paired up at the beginning of the project and were given the guidelines to create a piece between 12 and 20 seconds and in HD quality.

The aim is to explore the relationship between geometry and audio in unique ways. Give yourself a moment to take this in..it's amazingly rich in both visual & audio technique...

Nobody can deny the sheer dexterity of the artists involved in this project - there is some pure mo-graph porn in there for sure! Personally I would have loved to have some kind of theme or narrative to hang it all together - it felt a bit like watching lots of clips from amazing feature films of the future. I can only hope that this film helps some of the people featured find work on bigger projects....

The piece was premiered at the OFFF 2011 festival in Barcelona and is also featured on Stash 81 as the Bonus Film. The film will also be played at Sonar, Pause Fest, Playground festival and Cutout fest.

Collaborators for the complete project:
Mo graph:
SEE || Displace Studios | Esteban Diacono | Heerko Groefsema | Jean-Paul Frenay | Jr.canest | KORB | Kultnation | Mate Steinforth | Matthias Müller | Momentary People | MRK | Murat Pak | Onur Senturk | Physalia studio | Polynoid | SR Partners | Thiago Maia | Tom Waterhouse | Tronic Studio | Spatial Harmonics Group
Audio:
HEAR || Audionerve | Combustion | CypherAudio | David Kamp | Echolab | Hecq | Michael Fakesch | Mutant Jukebox | Radium Audio | Studio Takt | World Gang

OFFF Festival - Barcelona

2011-06-16T17:40:00.003+01:00

More than a decade ago, OFFF was born as a post-digital culture festival; a meeting place to host contemporary creation through an in depth programme of conferences, workshops and performances by the most relevant artists

Written by Mischa Rozema and British graphic designer, Si Scott, the opening titles reflect their dark thoughts on a possible future. Directed by Mischa and shot on location in Prague, the film guides the viewer through a grim scenario embedded with the names of artists appearing at this year’s OFFF festival. The live action was brought back to Amsterdam for post, primarily carried out by PostPanic’s in-house team of artists but also with the additional help of freelancers and partner companies that we have enjoyed strong creative relationships with over the years. It’s really fair to say that this was a labour of love by a passionate crew of people.

Mischa Rozema, Director, says:
“We knew we wanted to make something that would unsettle and menace the audience. It was always going to be dark but also highly aesthetic. This project has filled our spare hours for the past 6 months and it is incredibly satisfying to work on something that we were given complete creative freedom on – that’s a rare luxury these days.”

Says Ania Markham, Executive Producer at PostPanic:
“The images created by the crew of people working on the titles has been unbelievable, with nationalities represented including Dutch, Czech, English, Polish, German, Swedish and Belgian. It’s been a great opportunity for all of us to work together on a non-commercial project we’re passionate about and we’re so proud of the combined effort and final result.”

These days, OFFF keeps being a reference event throughout the world. A festival hosted in Barcelona, New York, Lisbon and Paris which has featured renowned artists such as SR Partners, Kultnation, KORB, Onur Senturk, Renascent, Murat Pak, Heerko Groefsema, Jr Canest, Esteban Diacono, Ian Clemmer, Matthias Muller, Mate Steinforth, Tom Waterhouse, Physalia Studio, Displace Studio, Tronic Studio, Thiago Maia, Polynoid , MRK, JP Frenay, Radium Audio, Echolab, David Kamp, Combustion, Studio Takt, Audionerve, Michael Fakesch, Hecq, Cypheraudio, Mutant Jukebox, Darren Wiener, among others - well worth researching these artists...

The OFFF festival has spawned an extensive international network of artists, developers, theorists and even more importantly, people who love art in all its multiple expressions: students, fans, professionals and the curious. People who want to show what they do, to discover what others do and, above all to share their knowledge and their desires to inspire and to be inspired.

CREDITS: Directed by Mischa Rozema, Story by Mischa Rozema & Si Scott, Production Company: PostPanic, DoP: Jiri Malek, Mischa Rozema, Music & Sound Design: Hecq, Senior Producer: Annejes van Liempd, Production Designer: Roland Mylanus, Editor: Mischa Rozema, Post-Production: PostPanic

I'm also hoping I can get a copy of Resonance to show you - this is a collaborative film project produced by Simon Jones and SR Partners. A big number of motion/sound artists have created pieces of 12-20 seconds of cutting edge animation, growing in a dynamic and unique way. Here's an excerpt by Heerko Groefsema

can't wait to see the whole thing....

Man Vs Machine Toyota iQ sponsorship spots

2011-06-13T17:53:00.000+01:00

I just got a nice little update on what Man Vs Machine have been upto. They have just finished series of ten abstract spots that embrace the unique design of the Toyota iQ - for use in association with sponsored content on channel 4.

Mike Alderson told me: "Luckily we were given an open brief on this project - the client liked our previous work and was confident they would like what we came up with! Using the car as a catalyst various forms are given new life as a result of the signature contact moment.  Here is a compilation of them:
 
Considering the car does very little in each of these spots, I think they have created a kind of "magic" around it, using some very imaginative textures and sounds. I only wish driving in the outside world was interesting....Direction & animation: ManvsMachine Production company: Nexus 
I also wanted to flag up these fun idents they made for syfy kids - as part of their on-going work with NBC Universal.

INFO
I was told: "The logical solution was to create an unlikely family of toy-like characters, each one based on the forms of the Syfy brand. The characters were designed with one eye on versatility for future uses both on and off screen and we're looking forward to taking these little guys on all sort of adventures as the brand rolls out." Watch this space.

Crysis 2 Trailers from Vincent

2011-06-03T17:00:00.006+01:00

I recently met with Rheea Aranha - one half of Vincent in conjunction with John Hill.

They have plenty of previous form by way of supplying motion graphics for movies such as Tombraider, Thunderbirds, Quantum Of Solace and Terminator 3 as well as broadcast TV work for Kemistry, RedBee and the BBC - and most recently are working on the new Alien film. From looking at their site what struck me is their varied skill set (eg Live action, VFX, Script writing, Editing, 2D & 3D animation, Game play capture, branding strategy etc) and how they get to deploy them on their projects.

Now that computers and consoles have got more juice under the bonnet they can render an impressive amount of polygons in real time (known as your “polygon budget”, for those who don’t know...) This means that the visual quality is getting up there with Hollywood-budget animations - along with this comes higher quality direction of photography and soundtrack.

Consequently when a trailer or a sting need to be made to promote the game - these values need to be very high as well. And while I don’t have comparative figures for a new film release, three million hits on their Crysis 2 trailer in three days seems pretty good to me!

Here is a very excitable trailer for Crysis2 a high end first person shooter that came out recently - with a satisfying "inadvisable to show to children" label...

The game’s producer Crytek was very clear about the graphic style and quality in the trailer being a true simulacrum of what the real game experience would be. (how often have we seen flashy trailers for games that bear no resemblance to the game play...) The teams creating the trailers only normally get the latest version possible of the graphic style to work to, although the trailers mostly come out many months in advance of the finished game.
I look forward to seeing what they come up with next....

See No Evil June Event

2011-06-01T21:56:00.000+01:00

Thiago & James have got another motion graphics extravaganza for you. This time the speaker is Chris O’Reilly of Nexus fame.

Nexus has a worldwide reputation for creative storytelling and its roster of directing talent – working with multi-disciplinary skills in animation, live action and interactive media. They have been responsible for a diverse range of award winning work from the Cannes Grand Prix winning Honda commercial, a Grammy nominated music video for Franz Ferdinand and the title sequence for Steven Spielberg’s catch me if you can. Chris produced and co-wrote the Oscar nominated short This Way Up, directed by Smith and Foulkes.

Sounds like a good reason as any to attend to me!

When – Tues June 7st

Time – Doors Open 7.00pm Talk Starts 7.30pm

Where – The City Arts & Music Project 70-74 City Road EC1Y 2BJ

Price – Free

*Prizes from Stash & Computer Arts

Eurovision identity 2011 - by Turquoise

2011-05-24T10:52:00.003+01:00

After successfully pitching against several high-end German agencies Turquoise Branding were chosen to create the visual identity for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 in November last year. Gregory Millar, creative director on this job, told me that from initial briefing to Linda Garcia-Bowles, (Head of Motion Branding at Turquoise) to winning the pitch it took only 10 days! Pretty speedy by anyone's standards.

This year the Grand Final took place in the city of Düsseldorf, Germany, between 10-14 May. It was the culmination of months of competition throughout Europe to qualify and it was broadcast live to over 43 countries with an estimated reach of 125 million people.

Apart from creating a look and feel that they liked, Gregory thought that a key reason that the German clients NDR and Brainpool chose Turquoise's creative to win the job was because they could create a complete identity across all media platforms and not just a title sequence.

Gregory was also keen to stress that everyone at Turquoise had worked their socks off in the preparation of this project and that it was truly a great team effort. He told me "the identity is based on the line ‘Feel your heart beat!’, and has been designed to migrate seamlessly across visual mediums as both an energetic and uplifting static identity, as well as a dynamic animation in all on-screen graphics.

Pryce Duncalf - Megamax idents

2011-05-18T15:13:00.003+01:00

Redbee recently approached Pryce Duncalf, a freelance motion graphics director, to work on Megamax, a new Hungarian children’s channel owned by Chello Central Europe and is targeted at boys aged 8 to 12. They wanted to create four idents (DJ, Race, Yoyo and Gamer), involving two robotic characters called ‘I-ron’ and ‘Spark-e’ to represent the channel.

The timeframe was tight, so this job required frequent communication from all people involved. Simon Graham and Claire Powell were the Red Bee designers working on the concept. Simon had already created a mockup of the characters in 3D which helped get the project off to a good start. As he worked on developing the characters, Chello were very prompt in replying with positive feedback.
Megamax DJ

Pryce told me it was especially satisfying for him as he had done much more in the way of motion design and less in the way of character design before - so this was a good addition to his skillset
Megamax ident - The Race

He also explained: We decided that the best way to approach the animation was to split the workload down the middle, so Simon and I would animate two idents each. Once I had finished modelling and rigging the characters, I passed them over to Simon to start animation while I finished modelling jetbikes, doors, corridors, etc. Simons Dj and Gamer idents were quickly signed off along with my Yoyo ident, leaving me with the laborious task of rendering and comping the race ident, a gruelling process, but definitely worth the effort. Despite that it was a surprisingly smooth process, leaving Red Bee and myself stunned by the enthusiastic response of the client. We are all looking forward to creating more of these idents in the future."

credits:
Design director - Claire Powell, Designer/animator - Simon Graham, Character development / Modelling / Animation - Pryce Duncalf, Production manager - Jennifer Wettone, Account manager - Ursula Capell-Helm

Intriguingly his next project is a short film about Ninjas & aliens - so, I look forward to that as I havn't seen that combination of genres before...

Dentsu Studio and Canon’s PIXMA ad

2011-05-16T09:53:00.002+01:00

Sorry If you noticed a slow service recently - the Blogger platform which I publish my blog on was down for several days - very frustrating...still I have something very beautiful to look at to make up...

As I have a background in sound it’s not that surprising that I really love the idea of creating something visual as a direct result of speaker vibrations. I have seen experiments before where someone has put powder on a membrane over a speaker and filmed the patterns made - but this piece of creative takes it to another level.

Canon Pixma Sound Sculptures from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

Canon Pixma: Bringing colour to life from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

The creative studio dentsu, teamed up with bio chemist and photographer Linden Gledhill to create this series of paint sculptures for the launch of Canon’s PIXMA range of colour printers.

The colour sculptures were created by stretching a latex membrane over a speaker, which caused drops of paint to erupt for a fraction of a second when a single sharp note was played. Experimenting with different instruments, frequencies and volumes affected the formations in different ways, which we captured in stills and film shot at thousands of frames per second.

The campaign ran across Europe. They also made a series of stills to live as a series on Flickr and short films (or long photos) for Vimeo, Flickr and YouTube. You can see more here

Since launch in September 2010, the online assets have earned 2.5 million media impressions and the films have been played 1.2 million times on Vimeo and YouTube.
Within the first month, Pixma trade sales were 35% above target, and market share has risen by 20% - I like the kind of stats that show how creativity has improved business for a brand. I would love to see someone do something like this for TV branding.....

Producers series 01 - Shananne Lane 4Creative

2011-05-03T15:13:00.003+01:00

Any more wedding cake anyone...? Right, after all these mega bank holidays it's back to business - In an effort to bring both sides of the story to my readers I will be interviewing, what I consider to be, interesting producers from the world of motion graphics in the next few months. I am starting with Shananne Lane from 4Creative.

Her first job was managing talent for 4idents 12 years ago. Back then it was a very small department and made mostly promos. Slowly the marketing department grew & finally became known as "creative services". In its modern incarnation 4creative deals with branding for all five of its channels, sponsorship, external work, 4OD and all sorts of other web-related projects.

I asked her what her highlights as a producer have been during her long association with the company. She said shooting promos for Desperate Housewives and Lost when they first came out. Lost was shot on location in Hawaii - (I’m sure there are not many promo/graphics producers can say that they have done that from the broadcast industry!) Although as you can imagine, from a producers POV there were many frustrations to be overcome. She said she has also worked with three Oscar wining DOP’s. I have included this 60 promo for the first series of Desperate Housewives - and I still think it is hilarious in a creepy sort of corpse- in-the-cellar kind of way - and immaculately done...

She also told me that the core team have all been at 4creative for 10 years or more - which says a lot about the their success as a creative force in the industry. Here's to the next 10 years!

For each producer I will ask them their Top 5 Producer’s Tips. Here are Shananne's...

don’t rip off your crew
don’t always go for the cheapest deal - know when to cut corners and when to pay
build relationships which will build trust - you can't do this by being rude to people...
preparation is crucial - don’t pretend to know something when you don’t
always be the last person to leave a set - especially after the director and the DOP

Beakus - because they are great at animation...

2011-04-26T16:23:00.002+01:00

Recently my attention was drawn by Matthias Hoegg’s BAFTA nominated film – Thursday, which has already has been screened widely across Europe, Asia and the Americas. So I decided to go to the Beakus animation studio in sunny Wapping to see what was going on.

I was met by Matthias and owner of Beakus, Steve Smith. Although it is a relatively young company - Steve learned his chops at Trunk before he set up on his own.

They showed me their latest commissions for CBeebies - 4 x 60 second spring-themed animations. I advise caution when you are watching them - I have included one here, - as they are all super cute and you will want to watch them all a few times! (you can watch the other three on their Vimeo channel)

I think on of the reasons they have proved so popular is that thet audio consists of children speaking, unscripted, (Creature Comfort’s style) and Matthias has animated some beautiful interpretations of their imagination. He also confided in me that he had been influenced by legendary Russian animator Yuriy Norshteyn - amazing guy, a must for animation fans.Each one took 3-4 weeks to make.

This one is Ollie and his pet rabbits....

I have also included Matthias’ BAFTA nominated short called “Thursday” - there has already been loads written about this film, so I won’t repeat it all here - Just to say that it takes it’s influenced from very structured patterns - quilts, American style city blocks and those patterns you get on the seats in London Underground trains - which I really like. you can find out more by reading this detailed post from Motionographer here and Matthias' own site here

What's next for these guys? What sounds like a very interesting project - working on a seven minute section of a feature length animated biography of Monty Python's Graham Chapman - a total of 20 animators, no less.

My advice is to check out Beakus and their other directors as they seem to be on their game right now...
Leo Bridle, Matthias Hoegg, Leigh Hodgkinson, Bluna, Steve Smith and Sarah Orenstein.

Promax Europe - Berlin 2011 Ident winners

2011-04-21T15:00:00.001+01:00

I would, or course, be mad to try and report on ALL the winners at PROMAX Europe, which happened in Berlin last week - as there are so many categories now (some would say too many..). Instead I thought I would show the Gold winners of the "On air ident" categories as well as a personal favourite of mine. You can see all the winners here

Velvet Design in Germany won Gold for re-branding Greece's Mega TV channel in the "Best On-air Branding Design" category.

I think it is very playful & imaginative and has lots of ways to evolve in the future.
credits: client: mega channel, greece; agency: velvet.design; director: matthias zentner; creative director: martin kett and matthias zentner; art directors/design: iris engler and stefanie reinhart; illustration and animation: gregoire barfety, janett bergner, iris engler, nils engler, katharina lebsak, marko pfann, stefanie reinhart and monika rohner; dop:torsten lippstock.; producers: gustaf richter and stefan mueller;

meanwhile ViaSat creative in London won Gold for "Best on-air ident (in house) for their Explorer channel

(sorry I couldn't get the credits for this - but I couldn't find them on either Vimeo or their YouTube channel - if anybody wants to send them along to me I will post them up)

As for my two favourites - one I have featured on the blog recently (T4 Robots by Double G Studios) and this one - a Gold winner in the Best Public Service Announcement category - something called “Hunting moon”, made for the Malaria No More charity.

Richard Sutton at RedBee told me a bit more about this interesting promotional idea. Although the budget was tight lots of people got involved in this project for creative resons and they ended up making a trailer for a fictional movie.

As we all know the trailer has all the best bits in and sets up the question - “what will happen in the end...?” Well, in this case nothing, as there is no movie, but the moody graphic style and the good looking actors certainly make you pay attention - enough to make you visit the website.

Once you are there of course, you find out that they are a charity helping to fight malaria. Personally I thought this was a great way to involve young people in a fairly dry subject - certainly something that dosn’t come up in conversation much in our temperate climate.

Director - Robbie Samuels, Creative Director - charlie mawer, Logo & graphic design - Richard Sutton, Producer - Anne-Marie Small

Happy Easter everyone!

AOL branding - Universal Everything

2011-04-18T17:31:00.002+01:00

Hi there - I know this work is a bit old now - but I didn't get to post it when it first came out, and I think it's visually very striking. Anyway, it's my blog isn't it?!I'm a big fan of Matt Pyke's Universal Everything - he/they do some very arresting work.

A second series of reveal films created for AOL and launched at the New Museum, NYC. Used for web video, mobile, digital campaigns and outdoor LED displays. I think they are all quite poetic - helped by his brother Simon on audio. I would love to know what the branding brief was on these - it seems very "beautiful" - but I'm not sure what it's trying to say about AOL? All of these spots seem to imply AOL is a 'happening" brand - but I havn't noticed anything else to back this up...

Commissioned - Wolff Olins NYC
Creative Direction - Matt Pyke at Universal Everything
Animation - Chris Perry at Universal Everything and Michael Merron at Analog studio

Commissioned by Wolff Olins NYC
Creative Direction - Matt Pyke/Universal Everything
Generative Animation - Field.io

Commissioned by Wolff Olins NYC
Creative Direction - Matt Pyke at Universal Everything
Animation - Realise

Commissioned by Wolff Olins NYC
Creative Direction - Matt Pyke at Universal Everything
Animation - Zeitguised

Motionographer F5 creativity get together in New York

2011-04-07T15:47:00.001+01:00

I know it's a bit of a way to go for the average Brit - but the annual F5 creativity festival is the place to be next week. It's sort of how I would like PROMAX to be - a bit more zany and more concerned with creativity in all it's forms, not just TV. They have a great mission statement: F5 is founded on the belief that true change occurs when you look outside your world and explore new horizons. The festival fosters creative collisions—unexpected insights from sources you didn’t see coming. The goal is nothing less than to change the way you think about your work and your life. I couldn't agree more!

Happy F5 April 15 - 16 2011 by Hi-Sim from F5 on Vimeo.

There's a great set of speakers - worth clicking the links even if you're not going:

Mark Romanek : visionary film director behind “Never Let Me Go” and “One-Hour Photo” – as well as countless iconic music videos and commercials

Neil Huxley: accomplished creative director of Mothership and Digital Domain, creator of UI for Avatar, and AD on titles for Watchmen

Tanya Morgan: hip hop duo behind one of the genre’s most acclaimed and celebrated albums of the last two years

Adam Bly: founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of Seed Media Group and visualizing.org with tomorrow on his mind

PressPausePlay: David Dworsky and Victor Köhler’s exciting new documentary on cultural creativity and the digital revolution

Kid Koala: DJ and turntablist extraordinaire
Scott Belsky: cutting-edge business leader of Behance
Wayne White: legendary art director of Pee Wee’s Playhouse and banjo star
Adam Sadowsky (Syyn Labs): president of the engineering whiz-kid collective behind the massive Rube Goldberg machine in OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass” music video
Nathan Love: top-notch animation studio and masters of character animation
Buck: trailblazing creative shop with pop illustration powers
Radical Friend: acclaimed experimental//experiential directing duo
Onesize: creative studio powerhouse
Eclectic Method: audiovisual remix masters with culture on their minds
Heather Knight : innovator of robotic entertainment
Jacob Escobedo: celebrated network exec-cum-designer behind [adult swim], Cartoon Network, and a whole slew of musical projects
Tool of North America: leading the new wave of interactive storytelling

Closing the show on Friday night, PressPausePlay will introduce something new to the festival’s history: a screening of a yet-to-be-released film and discussion with the filmmakers. And a thoughtful opportunity to reassess the positives and negatives behind technological innovation.

Re:Play Festival: An international showcase of cutting-edge film, animation and design commissioned by Motionographer

They are also promising an amazing after-party. Sounds like a great reason to visit New York to me. I cannot go myself - but if anybody out there is going, then I would relly love to talk to you so I can do a post about it...

April 15th-16th - check out their site for more details here

Dan Capstick - Freelance motion graphics

2011-04-05T17:31:00.003+01:00

I first heard of Dan when he was at English & Pockett some years ago. We recently caught up so he could tell me about some of his recent projects. He started off as a D&AD "new blood" in 1999 and went to work at Static 2358 and since then has freelanced at places like Kemistry, Turquoise, ISO, Man V's Machine & Tilt.

More recently he was tasked with working on the BBC Knowledge rebrand. Knowledge is one of the BBC's global channels which repackages the best of their factual shows.

BBC KNOWLEDGE OSP from Daniel Capstick on Vimeo.
The channel positioning was 'liberating knowledge' - hence the varied executions of light and particles emitting from the orange orb. It was Dan's task to put the OSP attributes together eg menus, logo stings etc
credits: Design/direction:Dan Capstick, additional animation:David Todman, Cr Dir BBC Worldwide, Gary Sinclair, production house:TILT

Many people know that Turquoise provide a lot of branding and graphics for Saudi Arabia's STV. Dan was given the brief to come up with a new look for their economy program. The only constraints were that he had to use a black background and use the bright neon colours. (note: most of the shows on their channel use this house style, which I think gives a very modern aesthetic to what used to be a very traditional channel - you can see some other examples I posted previously here
STV Economy channel ident from Daniel Capstick on Vimeo.
He told me that the look of this sequence is: "Loosely based around global stock markets - each bar in the graph represents a commodity & how it goes up & down. Again all of the STV output does not allow representations of people, so they always have to have a very graphic solution. It was particularly satisfying to manage the design, compositing and render all by myself and be very self contained." All I can say is that I wish UK economics programs looked so cool - it reminded me more of the sort of graphics you get inside night clubs rather than TV branding - maybe STV will start a late night ravers channel..? (maybe not).
credits: direction, composition/animation: Dan Capstick, production house: Turquoise
You can see Dan's latest work here

Double G Studios - T4 & Discovery idents

2011-03-25T15:06:00.004Z

Double G first came to my attention with their work on the Canal+ sports channel last year with some beautiful blurry sports people that looked a bit like a Francis Bacon painting.

Recently they have done some very fun T4 Robot idents for Channel 4’s teen strand and some very clean and cool logo animation for Discovery - so I thought it was time to pay a visit...

It turns out Grant Gilbert - the namesake of the two G’s - started out on the Big Breakfast doing fast and furious disposable graphics on things like Fax & phone boards (Fax? - what’s that...?) He then went on to work at Channel 4’s creative dept and now has his own studio...

Unusually the idea for the T4 idents came from a stag-do at Bestival - Tom Robinson, lead designer on the project, said that him and his mates were dressed like robots and found that loads of people wanted to take photos with them. So, when the brief came in from C4 to find a way of connecting with teenagers - he had the idea of recreating them onscreen.

He explained to me that the most important thing was that these were not hi-tech robots, but recognisable as people inside various cardboard boxes & tubes - something that everyone could join in with. Obviously with a bit of clever digital jiggery pokery they get to do some cool stuff too.

What’s even more amazing is that all 20 of these 7” clips were created in only one month from start to finish, and that they had only one day to shoot the live action. All the 3D was done in house, and I think that you don’t have to be an expert in production schedules to figure that they were going at it hammer and tongs to get it all done.

The personality of each robot was enhanced through costume design, choreography and their relationship with the new 3d logos. Here's a mash up from the 20

and here is an individual one let you see what they are like on TV...

I think they hit the right spot - a good balance of an engaging idea, that could be realised relatively cheaply. Apparently they have had over a million views of these on Vimeo since they posted them in February...
credits: Creative Director: Grant Gilbert, Director: Tom Robinson, Art Director: Nigel Howlett, DOP: Luke Scott, producer Gwilym Gwillim, offline Xavier Perkins, 3D: Double G Studios, Stephen Ross/Tom Robinson /Winston Henry

Even more recently Double G were hired by Discovery to make seven x 3” break bumpers - the idea was to unify the OSP with the idents.

Part of the Discovery brief was that “the content is the brand” - so they worked out a way to change the content within the logo. This meant they could give them a kit of parts that they could update over time. As they are only 3 secs long, it’s good to have this compilation. Personally I welcome this evolution of their logo, in a really modern satisfying way.

credits: all 3D & post: Double G studios, animator Stephen Ross

See No evil - 2nd Anniversary special

2011-03-21T15:47:00.000Z

That's right folks Thiago & James' fanatastic motion designer get together called See No Evil has reached it's second birthday. Never shy of a bit of talking up their events, the press release says "We had to re-define the word “special” just so it was epic enough for us to use in the headline “See No Evil Anniversary Special”. With a headline like that how could you refuse...?

This month they have pleasure in presenting an evening with two industry heavy weights - Adrian Johnson & Steve Scott. You can check out Adrian's super colourful, highly graphic, designs here.
Also here is a link to Steve's quirky & original animation - should be a very interesting couple of talks.

As it is a special night there is an after party with music from both Memotone & Kirmann as well as the Hear No Evil DJ’s - until 1am.

They also have a special guest in the form of Bare Bones’ Matt Lambert who will be giving them a special preview of what to expect at the next coming up Bare Bones Show. - an online/live event that curates unconventional artists from around the world.

Ever want to show some of your work at a SNE show? Well here’s your chance. They want to screen your short / experimental films, to find out more here - Deadline Tue 22nd March. See No Evil will be raising money to Japan with our raffle. More info here.

all in all, you can't ask for more than that can you...?

When – Thurs March 31st
Time – Doors Open 7.00pm Talk Starts 7.30pm
Where – The City Arts & Music Project, 70-74 City Road, London, EC1Y 2BJ

The Darkroom - extraordinary live motion graphic events

2011-03-16T16:26:00.004Z

The Darkroom is a motion graphics company with many amazing performances to their name. Unlike most motionographers who appear on this blog, they get to show their creations in front of large live audiences. They specialise in putting on amazing shows during live events.

They started off in Auckland New Zealand and then moved to London in 2009. This proved to be a smart move as they are obviously talented enough to get bigger & better jobs. They ran two offices - Auckland London for a while, but now they are London based full-time. The team is comprised of Bruce Ferguson, Emma Wolf, Nick Meikle & Shaun Madgwick

What I think is exciting about their type of projects is that not only do they get to come up with creative graphic design for clients, but they then have a whole bunch of options of how to show it. According to the venue (& budget) it maybe in 360 surround, or projected on a dome or in this example onto a car.

Most recently they worked with London agency Flourish and created a projection-mapped-reveal for the new Bentley Continental GT. What you are seeing here is the actual car with all the lights mapped on to it - not some CGi construct.

A little bit older, but still amazing is their 360 degree wall of fashion visuals and motion graphics for the Australian release of Grazia fashion magazine. Synchronized sound and live visual mixing on the night by the Dub Module. This is definitely one party I would have liked to have been invited to...

These are only a couple of examples, but I urge you to go and look at the others on their site.

The other nice thing is that they can enjoy immediate feedback from the audience as they are taken on this audio visual journey. Although these events look amazing second hand via these video clips, I cannot wait to be invited to a live event to see something in the flesh - ready when you are, guys.....

The Future of TV branding Pt2

2011-03-07T17:07:00.000Z

Since Part one of my future of branding post a few people have mentioned similar threads being discussed on the RedBee blog, as well as a very interesting Media Guardian debate on the broader topic of “The Future of TV” - which is well worth a listen. So, this whole “future of channels/TV/media” seems to be part of some sort of zeitgeist....

Just to be clear, I am more interested to work out how branding agencies will survive in the future. I think we can take it as read that new technologies will give us the power to do more and more sophisticated executions in-house. With that, prices and budgets will continue to diminish - again that has already been happening for some time.

Instead I am wondering what kind of services will be offered by motion graphics and branding companies? After talking to Georgia Cooke and Paul Wilkinson at Nuw, I felt pretty sure that content marketing consultancy was the way forward. They both worked at MTV for many years - making strategy on how to market new content to viewers who only tuned in for an average of 3 mins at a time. In that environment, promoting the channel was a luxury - content is king.

Although this graphic on the left comes form a presentation about Facebook commerce taking over from standard e-commerce, I think there are many parallels. At the top you can see branding which kicks off Traffic generation and engagement. As the YouTube generation come through - they will be watching the content with the cleverest marketing regardless of which “curator” (read "TV channel") put it there. That’s why HBO is doing so well - they have focussed on quality content, which is passed around the world with much more alacrity than Dale Winton’s Supermarket Sweep....(for example)

Where does this leave the humble branding company? Well in my opinion they need to work out what they are branding - as the need (and budgets!) for on-air channel identity, diminishes, the work will switch to branding and promoting specific shows. This could mean deciding the look, tone & logo of a show as well as devising marketing strategies for it that will play out on the many media channels available to it (including Toylets..but that’s another post).

If the show is marketed well, the viewing public will get to hear of it and then download/stream/watch it on satellite or whatever. As the viewing experience changes then this might lead to complimentary experience around the show - eg you watch a music video and then you can press a button and buy the song straight away, or have links to the artists website. If the show tanks, it will be the fault of the branding agency and their marketing strategy.....

As for curation - that will be taken care of by recommendation services - similar to the recommended products you get when you buy something on Amazon - “those that watched Celebrity Desert Island Kitchens also watched...” or simply bloggers who spend all day reviewing content and sifting the best stuff (like the TV reviewers who work for newspapers & magazines already)

It’s all possible, what nobody has said is how far away it all is - I think that there will be at least another 5 years of “normal” telly watching in millions of homes and that Aunty Mavis and Uncle Derrick may never get an HD TV set, let alone connect it to their laptop in their lifetimes. So, probably no need to panic, but better to evolve now than be one of the branding dinosaurs in a few years...
Does this sound like the future? Let me know your thoughts.....

many thanks to people at Nuw, 4Creative, Wonder, The Council, Turquoise and Red Bee for help with this article.

UK Motion graphics Census

2011-02-27T22:09:00.000Z

In 2009 Bran Dougherty-Johnson and Jake Sargeant joined forces with Motionographer to do the first Motion Graphic Design Census.

This year See No Evil joined forces with Bran Dougherty-Johnson to get the first UK Motion Graphic Design Census.

For all the UK based only, here is the UK Motion Graphic Design Census.
Althought it asks about earnings - It's totally anonymous. Please, help us to spread this link and get a better view of our industry in UK.

I had a look at a previous census (mainly US) - and there are some fascinating stats in there, such as average earnings of different levels of designer/creative director etc. As well as average ages and hourly rates. So definitely worth it to see how you compare to everyone else in the industry.

If you go here you can take the survey - it only takes a minute

Toylets - a new kind of joystick game

2011-02-21T10:57:00.002Z

This article about "Toylets" tickled me recently, so I had to share it with you. SEGA - everybody's favourite games console designers of yesteryear - has just released their latest hardware/software combo. It comes with a pressure sensor that attaches to a urinal, which allows you to control activity on a screen above, according to how you direct your pee. (insert joystick joke here).

To give you an idea of what you can achieve with this concept there are four games on release. First up there's "Mannekin Pis", which simply measures how hard you can pee. Next "Graffiti Eraser", which lets you remove paint by pointing a hose in different directions. Thirdly "The North Wind and Her", where you play as the wind trying to blow a girl's skirt up, and the harder you pee, the harder the wind blows.

Finally, the bizarre "Milk from Nose" is a multiplayer game where you compete against the person who last used the urinal. The strength of your pee is compared, and translated into milk spraying out of your nose. If your stream is stronger, your milk-stream knocks your opponent out of the ring. If you do particularly well on any of the games, you can download and save your information to a USB stick. I wish I was making this up! - as usual real-life is so much wierder. Now boys will be going to the toilet in pairs and coming back with huge grins on their faces...

It sounds a bit like somebody at SEGA called a meeting to try and come up with something game changing like the iPad - and four bottles of whiskey later, they'd thought up Toylets instead. Still it's another motion-graphics challenge to think up a game or an ad for this application. If any reader of my blog gets asked to design something for the "Toylet", please please let me know and we'll do a feature.

Nobody's taking the piss out of SEGA now.....

Dexter Promo by Creative Nuts

2011-02-08T11:54:00.000Z

I must confess that I am a complete sucker for anything involving ink in water - on it's most basic level you just get a nice bowl of water and slowly drop ink in to create these amazingly complex cloud-scapes. The guys have Creative Nuts have taken this to a very high level with a promo they did for the American show called Dexter on the SOny AXN channel in Germany.

As you may or may not know Dexter is a psychopathic killer with a very outwardly normal appearance. The brief called for something that would show his dark & twisted character, but would also be suitable for daytime airplay. The idea of drawing on the Rorschach tests gives it a certain ambiguity - which, if you know the show, also suits Dexter's character.

Although influenced by the Gnarls Barkley "Crazy" vid - I think this is a lot finer in it's visual aesthetic - less obviously CGi - and let's face it it looks like it's got the Donnie Darko rabbit in it - so it get's my vote! Something about the German VO that makes it a bit more scary too....

I was surprised when I found out it was mostly real ink and water - as I assumed there would be a plug-in for that sort of thing by now. They also filmed themselves with various knives and their faces - and then did many many layers. However it was done - I think it looks ace.

director: Chloe brooks, producer: Nathan leigh-horrocks, animatior - David Blair

See No Evil - with Foreign Office Design

2011-02-01T11:40:00.000Z

Thiago & James are hosting the first See no Evil event of the year tonight - Tues 1st Feb - pinch, punch, first day of the month and all that sort of thing.

Foreign Office (posted on this blog before - here) Founded way back in ’97 they’ve worked on everything from commercials for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, digital work for Apple, Coca-Cola, Sony Playstation, right up to their recent work on blockbusters such as The Queen, Children of Men and even the most recent Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
With such depth of knowledge to dip into they’ll be something to make everyone excited...

Hear No Evil will be providing the after party along side the amazing Oli D.A.B! Dance the night away.

As usual the shows are free entry and we have lots of lovely prizes courtesy of the lovely folk at Stash Magazine

See No Evil – Foreign Office Design
When – Tues February 1st
Time – Doors Open 7.00pm Talk Starts 7.30pm
Where – The City Arts & Music Project 70-74 City Road EC1Y 2BJ

Terminator promo for Canal+ by Steve Hore

2011-01-25T10:44:00.006Z

I thought this was a fun concept, executed by freelancer Steve Hore whilst at BDA. The results were achieved by shooting a scale model bought from a comic store, enhanced with dramatic lighting and some digital spit and polish.

It was for a teaser campaign for a Terminator movie marathon, and helped deliver Canal+'s biggest movie audience for 2010. It explores the sinister concept of Cyberdyne - (Terminator's manufacturers in the film) actually marketing your own execution to you through a series of slick commercials designed to make their products look desirable.

I also found out in the course of doing this post that there is a guy who blogs on French channel branding, and has a blog at : http://blog.lenodal.com. He has a post for this Terminator spot as well here - so brush up your French and take a look at what our Gallic cousins are upto - now everybody after me “le fromage de ma tante et dans le chien de ma soeur....”

The Future of TV branding Pt1

2011-01-18T16:25:00.004Z

I hope you’ve all had a good break - I managed to do a whole lot of nothing,broken up with a trip to the ice rink and having a Turkish meal with so many courses that I needed wheelchair assistance in order to leave the restaurant....

Anyhoo - I thought I would start the year by doing a thought piece on what’s been going on in the world of motion graphics - specifically branding - and what are the emerging trends in this area. In order to help me with this hefty piece of thinking I called up some creative directors from some of the formidable companies in this field .

There were so many different opinions on this that I have summarised what they said and have split it in to two posts so we don’t run on all day - we all know how shallow you blog readers are...

There were several key themes that came up - the first being:

Diversification: It is no surprise that any company that is going to survive has to be very diversified in terms of the kinds of jobs they deliver - Channel idents & promos certainly, but also titles, web, print design, mobile content, in-house non-broadcast films, iphone apps, video games - and films for live events and trade shows (and probably some more I havn’t thought of...).

It seems that many of you are already doing this, but what amazes me is how many different avenues there are to explore. Tom Tagholm at 4Creative was of the opinion that we should not get distracted by how people watch content, but should continue to look at what we watch. The delivery methods will change, but the role of branding as a marker for various curators of content (or TV channels in the old world) still has a vital role.

Location: As the UK market fragments and considers different delivery platforms, many people think that traditional TV branding still has a home in the developing countries. Graham McCallum at Kemistry thought that countries like Brazil, The Middle East and India are taking over as suppliers of the bigger TV branding briefs. These markets are still fairly unfragmented by the internet and as their economies develop they want to be more televisually sophisticated.

On the flipside of this some people think that this is not realistic and the budgets in these developing countries are still too low - they love our sophisticated branding, but don't want to pay UK prices. Even more than this their style of doing business seems very unprofessional and can drive the UK branding firms mad! Finally in the farther flung places, the time difference can make things very awkward

I think what ever countries you work with, it seems obvious that if you want to find the bigger jobs, you cannot rely on the UK - as there are many more branding companies than are needed by our terrestrial channels (some of which do a good job of looking after themselves...)

Do we still need curators...?
For Gareth Mapp of Turquoise he thinks the change in the market has been driven by money and how it is now spread very thinly between many channels. There have been an explosion of channels on different platforms and now the idea of the TV channel is not so important because when people watch TV via web they are only interested in content and what genre they want to watch. He thought that TV branding is just a filter for linear TV and that in a non linear world this is not always relevant.

Unsurprisingly there are others who believe that the idea of the channel as curator is very important. I think that if we are only given the choice of choosing what we watch by genre then many good shows will fall through the cracks. There are a lot of shows that do not fit easily into one genre, or even fit into two - for example a top BBC wildlife series could be considered prime time entertainment on BBC1 as well as a nature documentary on a specialist channel. Tom Tagholm gave the example of having an art gallery and asking the punters to decide what should go in it - if that was the case you would only ever see predictable art and nothing new would come through....

Kevin Hill at The Council also pointed out that "event" TV (like X factor) can have a huge role to play. People could choose to record the program, but watching it live with the rest of the nation gives an extra communal dimension. Quite often viewers will be accessing Twitter and Facebook from their sofas at the same time. This view sees the extra online channels used as an extension of the TV rather than a replacement of it. At the end of the day it is all about the viewer - and communication with them may vary from age group to age group, economic situation and cultural inclination for some time to come. Kevin compared it to what has happened to cinema in the last century (decline and then rebirth as luxury experience), or what is happening with books and the internet now - we are certainly in flux and there is no set formlua yet...

more insights from the industry in part two - soon

Wonder - new agency with old heads

2011-01-11T14:28:00.001Z

Happy New Year motion graphics fans....

First up is the announcement of a new branding agency called Wonder - started by Tim Platt & Paula Williams - who both left Red Bee at the end of last year after many years of BBC/RedBee service. I asked them what prompted the move after all that time. Paula told me "the main reason we set up Wonder was that we had both worked for large companies for many years (BBC, BBC Broadcast and RedBee Media) and we wanted the flexibility of working as an independent Agency and to be able to explore new areas of work. Wonder’s approach is to capture the essence of a brand in a simple, entertaining and engaging way then ensure it’s brought to life across multiple platforms.

Tim and Paula's expertise has been recognised internationally through a host of industry awards including a much-coveted D&AD Gold. They are currently represented in the US by PGM Artists

They have not rested on their laurels and are already working with US agency The Brand Gallery to collaborate on the launch of a new music channel.

The last word goes to Tim “ The paradox of our ever-connected media world is that
brand identities have to be both consistent and agile.
As a small, highly creative and collaborative new agency, we’re perfectly
placed to gear them for success.” Watch this space...

Christmas good cheer from Uncle Shriek...

2010-12-24T10:28:00.002Z

Well, in this final frantic moment before we all run off for our season’s meetings - I thought I would have a bit of fun and show you my list off oddities and one offs that I didn’t manage to make into individual posts throughout the year. There is simply too much stuff going on out there! If I’d been writing a magazine and maybe had some staff working with me - we could have looked at all sorts of trends in design and motion design.

For most businesses it has been a bit of a roller coaster year, but in writing this post, I am reminded that if you are not creating things for your own amusement, then it would be a very sad life indeed!

I will be writing a review of 2010 in Jan, with some quotes and points of view from various creative directors from the motion graphics industry - until then thanks to everybody for their continued support and have a cool yule...

A designer named Alex Varanese set himself a bizarre project to re-imagine four common products from 2010 as if they were designed in 1977: an mp3 player, a laptop, a mobile phone and a handheld video game system. He then created a series of fictitious but stylistically accurate print ads to market them, as well as a handful of abstract posters

you can see the rest of his creations here

Next up is an equally nutty idea of imagining a low resolution PAC MAN game, but instead of using pixels he used humans in coloured tops.

French-Swiss artist Guillaume Reymond created this stop-motion video showing Pac-Man being played at a movie theater in Switzerland recently. The project had 111 patient volunteers sit, shift, and change shirts over the course of more than four hours.
This is the fifth video in Reymond’s GAME OVER project, in which he recreates classic arcade games with humans as pixels. See more here (including Pong, Space Invaders & Tetris).

I don't know if all these things really exist outside photoshop - but they look really fun...Go to this Funny & creative design link to see the rest of the ideas..

I think Vimeo is a great organisation - a classier and more professional cousin of YouTube .They also have an awards competition - and this is the winner of the motion graphics category - unfortunately I couldn't get any details on this guy - I tried email him but got no reply...if anyone knows anything about him I would love to hear it! I think this is pure graphics porn - no problem with that - but I would have liked some sort of narrative ideas to lift it a bit - just my feeling...

Triangle by Onur Senturk music by robin[THE]bank from Ayumi Hatai on Vimeo.
FInally a slightly, ahem, cheeky video for Sebastian Tellier's song “look” made by artists & illustrators Mrzyk & Moriceau - the same guys responsible for the stunning "Sing Sang Sung" music video for Air. I think this is amazing because it relies on a very simple style, no expensive effects, but tells a sort of story in a very hypnotic way - I would love somebody to use this technique in branding....

Sébastien Tellier - Look from Record Makers on Vimeo.

so - I hope you enjoy these little titbits. Finally thanks to all my readers for all the support and messages of encouragement - it's always good to know I'm not alone! Happy Holidays.

No More Milk - Dan Heaver and Dan Saunders

2010-12-16T15:18:00.002Z

I am constantly fascinated by all the side projects that motion graphics creative folk get up to - and I will attempt to report on them as much as I can. This time Dan Heaver and Dan Saunders - collectively known as “Dan Squared Films”, have made a charming short starring Margaret John called “No More Milk”

Margaret, who is better known as the foul mouthed Doris in Gavin and Stacey gives a touching portrayal of Cleo, a woman living in all times but the present. They used Bon Iver's haunting 'Wolves (Act I and II)' as a soundtrack.

No More Milk from dan saunders on Vimeo.

I like it because they have set up the story in a way that makes you understand and sympathise with the main character very quickly. Considering it was all done on a shoestring budget, I think it all looks very classy.
The film has already made the official selection at the PROMAX short film festival as well as 8th London Short Film Festival (7th – 16th January 2011). Music & Video screening, to take place at the Roxy Bar & Screen on Saturday 15th January 2011, 4pm.

Here’s a bit more from their press release:
Dan Heaver is a freelance director, creative, copywriter and veg expert. He's worked on promos, commercials and copy for brands including Innocent Drinks, the Discovery Channel, and BskyB. To date, he's picked up ten Promax awards across the globe.

Dan Saunders would've been a Welsh rugby star if his knees were up to scratch. As it is, he's an award winning freelance director and art director who's worked on accounts for, BskyB, Kemistry and DAD. As well as 3 years in the US working on accounts for Discovery Channel, HBO and Nat Geo.

Dan and dan met at BskyB where their interest in melancholy and pensioners drew them together. They are currently working on their next project which promises to be just as cheerful as No More Milk.

Credits:
Produced & written& directed:dan heaver & Dan Saunders,DOP: Huw Walters, Music: Bon Iver

MIE, Faithless and beautiful animation

2010-12-06T17:54:00.006Z

I recently had a chat with Joe Marshall and discovered that he was working with one of my favourite up’n’coming animators Yibi Hu. They have both worked for the likes of RedBee and English & Pockett, and now they have created an animation studio called MIE with the aim producing high quality animation and stories in 2D, 3D, live action, and stop motion. They also work in illustration and fine art whenever possible.

I knew EB’s work from his amazing film - Josie’s LaLa land - an incredibly sad but beautiful animated short film based on the true story of Josie Grove, who died of leukaemia at the age of 14.

Josie's Lalaland from MIE on Vimeo.
I then found out that they had recently done a second animated opus for one of my favourite pop/club hybrids - Faithless. In my opinion this is a real tour de force - a track, cheekily called “Tweak Your Nipple”
Faithless "Tweak Your Nipple" from MIE on Vimeo.
you can see more visual details for this vid here

More recently George Michael asked them to re-do an animation they did for him for "December Song" in 3-D - (previously in 2D). It's not my taste musically (a bit like a cup of tea with 15 sugars...)but, for a bit of seasonal cheer - here it is

George Michael - December Song from MIE on Vimeo.

Great work, I'm sure you'll agree - Keep it up chaps!

Klaxons - "Twin Flames" (Partizan, Absolute & Blind Pig)

2010-11-30T12:33:00.002Z

Well it’s not often that I see a music video that holds my attention in the way that this one did. Sure there is nudity in it - (normally a guaranteed reason to get people’s fingers twitching on the pause button!) but this video had me transfixed in a different way.

I was assured by someone at Partizan that the director Saam Farahmand was not influenced by The Chapman Brother’s work, but there are some strong similarities for sure! I don’t mean that as a critism, it only makes it more awesome what Saam and his team at Blind Pig (motion graphics) and Absolute (post) have done - I mean the chapmans did it in wax, but this looks like its for real. If anybody has any ideas as to what the video is "about" I would love to hear them. More ectoplasmic slime anyone...?

Klaxons - Twin Flames NSFW from BlindPig on Vimeo.

It also has a nod to Brian Yunza's film 'Society'. This is what Ric Comline, lead artist at Blind Pig had to say about the job:
Connecting the various body parts was itself an extensive process that required creation of an all-new technique. "When we started combining the limbs, we realized that it was important to either prioritize one of the partner's limbs over the other, or quite often to completely remove and rebuild the original limbs," "This meant that if someone was, for instance, holding an arm that needed to be removed in front of their body, we would have to rebuild the body over the top of the arm to remove it - and all this was before we even started to join the bodies."   

Comline and his crew then removed all traces of the sculptures, a process complicated by the sheer volume of cleanup required in each shot, the dramatic sweeping camera moves, and the duration of the shots, which ranged from 500 to 1,000 frames. All of the fake limbs had to be meticulously tracked in, sometimes requiring two- or four-point tracks and as many as 16 joins in. For the more challenging joins, the crew made 3D geometry in Maya that roughly matched the camera moves and then tracked and comped the footage in with Nuke. Absolute also used After Effects and Combustion, and Flame to conform the footage, handle one of the shots, and then to do overall tweaking and grading as they laid it to tape. 

It will be interresting to see if it is allowed on TV, but now days - who cares? Something this good will live outside the TV schedules quite easily thanks to the likes of Youtube. I love it - great to see design and effects being pushed in this way. Wait for the "Klaxoniser App" to come on to your iPhone soon!

Production Company: Partizan, Director: Saam Farahmand, Prod: Ella Sanderson
Post House: Absolute - Lead Artist: Ric Comline, Producer: Daniel Bennett
motion graphics: Blind Pig
Producer: Fenella Sanderson, DOP: Dan Bronks, Art Director: David Lee    

See No Evil Xmas Special

2010-11-25T16:12:00.000Z

As the nights draw longer and the days get colder See No Evil (Thiago & James) are here to help inject some much needed warmth.

They've a brand spanking new, and vastly bigger home The City Arts & Music Project, 70-74 City Road, London, EC1Y 2BJ (nearest tube station is Old Street - Northern Line).
They have teamed up with the guys & gals from one of London's music production companies, called Hear No Evil, to provide a great line up of DJs and music for after the show.

This month the talk is from London and Brighton based award-wining super studio and purveyors of fresh and innovative design, i Love Dust .Along side them, all the way from Belgium, they have the director duo sensation Pic Pic & Andre Fresh from their recent feature film debut, A Town Call Panic.

As usual the shows are free entry and they have prizes courtesy of the lovely folk at Stash Magazine!
Make sure you make a note of these all important times and dates so you don't miss out
When - Tues December 7th, 7.00pm (Talk Starts 7.30pm), The City Arts & Music Project 70-74 City Road EC1Y 2BJ

4Creative - new idents and Twist Our Words campaign

2010-11-17T20:43:00.000Z

Well it seems like 4Creative have been busy bunnies - not only content with launching three new idents in the classic style from the last few years, but also a new socially based marketing campaign called Twist our Words.

The idea is simple - it’s a bit like fridge magnet poetry - you get a batch of words, in this case spoken by C4 celebrities, and you get to put them in order to make a sentence of your own.

It’s very easy to do - you drag the words in to a timeline and move them about before it is all put together - here’s one I made earlier...

The coolest thing about this is that they will feature the best ones on air - so essentially you get a sort of semi crowd sourced promo campaign. The other cool thing from a marketing point of view, is that every time you make a video you are asked if you want to share it on Facebook and YouTube and/or receive email updates about Channel 4.

The only down sides for me are that there seem to be a lack of verbs to put in the sentences (which limits the flexibility of what you can say), and some of the C4 talent say the words in such a wacky way that it makes the sentences a bit jerky when they are all strung together. Luckily there is a feedback mechanism, and I’m sure things will smooth out over time. Have a play for yourself here

Twist credits: Creative Director / Director: Tom Tagholm, Producer: Shananne Lane
DOP: Luke Scott, Editors: Adam Rudd & Xavier Perkins @ Final Cut, Audio:Envy

Here are the three new idents -
Airplane Monument

I've heard about this place before - like a lot of man made pollution - often beautiful to behold, but deadly for the planet. Still - an amazing idea and great execution.....
Recycling

Blackpool

credits as follows:director: Brett Foraker, Producer Gwilym Gwillim, VFX house MPC and Method (New York), Sound Envy.

The Council - no parking permit jokes please....

2010-11-09T18:10:00.001Z

Well it seems that the autumn is a time for new endings and new beginnings - as five senior staff leave the Redbee creative department - three of them set up a new motion design and branding company called simply “The Council” - I gather the idea for the name comes from the idea of a 'council' of wise people - obviously nothing to do with borough councils then....

Made up of managing director Jeff Conrad, creative director Kevin Hill and uber Director of Production Sophia Pendar-Hughes. The latter two spearheaded the creative team behind 'Dave' and the other nine UKTV channel rebrands last year. Obviously they have a ton of experience behind them - just look at their website and you can see the calibre of clients they have already worked with whilst at RBM.

I asked them why they left Red Bee and this was their (collective) response:

We all believe it’s important to keep challenging yourself and we all left Red Bee looking for that new challenge. Creating The Council seemed like the perfect way to fulfill this. We want to explore new ways of working; to be more open to new influences and to be able to approach projects from new angles. Our aim is to work in a flexible, creative and agile way in response to any brief.

It seems they have not been slacking either and have already worked with one major UK broadcaster, Our Green Planet and are working with Shine Group in the UK along with The Home Shopping Service (Part of the M6 group, France), Digital+, and MDR Fernsehen in Germany. I, along with many Red Bee staff, I suspect, will be watching with interest to see what they do next....

Wyld Stallions

2010-11-02T14:51:00.001Z

I had the pleasure of an introduction with Wyld Stallions recently off the back of their See no Evil talk - and went to see them in their studio in the Barbican area.

Comprised of Jason Arber, Chris Sayer, Natalie Busuttil and Janey Robinson, they started life in 2006, and currently do a mixture of web, advertising, film and idents projects.

More recently they have become known for all their VFX work on Matthew Vaughn’s highly rated Kick Ass movie. There are not many companies of Wyld Stallion's stature that get to work on such a high end movie like this - so how did they do it? It turns out that Chris knew the VFX director, who got them involved.

Kick Ass Night Vision sequence - Wyld Stallions from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

He told me, it was a great experience as well as a good CV booster. They had to simulate screens on mobile phones, simulated CCtv, websites, sat nav and all kinds of mostly unnoticed but essential graphic type stuff as well as the more glamourous things like the night vision fight scene that happens in the dark. However with a nine month workload - a lot of which was not budgeted for - it was certainly a labour of love.
As I am a fan of stop motion I have included their quirky Hardy’s wine sequence - it turns out that they are fans of Jan Svankmajer and Brothers Quay (as am I!) - and you can see a bit of their influence here.

Hardys original from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

I have also included their slightly sinister work on an MTV Top 10 count down. I personally love this kind of grainy/sinister style - reminds me of The League of Gentlemen . A great antidote to all the anodyne shiney graphincs you get on TV these days. This was done on title sequence budget, but as they loved the idea they over delivered on this one as well! - Note - prospective clients - don’t get any funny ideas...

MTV Top 10 - Wyld Stallions from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

There is loads more to see from these highly creative minds on their website - definitely worth a poke around when you have time.

A Brief Guide to What Marketers Want from Their Creative Agency (Part 3)

2010-10-22T17:34:00.000+01:00

Last in Denny Tu's ; UKTV Marketing Director Tom Lucas' 3 parts on “A Brief Guide to What Marketers Want from Their Creative Agency”.

I hope you enjoyed the series. I think there are some really important insights to learn from here - and I know one creative director from a major broadcasting network who has used this guide to brief a design agency already...so, here goes...

Giftwrap It For Us
Anticipate need. Getting to the right creative solution is not always enough.
Recognize that you need to sell your idea to the finance director, the product manager, the research exec. Don’t presume to know the answer – often only your client can tell you.
Make sure the box is pretty and the idea is swathed in relevant rationale for the audience.
Accept that people will view the work like punters – but do everything you can to ensure ideas aren’t presented out of context.

Focus On What Matters
Fighting about logo sizes is like arguing about the washing up. It’s one of the little things that gradually destroys a relationship.

The Client Defines Success
This is the great injustice of the communications world. He who pays gets to decide whether it’s any good.
If your client wanted to grow sales and you grew awareness – you have failed. Embrace this. Find out your client’s key performance metrics. This is your new language of success.

Your Whole Existence is Performance Related
Service companies exist to further the interests of their clients.
Find public, meaningful and imaginative ways to align your agency’s success with that of your clients.
Link your annual bonus to the percentage increase in your client’s share price. Display your client’s sales figures in reception. Celebrate their millionth customer as if your own. Get some skin in the game and clients will make you part of the team.

‘Yes’ is the Answer
We usually know when we’re asking the impossible. Say ‘Yes’, give it a go, and we’ll still love you even if you fail. Humble work does not demean you. It elevates you.

If any one has any other nuggets on "how to talk creative" - stick a comment in

Gluko & Lennon - amazing animation

2010-10-13T18:14:00.000+01:00

"Glüko & Lennon" is an original animated series for children about two inseparable friends living in a surreal world. It is designed by artists, designers and musicians. In one way it has a classic narrative content, but on the other hand it's just plain weird – and I love it!

Gluko & Lennon ENG from Gluko & Lennon on Vimeo.

I know that for some of you this might feel like it's a bit outside my usual motion design remit, but it's so I good I just had to share it with you guys –I think it has a very original voice and could inspire some great branding/design work.
Unfortunately although I emailed the Orange Gutan studios - I can’t seem to get any credits out of them - so if anyone knows who’s brainchild this is - let me know.

Each episode includes a musical number - and they often feature famous musicians. This pilot episode features Miranda! (a number one pop group in Latin America apparently).
Here's a bit from the press release: Glüko is Lennon’s best friend. He’s the most easy-going creature  living in the universe, or in any other universe that existed or will  ever exist, for that matter. He is a pink giant, filled with a sweet  nectar from which all the creatures around him will drink. He lives in  perfect harmony with nature and is in touch with his feelings. He’s a  zen person, which means he’s always willing to take a nice nap.  Some people may think he’s kind of slow, but that’s just because he  takes his time to act as he must.

Glüko has an extraordinary power  that he never learnt to control because of lack of interest (and  because he’s too lazy!): he can shape-shift and become a sphere,  an island or whatever he wants. Until he learns how to control his  ability, his transformations are triggered by his emotional state. Like  every other pink, noble, zen and super powerful giant, what he  enjoys the most is to have a good time. He knows that by following  Lennon in his kaleidoscope-like adventures, fun is guaranteed!  That’s why he follows him, no questions asked, because he knows  as long as he’s with his friend, he’s going to rock it!

  Lennon, Glüko’s best friend, is a creature similar to a human boy. He  wants to know everything, try everything and touch everything. His  imagination knows no limits, and he’s always in the mood for  adventures. He’s impulsive, curious, chatty and daring. Zoom, wow,  splash! And there goes Lennon, roller skating among  fireflies, and five seconds later, floating with turtles, and then,  jumping up and down Glüko’s bouncy belly. Because he’s giant and  powerful, Glüko gives Lennon the necessary confidence to do  anything, despite being tiny.

He’s tender, naïve and incredibly gullible, his ability to be surprised is endless. If anyone has a story to tell, Lennon’s ears are the first to raise their hands, because he wants to hear it. If something gets lost, Lennon is already there with his telescope and snowshoes, willing to go look for it. He doesn’t  want to miss anything that’s happening around him. If he was a  sport, he’d be ping pong. If he was a bird, he’d be a hummingbird. If  he was a Beatle, he’d be a Rolling Stone.

er - ok then what ever you say! For more details check out: http://LORANGEGUTAN.COM/

New Sky Arts idents - Jon Yeo & Cam Levin

2010-10-04T15:29:00.001+01:00

Sky have just re-branded their two arts channels, with some great "warm" idents - I think it would have been very easy to go "esoteric" with any channel with the word "arts" in it - but knowing what we know about Sky, that wouldn't have sat very well, I think. Director, Jon Yeo told me a bit more about them:

They were shot variously at Boscombe Pier, Liverpool Town Hall, The Royal Festival Hall and a Supermarket in Ealing (!)

Sky Arts 2 "Strings" from Jon Yeo on Vimeo.

The locations for Sky Arts 1 were along the lines of 'Transforming the Mundane' in that they are every day environments. Sky Arts 2 is more measured and classical in both material and locations. This was to reflect the content and audience for that channel. The concept was developed and sold in to the client by Cam Levin of ThinkMake, before I came on board as Designer/Director.

When I came onto the job my first task was to figure out how best to form the logo out of materials, and how this would actually work. I wanted to focus more on the word ARTS forming as an object, and to scrutinise this formation to show it's construction and craft. Rather like an Art installation in a public space - the object would fit in to the containing graphic of the full logo at the end.

Sky Arts 1 "Fruit" from Jon Yeo on Vimeo.
The blocks, woods, plastics, paper and fabrics are the first objects and materials we've explored, obviously this concept lends itself to a wide array of interpretations moving forward. Potentially adopting different post techniques, disciplines and approaches for future sequences.

The client wanted a human element to each sequence, one which would 'trigger' the materials to generate.
I came up with a piece of kinetic motion for the start of each sequence, unfolding the deck chair, picking the fruit, starting the moped and playing the violin. You can see some of my early designs here

For the animation I brought on board Man vs Machine, We are Seventeen and Artillery. Super quick 4 week turnaround on all the post. Sound by Radium.

Apologies, as always, for not running the full list of credits - you can find out more here if you want
Director: Jon Yeo, Creative Director: Cam Levin (ThinkMake), Producer: Sharon Kersley, Animation by Artillery, We Are Seventeen, Man vs Machine

See No Evil - with Quayola

2010-09-24T12:56:00.000+01:00

Hi, just a quick one to say that the Latest See No Evil motion graphics get together is at the Kick Bar in Shoreditch - with a talk from the inimitable Quayola who works as both visual artist and motion director

This is an extract from his Vimeo page biog:
Quayola is a visual artist based in London. His work simultaneously focuses on multiple forms exploring the space between video, audio,
photography, installation, live performance and print.
Quayola creates worlds where real substance, such as natural or architectural matter, constantly mutates into ephemeral objects, enabling the real and the artificial to coexist harmoniously. Integrating computer-generated material with recorded sources, he explores the ambiguity of realism in the digital realm.

check out this film of one of his installations - I think it's magical:

Strata #2 from Julien Taib on Vimeo.

so make sure you go to The Kick Bar on Tues 5th October

Also SNE is now sponsored by Computer Arts magazine - way to go guys!

A Brief Guide to What Marketers Want From Their Creative Agency (Part 2 of 3)

2010-09-22T17:57:00.000+01:00

Most of you know that I tend to focus on the creative side of our industry, but every so often I think it's health to look at what clients are looking for. So,here is the second installment from Denny Tu's blog, written with the help of Tom Lucas, Director of Marketing & Communications at UKTV. It is very concise - I think it's great.

Get a Grip on the Numbers

Get on every email circulation list which disseminates performance data on your client companies.

Read the analyst report.

Get a copy of your client’s P&L, see where the marketing line fits in.

Look at your fees from the FD’s perspective. Make it easy for him, demonstrate that the actual return on your endeavours outweighs the cost of hiring you.

If you need to hire someone to do this, do it.

Don’t get the brief right. Get the right brief.

Sometimes I think we get the wrong answers because we ask ourselves the wrong questions.

“What is the single-minded message?” might be appropriate for a poster, but different consumer behaviours and a new marketing paradigm demand new questions.

In the digital age, a better question is “Why would I want to get involved?”

Templates might make us feel comfortable, but sometimes we need to mix it up a bit.

Let’s make the brief fit for purpose.

Adspend is the last resort

Spend your client’s money as if it were your own.

Exploit every last bit of owned or earned media. Audit the social networks. Find and arm the brand ambassadors.

Only once your client’s brand permeates every possible realm of free media should you consider paying for it.

And when you do, make sure you demonstrate that every penny is driving incremental reach and reaching the parts that free media can’t.

Don’t let the cracks show

We like integrated solutions more than we like integrated communications groups.

Solve our problem using the right channels. Present and deliver the answer, on time and on budget.

Then tell us that you got your affiliate PR agency, online experts, econometricians on the case.

Nothing underwhelms like a “360 solution” that isn’t a solution at all, so under promise and over deliver.

Be perfectly laid-back

Work hard but appear effortless. Nothing rattles a client like an agency that looks worried. Our job is to make things difficult enough for you to be brilliant on our behalf.

Be passionate, but never forget it’s only advertising- and there will be another idea.

'Virgin 1" becomes "Channel 1" with Red Bee

2010-09-13T11:47:00.001+01:00

Well it seems that it’s all change again at Virgin 1 - It had a refresh in June of last year, incorporating the fun little puppet called “Red”. Now it has been bought by Sky and so had to be called something else - Channel 1. I have to say after the recent adventurous UKTV rebranding names, “Channel 1” seems a bit ordinary - why not “Zaftig 1” or “Spelunker”? - so many possibilities....

This rebrand has been handled by Red Bee - here is the only ident that they made so far:

Channel one ident from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.
Charlie Mawer, Executive Creative Director at Redbee had the following to say:“it was a fantastic creative challenge, and a unique set of circumstances. Whilst we were all sad to see the passing of “Red’, our creative idea attempts to capture his essence as red thread, and embodies the restless spirit of the channel. It was important that the viewers felt as much continuity as possible and that the same great programmes would still all be found in their new home’

so, now the red thread takes over some of the cheeky character traits of the “Red” puppet character and interacts with aspects of the programs that are on the channel. I would be interested to see what other applications they can come up with for the restless red line....

Design Directors: Paula Williams & Richard Sutton, Creative Director Charlie Mawer, Animation: Trunk.Thiago Maya - animation of OSP, Nathalie Kaserer - Creative Development Designers, Cheryl Carulli, sound - Arge - at Envy

A Brief Guide To What Marketers Want From Their Agency (Part 1)

2010-09-06T16:52:00.001+01:00

I am very happy to be able to syndicate this article from Denny Tu's blog, from July this year, written with the help of Tom Lucas,Director of Marketing & Communications, UKTV. I hope that you can all benefit from getting some client perspective on things...

Don’t Sell Yourselves

A confession: Most of us clients get quite bored sitting through credentials presentations.
We’d rather talk about ourselves. Or make sure you understand what we’re looking for.
The best way to win our business is to take a greater interest in and ask more questions about our problems than anyone else.
Listen as if for a pin to drop.

Be Externally Referenced

Spot new stuff and tell us about it.
Most of us are profoundly uncool. We spend evenings feeding babies, and watching telly with Simon Cowell in it.
Put your army of hipsters to work. Cross pollinate the learnings from your clients.
Expose us to the great stuff you’ve seen at Cannes. Buy us the D&AD Annual.
Help us dare to be cooler.

Know Your Limits

Not every business problem is a communications brief.
Sometimes we clients get desperate, and outsource the problem to someone we can kick if it goes wrong.
If you don’t think you can help- tell us. We’ll respect you in the morning.

Get An Education

Clients invariably know their business. Some will pretend to know yours.
Be flattered by their interest and try to harness it.
Make room for them on your team’s training courses. Watch and critique ideas with them. Invest time and energy in them.
But insist on reciprocity. Expose your team to the best thinking in their category. Infiltrate their training plan. Learn with them.

Surround Yourselves With Clients

Get in there. Spend time in client organisations. Nothing endears like seeing your agency working alongside you- especially after hours.
It’s so much quicker- and more fun, when you’re in the same room.
Meet the rest of the team. Researchers, commercial teams, lawyers- there is so much to learn from them. And you never know when you might need an ally.

Get In Step

Know your client’s planning cycle. Find out when he submits his budgets. When he reviews the year. When he gets appraised by his boss.
Have the competitive review ready- because when businesses need information, they don’t issue much advanced warning.
Free up resources in advance. Be there for your client.

I will post parts two and three on this shortly - let me know what you think - is there anything he has left out...?

Homeless World cup Promo - Beautiful TV

2010-09-03T11:55:00.000+01:00

Blimey is it Autumn all ready? We'll be carving pumpkins and buying sparklers for Guy Fawkes day before we know it! All this means little however to those playing in the Homeless World Cup which starts on 19th September in Sunny Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Marc Ortmans has given me a sneak peek at the promo they have put together for it...

Rio 2010 Homeless World Cup Promo (Nike) - (English) from Homeless World Cup on Vimeo.

It's a great idea - beating homelessness through football. The Homeless World Cup is an annual world class, international football tournament inspiring 64 national grass roots football projects and over 30,000 homeless players to change their lives: over 70% change for the better. - nice one guys!

Beautiful TV, in partnership with director David Waldman, were chosen to produce the commercial after a six way pitch at last year’s Promax UK Awards. The final spot is a combination of live action shot on the streets of Rio (where the Rio 2010 Homeless World Cup will take place) and animation of stills from a shoot at London’s Black Island studios.

The inspiration for the treatment came from street football and the transformation the players at the Homeless World Cup go through: ‘From Homeless to Hero’ and features four Homeless World Cup players. It uses an update on the classic zoetrope animation technique to bring still posters of the players to life.

The commercial is launched online this week and will appear on global TV stations from 1st September in the weeks running up to and during the 8th Rio 2010 Homeless World Cup, which takes place 19th - 26th September in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Kat Byles, Communications Director, Homeless World Cup said:
“It’s been superb to receive such a high level of creative collaboration and commitment from Beautiful TV, Promax and Nike for the Homeless World Cup and the players. We love that the ad sees four Homeless World Cup players in all their courageous glory, without a hint of poverty-stricken powerlessness that the majority of communication about homelessness currently chooses to depict.”

The Homeless World Cup is now inviting media to donate airtime to the ad to raise awareness of the power of football to beat homelessness. Contact Kat Byles, Communications Director, Homeless World Cup on 0131 652 8190.

Coalition of The Willing

2010-08-19T15:45:00.002+01:00

I have just watched the final version of the Coalition of the Willing film and I have to say I am wow-ed. Not only is amazing that Simon Robson managed to pull off a 13 minute animated film as a collaborative effort, but also at the sheer range of animation styles and ideas is astonishing. On top of that I realised that all of these people were working for the good of the planet and not for their bank balances – it made me proud to be a part of this media community.

Coalition Of The Willing from coalitionfilm on Vimeo.
'Coalition of the Willing' is a collaborative animated film and web-based event about an online war against global warming in a 'post Copenhagen' world. What is so great about this film for me is that not only is it really beautiful to look at, but it also puts our current environmental melt down into perspective by telling the back story. This is so much more powerful that if it had just been a film about telling everyone to install eco bulbs and do their recycling.

It was crafted by a network of 24 artists from around the world including some of the world’s top moving image talent, such as Decoy, World Leaders and Parasol Island.
nice work guys! - I'd be intersted to know what other people think...

from the press release:
The film offers a response to the major problem of our time: how to galvanize and enlist the global publics in the fight against global warming and explores how we could use new Internet technologies to leverage the powers of activists, experts, and ordinary citizens.

Through analyses of swarm activity and social revolution, 'Coalition of the Willing' makes a compelling case for the new online activism and explains how to hand the fight against global warming to the people.

Credits:
Director / Producer: Simon Robson aka Knife Party is a multi award-winning animation director and producer. His work has been shown at festivals around the world including Edinburgh, Toronto, Raindance and the Brooklyn International Film Festival.
Writer: Timothy Rayner teaches philosophy at the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales.
Full list of collaborators:
Knife Party, Adam Gault & Stefanie Augustine, Bran Dougherty-Johnson, Cassiano Prado, Mario Sader & Ralph Pinel, Dave Baum, Decoy, Dom Del Torto, Dylan White & Andy Hague, Echolab, Foreign Office, Andreas Gebhardt, James Wignall, Loyalkaspar, Sehsucht & Mate Steinforth, Mighty Nice, Parasol Island, Thiago Maia, World Leaders, Yum Yum London

Uncle Shriek gets more comments on Facebook...

2010-08-17T17:31:00.000+01:00

Hi there - back from a spot of Granny bashing in the SW of our fair Isle and back for more motion graphic type news...

However, before I tell you about the amazing collaborative animation of Coalition of the Willing, I am just going to post a quick newsflash -

Shriek now has a Facebook page which will keep you up to date with all the shenannigans we get up to in and out of work. Secondly it's where you will get some lively feedback on the articles you read here..

So, if you click the like button at the bottom of this post, or go to our fanpage and click "like"we can all be connected in the wonderful online soup we live in (sigh) - thanks for your continued support - next proper post coming shortly....

Conker Media & Steve Aspinall

2010-07-30T17:55:00.000+01:00

Steve Aspinall – ex Red Bee media, contacted me recently to say that he was working back up North in Liverpool and was working at Conker Media. What is interesting about them is that they call themselves a digital production company which creates content for TV (HD), online, mobile and
social media. (They are part of the All3Media group).

The Well - Conker media from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.
To get an idea of what they do they showed me a case study for a program called "The Well" which was created for the BBC. This drama was written by Melvin Burgess, who's one of the big literary star of teenage fiction. Conker filmed 4 x 10 min episodes for TV and at the same time an interactive web game was created - a 3D environment that mirrored the main location in the drama - as well as a Bebo page. The hope being that when the viewers have seen the TV episode, they can then go online and then they can get involved with a host of tasks and challenges which, when completed, will reveal hidden drama content.

I think this is a very interesting evolution of how people can become involved with fictional characters and narrative. We are thoroughly used to the US film studios releasing a film and then a video game, but not in such a joined up way.

I also hear that E4 has plans for a second online Hollyoaks series, called Hollyoaks: Freshers and will follow the off-screen exploits of Hollyoaks characters, while also introducing three new students to Hollyoaks Community College. These three characters will then make their bow on the main TV series in September. It makes perfect sense as the viewers of Hollyoaks probably spend more time online anyway…

If any one reading is involved in this kind of change over from traditional to digital - let me know, or post a comment. Right off for a well earned rest now - so I won't put anything up for a couple of weeks....

Stuart Fortune - Katie Melua video - A Happy Place

2010-07-26T17:27:00.001+01:00

Stuart Fortune just sent me this great video that he worked on the design and visuals and directed by Mike Batt. It was filmed in Berlin - in the foreign office building, which have these amazing 'paternoster' lifts that continually run in a cycle. Invented in the 1880s and banned in the 1980's there are only very few of them left.
The only brief that they got was that they wanted to use these lifts and Stuart went for a sort of Blade Runner feel – lots of muted colours and metal.

Katie Melua - A happy Place from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

Mike Batt is an amazing character – he is both legendary musician and well renown promo director as well as owning Dramatico - Katie Melua's record label. Older readers may like to know that he was the creator of the Wombles – which makes him cool in my book!
Stuart and Mike have done a few projects together now and he lets him get on with it – they edited round the clock for three weeks in Mike mansion – so it was pretty intense. During that time they added an amazing amount of extras to the original shoot - a 3d set in after effects, backgrounds, camera movements, 'army of office workers' lighting, grade etc.

Apparently Mike Batt wanted to carry on working on it, as he is a bit of a perfectionist, but record company budgets have to stand firm – even if it is your own record label…whatever you think of the song– it still looks great IMHO with all the visual tricks and multi dancer excess.

credits: Director - Mike Batt, Visuals/design/3d/compositing/grade - Stuart Fortune, Editor - Michael Dunne, Background artist - John Gosler

Greg Millar - Logo for Papal visit

2010-07-16T15:16:00.001+01:00

As you may remember Greg left Redbee Media at the end of last year, and has been busy freelancing since then.

When I caught up with him recently he told me about an unusual logo design project that got him a write up in the Daily Mail! – Not many motion designers I know can say that about themselves!

The reason for appealing to this bastion of middle England was because he successfully pitched to create a logo for the Pope's visit to Scotland in the autumn of 2010. It combines the Papal Cross and the St Andrew's cross with a quotation taken from an address given by Pope Benedict XVI at a seminary in New York in 2008.

They originally planned to use another logo created for the whole UK tour, but Greg approached them with the idea of using a separate image. He told me " I put forward my idea for the Papal logo speculatively to the organising committee, not thinking I would hear back. It's a huge honour, as a practising Catholic, I am delighted to be associated with the Holy Father's first Papal visit to Scotland since 1982"

I think it's a really clear piece of design - modern yet classy - shame that it will have only such a limited use.
What do you lot think?

Darren Agnew – Reed "Talent Without Boundaries"

2010-07-12T19:56:00.002+01:00

Darren Agnew has worked in many places - including Bruce Dunlop Associates and Framestore. He now has his own company and handles work as director,DOP, post supervision, as well as motion design. You can find out more here

This piece is called Talent Without Boundaries and is an unusual branding film in as much that it is all shot on location, in many cities around the World. (see if you can spot them all…). So although the style is fairly corporate, I think this film is quite an achievement in these days of the tiny budget – seems like Reed got them themselves a good bargain there.

Talent Without Boundaries from DADA on Vimeo.
Here's the official stuff...
Talent Without Boundaries was commissioned by Reed Global to celebrate 50 years as a leading UK recruitment company and to highlight their recent expansion into the global recruitment market. In this 2 minute video the three red dots of the Reed logo act as our airborne guide. Setting off from London, we journey through each of the culturally diverse destinations in which Reed has now established itself. Talent Without Boundaries was produced by DDP enterprises with David Dawson-Pick as producer and sound recordist, Darren Agnew as DOP and VFX designer, Adam Windmill as video editor, Lee Johnson as compositor, and Tom Tennant as 3D animator. The video was shot using a Sony Z1 on a combination of Manfrotto tripod and Manfrotto Figg Rigg. Compositing was on After Effects and 3D animation was done in Maya.

New Smalls short film competition

2010-07-06T14:40:00.001+01:00

I just got this - a call for entries for the Smalls Short Film Fest 2010. As it says in the blurb it has been going five years already and as it is organised by Devilfish a good number of motion design chaps and chapesses get involved too...

The Smalls is proud to introduce The Smalls Short Film Fest 2010, an exciting 2-day event where we present the very best in short film from around the world and celebrate both established and new talent within independent cinema.

Now in our 5th year as a curator and supporter of short film this is also our 5th year presenting our annual film showcase, which will be part of The Smalls Short Film Fest 2010 – and we are working to make this year’s celebration extra special. We will screen a wide selection of exceptional short films and provide filmmakers with unique opportunities to meet and make contact with directors, writers and producers from the film and television industries. Prepare to be inspired, amused, entertained and maybe even provoked by the extraordinary program of films and special sessions that we have planned.

The Smalls Short Film Fest 2010, which includes this year’s public showcase, will be held at The Gallery Soho (125 Charing Cross Rd) during The London Design Festival on September 22 – 23. The best entries will win The Smalls Short Film Fest 2010 and pick up a £1,000 cash prize.

We welcome all filmmakers around the world, to submit your films to The Smalls Short Film Fest 2010. Here are some of the things you need to know:

Deadline to submit: September 6th, 2010
Rules: There are no rules except one - that your film should be no more than 15min long
Genres: You can submit films in any genre
Language/Nationality: All nationalities and language films are welcome (please provide non-English speaking films with subtitles)
Fee: It is FREE to submit to The Smalls Short Film Fest 2010
Prizes: £1,000 will be awarded in two categories: BEST UNDER 5 MIN and BEST OVER 5 MIN.
Jury: Judges from film, TV and advertising including Monique Frumberg, Sundance Channel and James Cunningham, Academy Films.

To submit your film now, click here.

To contact us with any ideas or questions about The Smalls Film Fest 2010, please email filmfest@thesmalls.com. Or, please stop by www.thesmalls.com regularly for more information as will keep publishing news on the event.

Even if you do not submit something, it is always a good gathering of TV and film types.

Light give us a Disney XD Freestyle ident

2010-06-29T16:05:00.000+01:00

I recently met Ant James – creative director and owner of Light and Natasha Kalisz, his producer. You may know Light from their much talked about BBC4 idents or the Nationwide adverts with the Little Britain characters in. They cover a wide number of genres, including channel branding, broadcast promos, commercials and titles.
Here is one one of their latest projects for Disney called XD Freestyle. Disney XD has replaced the Jetix brand - their channel aimed at young males. I didn't know this before but there are national, European and world competitions for football freestyling and it's stars can fill big venues. In this piece we have the UK champ.

Disney xd freestyle from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

Ant also told me that he invented a new technique for filming this piece that has not been used anywhere else before. He was a bit reluctant to give exact details, but he explained that with regular 'timeslicing' you can only cover 120 degrees around any person/object. With his technology he can move 360 degrees around anything, and also do extreme slow motion. It looks impressive and once it becomes widely available I'm sure all the other directors can dream up some cool stuff to do with it.

Bravo new idents - Virgin Media

2010-06-21T17:28:00.002+01:00

As you may or may not have heard the Bravo channel has rebranded as of 24th May and so I went to see Mark Walters – head of design for the Virgin TV channels, to find out more.
Bravo is one of seven channels in the Virgin stable and has traditionally been associated with a more "laddish" image. With its new smoother & more sophisticated logo it has well and truly grown up.
Here are two of the five new idents - "Underpass" and "Liverpool1" - you can see all of them here

BRAVO Ident UnderPass from Mark One on Vimeo.

The more observant among you will have spotted the words "home of the brave" appearing in each ident - that and the more American style grading gives a hint as to where the brand is heading - more 'adult excitement' and less blokey. I find the idents quite mysterious - as there is no specific narrative in each one. They gave me the feeling I get when I watch the title sequences to modern sci fi movies - "it all seems ok now, but somethings about to happen..."That said they are very classy and I could watch them over and over without tiring of them.

BRAVO Ident Liverpool from Mark One on Vimeo.
At this point I have added an addenum to my original post, as I had no idea of the sterling work that had been put in by RedBee on this project. A brief message from Charlie Mawer soon put me right - this is what he said: the whole OSP from beautifully crafted new logo, (design and build) through type and colourway design and navigation system were the work of Red Bee, in particular of fabulous designer Amy Johnson, working into Creative Director Jane Fielder, with extra design from Richard Sutton and Simon Graham, and produced by Lisa Kelsey.
to see how this OSP works in situ, Mark also gave me this video...

BRAVO REBRAND OSP from Mark One on Vimeo.
Creative Director: Mark Walters; directed by John Dunn; producer Kylea Henderson; post Rushes.

It is also worth mentioning that Mark does some amazing work combating UK knife crime. Due to some unfortunate experiences in his own family he started to mentor teenagers in schools and give talk about the problems of knife use in the UK. He has used all his experience of design graphics and that of a pop promo director to make two anti knife crime films - a 12 minuter and a 4 minuter which should be out very soon - and I hope to be able to post them here when they are available. It never ceases to amaze me what design directors get up to in their spare time - good work fella!

Animatior vs animation - Alan Becker

2010-06-17T12:18:00.000+01:00

An animator faces his own animation in deadly combat. The battlefield? The Flash interface itself. A stick figure is created by an animator with the intent to torture. The stick figure drawn by the animator will be using everything he can find - the brush tool, the eraser tool - to get back at his tormentor. It's resourcefulness versus power. Who will win? You can find out yourself.  -- This took three long months.. i think it's worth it.

so starts the intro to this extraordinary piece of animation. What is even more far out is that he did it on his own in three months in 2006. I read that he graduated from High School in 2007 - so that would have made him 17! - (that's not confirmed - I tried to find an email for Alan Becker on line, to ask him a few questions, but I couldn't).
Below is a capture of the animation in video form, but as it is all coded in Flash, I urge to go to this link and see it in all it's unfuzzy glory

Animator vs. Animated from Jamie Hamilton on Vimeo.

Then blow me if he didn't spend five months making a sequel - Animator vs animation II - again the video is below, but check out this link for the real deal
animator vs. animation from dennis de castro on Vimeo.

Apparently he lives in Ohio and after he made his first meister werk he went off on missionary work around the US with his church for a year. Certainly an intriguing character, and sickeningly talented - I would love to see this idea of something on screen attacking its creator in broadcast graphics - it's the ultimate piece post-modern self-reference. Let me know if you have seen anything like this on TV already!
what's he doing now? here's a post of his on the Deviant Art website:I just recently did some art for an iPhone app called "License Plate Decoder". it's funny cuz i never do digital painting but that's what i did to make this. we really need people to try it out and give it good ratings.

Africa Community Project film by Shucks

2010-06-09T16:04:00.001+01:00

Ryan St James from Shucks just sent me this little film. As you can see it's not super high budget (I don't mean that in a mean way – I think it does the job very nicely) – but the main reason I want to post this is that the project it is promoting – The Africa Community Project – is doing something very worthwhile and at a realistic level. What I mean by this is that they are not trying to shower these African communities with aid, but instead set up a way they can make money using various craft skills – there are loads of examples on the website. Well done guys – a great project. Good to see that motion design can do some good in the world! I have put the press release below…
Africa Community Projects - Animation from Shucks on Vimeo.

WE believe that people and the environment should be treated with respect. This is why we are partners with the UN’s International Trade Centre, an organisation that links us to marginalised groups of artisans working with natural or recycled materials in Africa. Throughout the entire ‘AFRICA COMMUNITY PROJECTS’ range we have tried to use only natural, organic or recycled material where possible and have always used environmentally friendly production methods to reduce our carbon footprint. As you can see we have really focused on traditional hand skills as they promote livelihoods and help communities to sustain themselves.   We strongly believe that together - united - we can help to make poverty a thing of the past.

E&P Associates - Greenwich 710 and Black Sheep

2010-06-03T16:35:00.001+01:00

Well apart from the arrival of a new baby my esteemed colleague Yaniv, we have had another sort of delivery… I just got this in from Rob Machin of E&P Associates – a new BBC Arabic TV brand called 'Greenwich 710' which is a venture which brings together multi-media (eg TV, twitter, blogs) platforms, based on the creative concept of “What's on your mind' – hence the brain motif with various content platforms inside. There is a teaser for this here

Rob told me " The interactive TV content encourages you to make the programs you watch." - known as a Wikiprogram for TV - " A range a print, web and IPTV assets were created to promote and maintain the flow of content." This idea of convergence has been around for a while now, but I have notice that only recently have more of this type of project has been submitted by motion graphics for this blog, by way of "real world" examples. I'll be featuring a post on a company who specializes in this area in a week or so. Also I recently mentioned that Turquoise were already branding for companies across a number of media.

BBC Arabic ident from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.
Creative director Rob Machin, animation: Mat Stevens of Golden Sq.
presenter: Hosam El Sokkari

E&PA have also just finished another project called 'Black Sheep Runs Business' which is a new Thai based TV program that inspires people to think differently, when it comes to growing commercial opportunities. This new perspective motivates the viewer to develop more lateral ways of entrepreneurial thinking.

Black Sheep Titles from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.
creative director: Rob Machin; animation and aftereffects Joe Lovelock from Disqo

See No Evil Mograph get together 01/06/10

2010-05-26T11:01:00.000+01:00

Just to let you know there is another blockbusting See No Evil bi-monthly get together happening Tuesday next week.

They have Wyld Stallyons in attendance. As well as working with the usual big name clients, their work has started to sneak into Hollywood showing up in recent comic caper, Kick-Ass. Hear what they have to say along with an opportunity to ask questions!

As usual we'll have lovely DVDs and prizes from the lovely people at Stash Magazine!

The event is FREE so you've no excuse for not coming!

on 1st June 7.00pm at Kick Bar in Shoreditch.

Jon Yeo - Sky ident king!

2010-05-24T10:41:00.002+01:00

I had a very interesting chat with Jon Yeo - the man behind all the Sky channels' branding the other day. I know it's been around for a couple of years now, but I wasn't doing this blog then, so I never got the story.
Jon has been at Sky Creative for 12 years, and in 2008 he was asked to come up with a new branding that incorporated the then new sky 2 and 3 channels. He came up with the idea that each channel was represented by a different colour and a different state of matter – 1 is glass, 2 liquid and 3 gas(or "particulate matter" in his words). With the concept in place he was charged with the design, direction and production of the job – not many people get to see a job all the way through like that... Much of the clever animation was developed at MPC over a period of many months.
Here are a couple of some more recent idents he did. The original style of idents proved to be very well received, and consequently special idents were commissioned to support some of Sky's flagship shows.
Sky 1 Fringe ident

Sky 1 Ident: "Fringe" from Jon Yeo on Vimeo.

VFX Supervisor: Dave Spare, 3D VFX Team: Dave Spare, Doug Kennedy, Darren Cullis, Dave Sedgewick, 2D VFX Team: Mark Blackwood, Pete Moore  Producer: Sharon Kersley, Brand Concept & Design: Jon Yeo, Ident Concept: Billy Chan & Jon Yeo, Creative Director: Andi Granger, Director: Jon Yeo
Sky1 24 ident
Sky 1 Ident: "24" from Jon Yeo on Vimeo.

CGI: Lawrence Pankhurst, Tim Kilgour , VFX: Mark Blackwood , Creative Director: Andi Granger , Producer: Sharon Kersley , Director: Jon Yeo

In fact such is Jon's fascination with solving visual and design conundrums that he also has a side career as a commercials director – which he does in his holiday time – and is represented by Home Corp – that's got to make him one of the hardest working directors I've ever met! You can see more on his Vimeo channel or his website. No doubt you'll see more from him on the "World of Idents" soon...

Turquoise - 99 and Hadeeth Al Jasmine

2010-05-18T12:13:00.001+01:00

We have just completed a couple of jobs for Turquoise – and as they are a canny company I thought I should tell you a bit more. I met with Gareth Mapp and Linda Garcia-Bowles to find out what's occuring.
Like many companies, they see themselves as a branding agency, but what is different is that they are not only involved in broadcast graphics and identities for TV broadcasters – they also work with the telecoms brands who are knee deep in mobile telephony and iPTV. Which when you consider the rise in importance of mobile handsets as mini computers and TV being watched through the internet, seems like a smart move. It's also worth mentioning that they have not one but three blogs - I'm getting blog envy just thinking about it!

Since their inception in 2002 they have always has strong ties with a lot of Middle Eastern clients, and have rebranded STV1 – Saudi's equivalent to BBC1. Gareth opined that the Middle Eastern market has been good to them because their budgets have not dropped as much as elsewhere, there are more and channels in that region than before and that the broadcasters have not developed in-house creative services to a high degree.

Hadeeth Al Jasmine from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

Turquoise have about 20 designers onboard and for their clients they can sort out the logo, the idents, the print, the website, internal creative systems, commercials as well as the sets for the shows.

These two jobs – essentially title sequences for "Hadeeth Al Jasmine" (Jasmine Talk – a sort of "Loose Women" equivalent) and "99" – a consumer affairs program on Saudi's STV channel. There are a couple things that interest me about these jobs. Firstly I think designer/director Elie Zaccour has done a great job of making both these sequences classy and modern (in fact much more cool than I would imagine they would allow on Saudi daytime TV!) .
99 opener from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.
Secondly you will notice that both sequences are very abstract – in particular the Hadeeth Al Jasmine. As we know, the Saudis are very strict on issues of female emancipation and for them it is already fairly controversial to have a program hosted entirely by women – so they could not been seen to get too racy in the titles by showing any.
Musically – they are both fairly traditional, I'll grant you, but that was what the brief required. With a change of music to something more contemporary and electro I could see the Hadeeth Al Jasmine on late night channel 4…

MTV spots from Proud

2010-05-11T10:58:00.000+01:00

Some more interesting work from Proud just in. MTV approached them to create a brand package of 5 idents for MTV Shows.
Roger Whittlesea , producer, told me "Visually we wanted to develop a strong, clean illustrative style that originated in 2D, but that we would then animate in 3D.  The early part of the creative process was spent coming up with lists of simple graphic icons that could be seen as reflective of the MTV Shows tone of voice, without being too programme specific.  We then took this long list into a more visual phase of creative development; seeking to hone and define the illustration style. At the same time we focussed on limiting the colour palette to five main colours, in order to hold the five spots together.
  
MTV Shows Hotdog Ident from Proud Creative on Vimeo.

MTV Shows Pump Ident from Proud Creative on Vimeo.

"Early in the process we hooked up with the guys at Bait- and throughout the process they were constantly taking our illustrations into 3D and testing out how we would develop the look and feel.  Once we'd got sign-off of illustration style, colour palette and had a general consensus about what icons were going to work for us we starting to storyboard the five spots, working on interesting transitions and juxtapositions. 
The spots were then animated in Maya 3D, but left with a relatively flat graphic look with the subtle use of reflections. The whole project was four months from brief to delivery"

MTV Shows X-ray Ident from Proud Creative on Vimeo.

Creative Director:Dan Witchell, Producer: Roger Whittlesea, 3D styling and animation: The Bait

Mia Doi Todd "Open Your Heart" – directed by Michel Gondry

2010-05-06T16:06:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to share the latest Michel Gondry video with you. We thought that, while maybe not his best, did show a certain amount of ingenuity, on a relatively low budget.

Mia Doi Todd "Open Your Heart" dir. Michel Gondry from Viewers Like You on Vimeo.

We were also laughing because we wondered how long it would take for someone to use the idea for a Barclays ad or an ident of some sort – it has a very graphic quality, yet still uses lots of people and lots of colour – just the kind of thing that marketing departments like to put in their briefs! (along with words like "dramatic", "intensify" and "authentic"…)
What I liked about it personally is that down to earth ideas can still work in this age of ultra SFX. Must have cost a bit to get all the two-sided shirts sorted though…
Apparently it took him several years to conceptualize so many dancers – and it shows, I think, that a lot of care was taken. This definitely doesn’t feel like a low budget student film.
The music was produced and arranged by long-time friend and collaborator, Jon Brion and the video features the Riverside Community College Marching Band.
Now you've seen it – try to forget it, and when ITV1 come-a-knocking for a rebrand – resist the urge…

Viasat - Nature & Crime channels

2010-04-30T16:28:00.002+01:00

If I was to say to you that I recently visited a TV network with, 16 free to air channels, 20 subscription channels and 2 Video On Demand channels broadcasting to 27 countries – mainly in Scandanavia and the Baltic regions, you would not imagine that this would be situated in a very ordinary office block situated just North of Heathrow in Middlesex.

Yet Viasat, owned by Modern Times Group, does just that. I am told that although it doesn’t broadcast any of its channels in the UK, it is located here because of our more relaxed rules about advertising – if it originates in the UK, then it counts as a UK broadcast. Even more incredibly they only have an average of 6 graphic designers, and 30 promo producers working at any one time. As I was shown around by Creative Director Marta Moe, I realised this is an example of amazing efficiency.

She also told me that they hardly ever use UK- based design companies for their re-brands. A recent example is the one I have for you here. SImon Mitchell, one of the other creative directors, has just sent me this. They have just launched brand new crime and nature channels (called rather sensibly "Crime" and Nature"…) with idents for both supplied by Dream On in Paris.

Viasat Crime idents - Body & Cop from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

What I like about these is that both of the central ideas for each are incredibly simple, but very classily delivered. None of the images for the Crime sequences – dead bodies, autopsy equipt etc is particularly original, but with the slow, chilling piano track and the dramatic lighting it left an impression with me after it had finished.
Via Sat Nature Channel dog & Butterfly idents from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

The same goes for Nature – no animal surprises here, but a good simple execution. A case of less is more, I think – this also bodes well for the budgets of all these things, no doubt. Sorry, but I do not have any credits for these.
Other design houses they have used recently include DMC in Berlin. Marta explained that there is a certain Scandinavian design aesthetic that they look for (clean lines etc), and that designers in the UK do not 'get'. Well to me this sounds like a summons to all you British companies! Is there anyone out there with experience of motion design work with a Northern European feel who thinks they can rise to the challenge…?
Another thing all you networks should take note of is that Viasat have their own You Tube channel that they post their promos on to – I think this is a great way for employees to keep up with what others in the organisation are doing, as well as letting outsiders see what they would not be able to see because they have no access to the broadcast – go to http://www.youtube.com/user/fortheloveofpromos.

Have a good bank holiday everyone!

Virgin Shorts - Blac Ionica & Devilfish

2010-04-26T15:21:00.000+01:00

Just got this in from the boys at Blac Ionica. Seems to be some fairly heavy conceptual mind trickery going on. I spoke to Chris Strong to find out the score. He explained: The project is a collaboration between them and Devilfish. The shards of light come from the Virgin Shorts branding – they wanted to make it filmic – with a nod to Kubrick. Virgin wanted to put text onscreen but Blac Ionica convinced them not to.
Virgin Media Shorts 2010 from Blac Ionica on Vimeo.

What is clear is that they managed to make it look very cool despite the tiny budget they had to work with.
There is a VO that explains more about the competition, but as this is the "director's cut" they decided to leave it off. Devilfish & BI wanted a VO by Kevin Spacey, but he was not available. The final version is voiced by Lauren Laverne.
Sound design by Blac Ionica.

Rounds by James Hutchinson

2010-04-20T15:03:00.002+01:00

James Hutchinson (TV graphics designer and video artist.)recently told me about a non TV project that he did at the end of last year. Called "Rounds", it is an video installation projected on a 360 degree screen (see vid below). After castigating him for not telling me sooner (!), he told me that he was trying to challenge the traditional viewing environment by immersing the audience in a circular cinematic world of beautiful images. (soundtrack composed by audio artist Dan Hayhurst)
Rounds from james hutchinson on Vimeo.

Apart from the, I think, beautifuI images in the films, I was curious as to how he projected it, using just two computers. I understand the idea of video cards that support two screens, but couldn't work out how he synced it all. He told me "I used a program that a guy wrote in the states called 'multiserver', which makes one computer the server and the other the client. You can load as many clients as you need using the ip addresses from the computer, it then takes the timestamp from the QuickTime and aims to keep them in sync."

Here's a bit from the press release:
In a society over stimulated by competing demands, our senses engage in a power struggle to trigger the brain’s perception and ordering of our individual worlds. ROUNDS dissects the circularity of thoughts and emotions of our human existence. The circle itself permeates the work, from the physical viewing platform, through the looping nature of both sound and image, to the circular stem of the visual elements.
Hutchinson’s video work is characterised by a rich and multi-layered style of imagery and his experimentation with delivery. He draws from a lush palette of techniques including stop-frame animation, typography, motion-graphics, animation and traditionally filmed footage. There is a consistent determination to extend the viewing experience and participation of his audience.
Personally I think it's great that so many motionographers are persueing their artistic dreams alongside their paid TV work – it helps keep the industry fresh and vibrant.
ROUNDS was made possible by the Screen Innovation Production Fund, a partnership between Creative New Zealand and the New Zealand Film Commission.

See No Evil - 1st Birthday get together

2010-04-07T17:19:00.001+01:00

See No Evil - the bi-monthly motionographic get together is having a first birthday bash which promises to be a really good one.
Venue Kick Bar - time - from 7pm Tues April 13th 2010

Some great speakers: the award winning director team Nick Losse and Steve
Dalton AKA Ubik from London's Not To Scale.

As Ubik Nick & Steve have worked with the likes of Ogilvy, Grey London, Wieden + Kennedy, BBH and MTV as well as winning the much coveted British Television Advertising Craft Award for best Best Animation.

As well as that Mike & Tim from Man vs Machine As featured in last week's post ... this multi-disciplinary and multi-national team of creative minds working with an eclectic range of clients, from international TV networks to the local record shop. Man vs Machine’s work has gained global acclaim, regularly featuring in Global DVD magazine Stash and design festivals, in 2009 their brand film for architecture firm ‘Space’ was selected
as a world showcasepiece for the BDA Promax conference in New York.

If that wasn't enough it has moved to a new more sympathetic venue - The Kick bar in Shoreditch, which has room for many more people and a much better selection of drinks (yay!)
Finally there is some input from Adobe - they will be there to thought they would come and show us all the lovely new features on their Creative Suite 5 which we'll inevitably be using in the not too distant future. they have a spanking new copy of Adobe After Effects CS5 to give away AND a whole host of goodies from the lovely people at Stash Magazine to give away.

Oh and don't forget to check out the See No Evil jobs pages on their website - God they are good to us! -

Man Vs Machine

2010-03-31T11:26:00.001+01:00

Just got some very classy bits of work through from John Alderson at Man vs Machine, based in Shoreditch, London. He has been in business for three years as MvsM, with Tim Swift, his partner – and I think they form part of a new powerful set of motion graphics companies that reside in the East end of London – along with Kemistry, Proud, Blac Ionica and Dixon Baxi….

They have between five and eight designers/animators beavering away for them at any one time and apart from broadcast graphics they also tackle commercials and web projects. Mike said that what they do is very much informed by the technical possibilities of what you can do with the latest batch of softwares – and their mastery of those gives rise to their "dynamic animation" style.

Here are a couple of recent examples of their work. The first is an animated logo for a Japanese photography & film publication called "Printed". Mike said the nice thing about this job was that they were given a completely open brief as to what to do. The smoke effects were created using "Krakatoa", in collaboration with a Lithuanian animator - Rimantas Lukavicius at KORB. To me it looks beautiful – what I imagine a magic spell would look like if you could film it…

MvsM / Printed / Ident from ManvsMachine on Vimeo.

Their other recent job is an Easter identity for BT Vision – (VOD & TV service). MvsM did a christmas version for them recently which was quite busy, visually. This time they paired it down, used more of a "craft" feel (using Maya) and a warm grade. Then end result is very classy, I think – sticking to the MvsM watchwords of "cool but accessible". I like the slightly off-kilter sound design and the way the egg animates - it reminds me of some eastern european animation - strangely child-like and a bit odd. Apparently the client was fairly easy going and agreed to their ideas – where do you get these clients, Mike? – I want some like that….

MvsM / BT Vision / Easter from ManvsMachine on Vimeo.

Amanita Design - Czech out this beautiful design style

2010-03-23T15:07:00.001Z

This time I want to tell you about another non TV related design house - Amanita Design. Normally I don't pay too much attention to what games my daughter is playing as they normally look fairly feeble. When she started playing Samorost, my eyes nearly fell out of my sockets. Someone had managed to combine my love of close up nature photography and the wierdness and humour of Jan Svankmajer and made a game from it. Most game houses are either trying to look like Mario Brothers or going for something as close to reality as possible. These guys take backgrounds and textures from real life and create whole new worlds, in my opinion a great combination of 2Dand 3D in Flash, very accessible characters, but also unlike anything else I have seen.

It seems like they are really a design collective that can do many things, but have happened to become famous for their games.
You should also check out Vaclav Blin's music video for a Czech oompah band called "Kamil Jasmin". It's all done in flash,so, low budget - I would love to see something like this on British TV....

All their games are "point and click", so no skill is required to play, what it is not at all obvious what the next thing you have to do is. Their off-kilter train of thought is half of the charm of these people.

Samarost has been around since they started in 2003 - but they have a (relatively) new game called Machinarium which is their first full length game. By the way all of these have free demo versions if you want to find out more. If you don't have the patience to play there are many images available in places like Photobucket

There is also a great video in the "Samorost" style they did a a music video - see it here.
Right - that's enough waxing on from me - I hope some of you find this as inspiring as I do....

Christoph Niemann - I love this guy!

2010-03-17T16:04:00.001Z

Every now and again I stray away from what's going on in broadcast graphics - this time I found out about this graphic artist called Christoph Niemann from a link my brother sent me. He's in a totally un-media related industry, so I was quite surprised when he sent me something so tasteful.

Anyway the original link was to this blog that had all these mad imaginary maps that he had done - under the name of Abstract City.

after that I had a look around his site and saw that he is definitely not a one-trick pony - he's obviously been around for ages, and there is way too much of his stuff to post all of it here. Check out "gallery 6" and you will see all sorts of everyday stuff that he has drawn with a twist - one of my favourites is the 'Periodic Table of Metaphors" and the "art director/illustrator" translation table (below) that gives a translation of what they are really saying down the phone - sound familiar with any of you lot?

He's done a few simple animations, but no broadcast work that I can see. Turns out he's just moved to Berlin - If I ran a graphic design company I would definitely try and get him involved in some TV branding - he's got a great sense of humour and a really striking style.

The blurb on the New York Times blog says he has done lots of covers for The New Yorker, Newsweek, Wired, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration. His work has won numerous awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Art Directors Club and American Illustration. His Web site is christophniemann.com.

ITV News revamp by BDA

2010-03-04T11:53:00.003Z

I saw that ITV had re-branded their news service at the end of last year – and prompted by the press release which said that the iconic "bongs" had disappeared in the title sequence I decided to find out more.

To do this I met with creative director Mark Hobbins and iconic set designer Simon Jago (News sets for BBC, C4, and Sky) at Bruce Dunlop Associates (BDA).
Here is a compilation of all the new stuff - intros/outros etc see what you think...

Mark told me that the rebrand came from the desire to align the ITV News to that of ITV1. As anyone who has ever watched ITV1 knows it is very much a family entertainment channel. The brief was to give the news a more "entertainment" feel – a bit more theatre. The other thing that differentiates the ITV service is that it has a more emotional connection with the audience and the way it reports the news.

Finally I found out that the lack of "bongs" was to take it away from being so London centric and to take it away from its previous heady arrival at Big Ben – as it was at the end of the old sequence. As far as I can tell there are still plenty of 'bongs' as they read out the headlines - so I'm not sure what all this talk about them disappearing is about.

Simon's job as set designer was to give it the right feel when you see the news readers in the studio. What you may not realise is that it is all the backgrounds are virtual and that it is entirely shot against green screen.

The idea of the sequence is that the viewer is taken seamless from exterior to interior and from talking to both of them there was a lot of experimentation to banish reflections on surfaces. Something that didn't occur to me – any reflections will be that of the green screen – which will then start to key in as part of the virtual background. I have to say they have done a great job of the transition from graphic environment to the studio. The panels with the pictures from the days breaking stories reminds me of taking a trip through an art gallery at high speed - Nan Goldin style!

I'm also going to post the old version here so you can compare and contrast - I have to say the set seems very old fashioned next to the new one - anyone care to comment? I think they've done a great job of updating the music as well - having pitched on ITN news rebrands in the past, I know it is a very tricky brief.

They were also keen to stress the input of Kojo Boateng and Ian White at ITN who collaborated with some clever software that allows them to insert pictures of breaking news stories live into the title sequence minutes before they go on air – which is an innovation that no one else has apparently.

The result of this 3 months of development? ITV news viewing figures have increased already and are almost matching those of the BBC.

BDA have also revamped the "Tonight" program, which you can watch here

Pitching, pitching and more pitching...

2010-02-21T11:05:00.001Z

Pitching – reminds me of when I used to play Risk as a kid – if you win you are on top of the world and you go round punching the air. You lose – you wonder why you invested so much time playing only to be trounced by your enemies and come away with nothing.

As a lot of designers and creatives I know are in "pitch hell" at the moment I thought I would do a quick informal survey to find out what is going on, and get some philosophies on the pitching process.

In the course of my research I found out: that 22 companies were invited to pitch for Den, RTÉ's children’s channel. Even more bizarrely they were all asked to arrive at the same hotel on the same day to present their work - some had flown in from the States for the occasion, and by all accounts it was standing room only. The person who commissioned the pitch (no names!) later had the good manners to be embarrassed about it and blamed his bosses for the confusion.

I was also told of an occasion when a leading British branding company was asked to pitch on one of the A&E channels in the US. They thought that they had come up with a great idea and flew over there to present. After 30 seconds they were asked to leave because their treatment involved timeslice and that had already been done to death in the States at that point.

I also found out that in 1986 the three leading London Graphics companies at the time were offered £60,000 just to pitch for the BBC1 & 2 idents by Alan Yentob. It went to Lambie Nairn that time, but I'm sure the others were not complaining….

So, is pitching a genuine opportunity for new work and a chance to exercise your creativity, or is it just a chance for clients to garner free thinking and ideas from top professionals? I think the answer is both – depending on who is asking you to do the work. From asking around I have heard about "ghost pitches" – where several companies are asked to pitch, but the client knows who they want to do the job before hand – they just have to show their bosses that they are going through a "fair" pitch process!

I have heard that in the US that there are budgets for pitching. – we all know that in Europe and the Middle East and most other places there are not. Several people I asked said that if a client could at least offer a "token" amount of money, then people would be so much more motivated psychologically - if you are busy you will have to take a day or days out to work on the ideas and put the storyboards together, you could at least hire a freelancer to cover your work whilst you work on the new ideas.

One company summed it up thus: the submission you give for a Pitch answers the wrong question . In order to win the job you have to answer the question "what is the best way to impress the people in the room at the time". This may not be the same answer to the question "What is best for the brand?" If this is true then a pitch is simply a one-off piece of theatre written for a one off performance to a very small number of people. It may not be a break through piece of brand thinking.

What has changed for certain is that now everyone has access to After Effects and Apple G5s – the quality of the visuals have too look a lot better than they used to. I remember when I started out all pitches were delivered as hand drawn story boards! Now the norm is very sophisticated still frames and often some sort of moving visuals arrive for the client to consider.

Does extra sophistication mean bigger budgets? After a quick straw poll of ident producers I found out that in the year 2000 the budget for a large branding project would have been £1million, a medium size project £600,000 and a small one £250,000. The current budget for a big project? Approx £150,000!

Unfortunately there can be no set conclusions to this process – whether you take on a pitch can depend on how busy you are (better to be doing something rather than nothing, right?), how cool the job is (there's no money in it, but it will look good on the reel…), and how many others are pitching with you.

The only thing you can do is temper your expectations and ask as many questions as possible about the likes and dislikes of the client (maybe they hate the colour red, or the timeslice technique…)and go into it with your eyes open. The sad thing is that the unpaid pitch makes it more difficult for all designers to carry on, and that the clients will only realise that this resource has been eroded when it is too late. If only we could get a bunch of the top companies together to lobby for minimal funding of pitches - it would do the industry a world of good both psychologically and financially.

sorry - got to go, my phone is ringing, and there's a pitch coming in...

Many thanks to people at Dare, Blac Ionica, Kemistry, Redbee, Brian Eley and James Roberts for contributing to this post

Discovery Turbo rebrand

2010-02-09T17:21:00.002Z

Well as promised I said I would let you know about some of the projects that were happening in December, that I didn't have time to write about so far. Discovery Turbo is their "male" transport orientated channel which they decided to refresh in December 2009. The brief was to make eight new idents using a very graphic solution, and an unusual audio idea.

Discovery Turbo - Steam Train from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

Kam Bhogal, one of the designers explained to me:
The idea came from design research into road signage and how the use of navigation graphics are shown as an easily readable system. This lead onto the idea of using a font called 'Transport' created by designers Margaret Calvert & Jock Kinneir for UK motorways.

The font was personalised by creating graphic lines splitting the letter forms to create modular components much like the idea of an engine. The graphic elements of the logo are then interpreted according to the design, look and sound of the specific engine/vehicle for each of the idents. The usage of the font appears across all the channel hinting at the idea of signage and petrol-headed culture.

Visually the graphics remind me of the angular shapes that the Futurists used in Italy in the early part of the 20th Century. They wanted to herald a new vision for the speed of the modern world. I think it's great to see something so pure on TV!
Sonically – as you will hear by viewing the examples, what you hear is the start and rev of a single engine in each ident. All the engines from motor bikes, Ferraris and even a Bell Huey helicopter were especially recorded by Tim Scott for the job. They were then passed to us for shaping and mixing to fit with the picture.
Discovery Turbo - Bellhuey from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

At this point I should mention our team at Shriek worked on the audio for these spots. Both Yaniv Fridel & Chris Deligiannis put their mixing and sound design skills forward to complete this project in the few weeks we had available. It is quite unusual to be so pure sonically - as often there is a mix of music and sound design for most idents. However the idea was that the audience is very focussed for the channel, so they can appreciate this level of single mindedness.You can also see them featured in Creative Review. - with lots of lively discussion!
Credits:
Creatives: Kam Bhogal, Matt Beese, Callum Parish, Cassiano Prado, Luc Janin. VP: Federico Gaggio, Creative Director: Robin Garnett, Producer Bruce Meier

See No Evil meeting 2nd Feb 2010

2010-01-26T17:50:00.000Z

By now you will lnow I am a supporter of the See No Evil bi - monthly gathering - a get together of graphic designers, animators, and motionographers in general.

For the first See No Evil of the year, they have none other than McBess & Simon Landrein. The director super duo from "The Mill" giving a talk.

There is also the usual DVDs to give away, courtesy of the lovely folk at Stash Magazine.

Details: NEW DATE AND ADDRESS

When: Tuesday 2nd February 7:00pm doors open (talk starts at 8:30)

Where: Bar Kick, 127 Shoreditch High Street, London, E1 6JE (near tube Liverpool St/ Old Street)

BBC HD re-brand– See more, experience more

2010-01-22T14:07:00.001Z

As you may or may not know the BBC HD channel has recently rebranded . On Saturday 12th Dec 2009 – the latest Winter ident for the HD channel went on air. This is called "Carousel". A month or so before the channel had a complete re-brand with five new idents.

The feeling was the old idents were appealing to a more technology conscious viewer. Now that the whole HD format is a bit more democratic and within the reach of more families, the idea was to highlight the heightened experience that high definition can give you, but put this in an ordinary everyday setting so as to get everybody a bit more engaged.

BBC HD "Carousel" from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

In the "Carousel" example I have put here some children are pushing a roundabout in a playground. As it gets up to speed it is seen through the "diamond moment" (ie how you see it if you were watching in HD) and the scene morphs in to the same children riding a full blown carousel. In the other example below a cat moves in to chase some pigeons, then just at the moment that the action happens a giant diamond shape animates on and inside it there is a much more intense version of what is going on in real life – in this case the cat turns into a lion. A moment later everything is back to normal and the logo reveals - you get the idea.

Personally speaking I like it when there are people featured in the "family" type idents – for years there have only ever been graphics-based solutions to, so a few humans in everyday situations cannot do any harm! As always it will be interesting to see if the general public will see it this way, or whether these kind of things only get the attention of various marketing and creative types…let me know what you think – good or bad. I am told by people at Redbee that this new branding has gone down very well (assuming you can view it...)
BBC HD "Lion" from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

All I know is that I went into several TV shops recently and it seems that the BBC supply a loop of HD programming to show off this new format – and all the clips have these HD idents playing inbetween them – Yay! We are famous in TV retailers. But not anywhere else…

Creative Director: Ian Wormleighton, Director: Matt Lossasso, Creative: Amy Johnson, Music: Shriek

Foreign Office - both graphics and film....

2010-01-14T17:22:00.002Z

Well another new year and another production company that I've only just discovered. Sean Simone cheekily mailed me to know why Foreign Office hadn't been mentioned on my blog yet – so naturally I had to find out more!

Foreign Office are comprised of three designer/directors – Matteo Manzini, Frederick Nordbeck and Sonia Ortiz-alcon – all of them non-British nationals – hence the name of the company. They are all ex- Central St Martin's students with a strong sense of typography. Unsurprisingly this had led them to have a strong portfolio in feature film titles. They did the end sequence for Harry Potter's Half Blood Prince (below) as well as work with Stephen Frears' "The Queen" and "Cheri".

Harry Potter end credits Foreign Office from Foreign Office on Vimeo.

I found this very interesting – another example of a company who is happy to take on most motion graphic challenges, regardless of media, but who have found themselves a cool niche that not many other companies are persueing.

Sean told me that when a project comes in, all the directors collaborate on the ideas and then one of them will take the lead. From what I have seen they are very adept at mixing live action and animation. Apart from film work they have worked on the Discovery Shed idents with Devilfish, mobile content with MTV, a project called Formula One Rocks – which they designed everything from print flyers, T-Shirts, the web site as well as the TV ident. They received a BAFTA in 2008 for their work on the environmental movie "The Big Green Thing".

Here's an example of something they have done for K-Swiss/MTV
K-swiss MTV
MTV K-Swiss Foreign Office from Foreign Office on Vimeo.

So it seems like they have a lot of feathers in their cap, and are definitely one to watch…. – will you stamp my visa now guys?

Dunning Penney Jones

2010-01-05T17:07:00.001Z

I got this press release on Christmas eve - hence a little bit tardy in the announcing:

This is to let you know that Dunning Eley Jones is now closed for Christmas. We will come back in the New Year with a new name : Dunning Penney Jones.

Matt Penney, Creative Director and part of the management team became an equal partner to Marcus Jones and Liz Dunning earlier this year. We want our name to reflect the principals behind our business. His name replaces that of Brian Eley who left in March 2009.

They have also done a very tasteful rebrand of one of the free to air Italian News Corp channels called Cielo. They created a new brand,logotype and on and off screen identity. They also produced key items for the publicity and PRevent as well as images for the launch advertising campaign.

Cielo Idents from Dunning Eley Jones on Vimeo.
you can check out the rest of the campaign here

Welcome two-oh-one-oh

2010-01-04T17:52:00.000Z

Hello - first day back at the computer for a while - cautiously sticking my head above the parapet to see what the new year looks like. I couldn't find much new stuff to get excited about in the schedules with the exception of Outnumbered and the Dr Who two-parter - what did you think? If I had more resources I would have loved to have done a review of all the christmas idents - I went to the TV Room site to check if they have posted them up yet, but they havn't - still you can always amuse yourself with a quick peak at all the other Christmas branding from yesteryear.

Nevermind Jan 2010 - a lot went on in Dec 2009 that went unreported - Discovery re-launced their Turbo channel with a new look, BBC HD put another ident on air (I didn't cover the first 5, so I will try and post them up as well), and the Q channel had an ident update as well (Q is part of the Bauer Media netwoork which includes 4music, Smash Hits, Magic, Kiss, Kerrang and The Box). As soon as I have moving images on these I will stick them up. For a truly global round up of idents from last year you could worse than go to Denny Tu's blog - always a pleasure to peruse.

Just wanted to say a big thank you for all the encouragement I have had during my first year of blog-dom. It has been a great journey so far and great fun meeting all kinds of new people. Here's to some bigger budgets in the following 12 months....

4 Creative - dedicated website

2009-12-14T15:57:00.000Z

4 Creative have always been a mighty creative powerhouse – responsible for many iconic moments in TV design. For many years there was "4Creative services" – serving mainly the C4 network and "4Creative" a more independent outfit – that had many outside clients. These two have merged in the last few months and now reside within the C4 building itself.

Today there are anywhere between 10 and 20 designer directors who handle over 1200 TV spots a year, all of the through-the-line advertising output for Channel 4, Film4, More4, E4 and even the odd spot for 4Music. It includes digital campaigns, brand identity work, publishing, radio, product design and ambient. According to their new website: where the opportunity’s right we are very keen to work with other like-minded people outside the Channel – be it direct to client or in partnership with an agency.

Through our work creating music for idents on the 4Music channel, I spoke to Phil Lind, one of the creative directors recently and he said that it worked much better now. He said the image is a little less "boutique but they do not have to pay for the cost of a second building, and communication between all the creatives and their producers is seamless now. Here are a couple of the idents we did the music for - there were four in all.

4music ident- Office from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

4Music ident - launderette from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

Anyway – go and check out their new dedicated website for a veritable bonanza of creative thinking and execution…. One of my personal faves is the vending machine full of celebrities that they created to advertise 4 On Demand. Personally I think that there is a theme running through a lot of their work - that of taking reality (often a slightly gritty one) and twisting it in some way. I am a big fan of what they have done for British TV - flying the "alternative" flag, when so often the other channels push out a lot of predictable stuff.

The Brief - can you take it?

2009-12-04T10:23:00.000Z

I'm posting this for two reasons – firstly because I think this is a very good satire of the creative brief in our industry. Obviously not ALL clients are like this, but there are a few who are not far off.

Secondly this whole film is made with this extraordinary software made by Xtranormal. Basically the software provides templates for CGI backgrounds, and actors and their voices. The user types what they want the actors to say (obviously in this film they did not know how to pronounce "promo", but that can make it even funnier), and marks out the position of the actors and gets them to move from one spot to another. For the effort put in, the result is amazing.

I havn't made a film for myself yet as it is a windows only platform – but it looks like a lot of fun for those who don't make moving images for a living. I'm waiting for the first person to make a TV trail, or an ident with this software – great way to put more of the budget in your pocket! Let me know if you see any other good examples of the genre…

Andre Ferezini & MTV Brazil

2009-11-27T13:56:00.002Z

A very nice thing happened recently - Andre Ferezini, a director based in Sao Paulo, contacted me to ask if I wanted to put his latest ident for MTV on my blog. Firstly nice to know that the voice of Uncle Shriek has such a global reach and secondly this was certainly no ordinary ident.
Andre, who wrote, directed and edited this project conceived the ident as something like a scene from a feature film – the full length version is 1'30". He said that he sort of made it and then hoped that MTV Brazil would be on board (they were).

There are obvious references to Pan's Labyrinth ( he even acknowledges this in the 'making of' film) and (I think) Tim Burton. I just think that it's incredible that in this day and age of everything getting shorter that he got away with extending the ultimate type of short-form TV. I asked him about the jumbo size of this ident and he said:

"My idea was to have something completely different from what I usually see on MTV. Besides the 1'30'' version, there are shorter edits of the film and all are aired in MTV Brazil. I have been amazed by the reception, and even during day-hours you can see the 1'30'' version on air. The whole project is something very personal - I only approached MTV in the final stage of production. There was even risk of MTV deciding not to air the material. But I was pretty confident of the quality of the work and knew that even if MTV Brazil did not accept it, other MTV stations around the globe would be interested in it.

We did not have financial support, so, this is a REALLY REALLY REALLY low budget film, believe me - it was made possible because I invited the best professionals who work with me in commercials and other commissioned films and they all entered the project because they believed in the concept and my vision."
There are, as you would imagine, a very long list of credits, so I'm afraid I will have to shrink the list a bit – if anyone wants the full thing then get in touch and I will supply more details

Credits
Cinematography - Chris Melo, Rodrigo Toledo
Production Director - Simone Drehmer
Production Designer - Lilian Coelho
Visual Effects - Vagalume Studios
Effects Supervisor - Heber Conde
Art Concept - Galdino Sa
3D Artists - Heber Conde, Bruno "Hakk" Coimbra, Maurício Alvarenga, Yohann Da Geb, Felipe Ventura, Galdino Sa, Jacques Evangelista, Leila Maria De Oliveira, José Alexandre, Marcelo Chiquillo
Composition - Renato Jabuka, Yohann Da Geb
Soundtrack - Guga Bernardo
Sound Design - Daniel Turini

Do you Dare to Dare?

2009-11-21T07:43:00.000Z

Danny Smit & Marco-Paul de Jeu are founding partners of Dare – a small but beautifully formed brand strategy and graphic design agency working out of Hilversum in Holland. Danny worked at English & Pockett for five years – so, is very comfortable with working with UK based clients. After E&P he spent a few years running the creative department at MTV Benelux.

MTV Overdrive from wearedare.com on Vimeo.

I met up with them when they came over to London recently for business. What impressed me about them is how strategy focussed they are – They described themselves more as Independent creative thinkers than designers. Also how they like to think about the business needs of the client first before they do any design and eventually think about the execution. This means that lots of their work is not necessarily based on moving image. If printing T-shirts is the right thing, then that is what they will suggest.
When asked how they can compete with some of the bigger design agencies, Danny said that they are smaller and more reactive – when a client asks a question, for example, the answer does not have to go through many layers of account execs to get answered.

Glamrock Ninja One from wearedare.com on Vimeo.
Another smart idea of theirs, I think, is that they give brand workshops to clients. They usually get all the important stakeholders like the CEO and people from the marketing department together and firstly identify trouble spots and then show them how they can envigorate and think creatively about their brand. The idea is that when they go on to brief design they come with a clear idea of what they want to achieve and not just go for some pretty pictures….

GlamrockNinja Two from wearedare.com on Vimeo.

Anyway – here are a few examples of what they do - check their site (or the various other online locations where they show their work – all summarised in a menu on their site). I particularly like the slow motion guitar hero-fights-ninja-MTV spots – if only someone would do this on stage for real - I would be in heaven!

Stuart Fortune - freelancer

2009-11-18T21:47:00.000Z

I met up with Stuart Fortune recently – a designer director that I had only heard of through others. A lot of his stuff has a kind of Japanese/Indonesian feel, which I think he uses in a very modern way.

He has done an interesting mix of TV work and visuals for concerts - including some very trippy stuff for the Led Zeppelin show at the 02 Arena in London and Katie Melua.

There is also a very intriguing animated movie he is working on called "Ergo The Adventures of Don't Be So Ridiculous Valley'" - it is narrated by Rik Mayall and is absolutly beautiful to look at.
Anyway – he has just updated his website - www.stuartfortune.co.uk - so I think it would be definitely worth a look.

3D week on Channel 4 16–22nd November 2009

2009-11-10T12:43:00.000Z

I just heard that Channel 4 are having a week long 3D extravaganza and thought that you lot should know about it. They are giving away free 3D glasses in Sainsbury's, and putting on some 3D gems, so there's no excuse not to make some home made popcorn and snuggle up on the sofa. It's been a bit depressing since Guy Fawkes night has been and gone, so why not?

I think I am right in saying this is the first concentrated amount of 3D viewing on the TV – it's been having a bit of a revival in the cinemas recently – most notably many of the recent children's movies. The bonus being that you can't pirate a 3D movie (yet!). I'm not sure what the promos and trails are for this yet - but maybe it will feature the first made in 3D for TV...?

Here's a selection of what you can expect: The Queen in 3D - Unseen footage, shot in 3D, of The Queen during her Coronation year. Tells the story of two innovative young camera men, Bob Angell and Arthur Wooster – now in their 80s – who filmed a 3D colour newsreel they named Royal Review.

Derren Brown Presents the 3D Magic Spectacular
With Derren as host, some of Britain’s leading performers dazzle the audience with incredible trickery, and amazing archive footage features performances of some of the world’s greatest magic tricks.

The Greatest Ever 3D Moments - top ten 3D moments of all time from movies, television and pop videos.

3D films: - Flesh for Frankenstein - 1973 kitsch horror flick - a man intent on building
the perfect man and woman through the collation of body parts from corpses. Friday the 13th Part III and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour – I will leave you to decide which is the scarier choice Hannah Montana grimacing millimeters from your face live in concert, or the slasher scenes from Friday 13th – but hey it all looks like fun.

See No Evil - reprise - some great work

2009-11-03T14:50:00.001Z

I almost forgot to do a follow up on the recent See No Evil event in Brick lane. I had a great time chatting to various people, none of whom I had met before – but hey these director/creative types are a nice lot.

Best of all were some of the films that they had on a loop downstairs – my best ones I have hunted down and put on this post. The new video for the band Air for their song called "singsangsung" by mrzyk & moriceau – I personally love this style of psychadelic 'Yellow submarine' animation and was completely mesmorized by it. Some of my colleagues thought that the song itself was a bit "lite", but I can only view this as a package – and it made me feel goooood

AIR MUSIC VIDEO SING SANG SUNG from MATHEMATIC SAS on Vimeo.

My next favourite was the awesome Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc by Chris Cairns – this resonates very well with the audio nerd within me – both for the type of sounds that the heads make as well as the sheer skill of the DJ's who operate the turntables – the whole thing is perfect and I would love someone to explain to me how they did it and how painstaking it was. Chris currently works at Partizan and was crowned Best New Director at the CADS Music Vision Awards 2005 continuing this success with Shots Best New Director for Virals at Cannes 2006 and Best New Director at Kinsale 2006.
Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.

My third fave was "Snow Bo" by Vera Brosgol – it starts off as a nice sweet tale and turns into something much darker – the sort of thing that would happen in League of Gentleman's Royston Vasey if it was located in Russia. Apparently Vera is Russian born and now lives in Portland USA and works as a storyboard artist for Laika inc.

Here is a list of the other vids they showed that night – all very good as well, but space and time means I have to go with my own favourites – I'm sure you can find the rest of these on Youtube or Vimeo…
Bryum & Kapok 03: A Lilt
Overture is the creative unit of Jason and Aya Brown.
"Dreamland" by Asif Mian
"Two Weeks" promo for a group called Grizzly Bear by Gabe
Don't forget – come to the next one and all comments welcome!

Canal+ - Devilfish

2009-10-28T14:49:00.000Z

So Devilfish have pulled another mega-sized job out of the bag – one which /I know was a really difficult one to reel in, as there were two rounds of pitching, and some fierce competition. Finally on 11th September the new look Canal+ was launched.
I can see why they were finickity about it – it was the first complete re-brand since the network launched 25 years ago. There were five channels to re-design Canal+, Sport, Cinema, Decal and Family.

Personally I really like the feel of all of these – most of them are incredibly "arty" – the kind of thing that you would see as a video installation at the Tate Modern, rather than cable TV. The idea of breaking the screen into four is that it echoes the cross in Canal +, the + being a positive symbol. This simple graphic device creates a family relationship but allows for each channel to have its own identity.

Canal plus core channel & sport idents from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

For the core channel the content was taken from the "real" world (as opposed to the "imagined" world – but treated through the Canal+ perspective.

I love the look of the +Sports channel (shot using a new technique of
‘moving time-slice’ with 80 cameras on single rig) – it's the closest thing I have seen to animating a Francis Bacon painting, and to think that this is available to view on a mainstream cable channel is amazing. Richard Holman, creative director on this project, told me that all the executions took a bit of experimentation, and that the whole project took 12 months from start to finish. I think you can see why – none of this imagery is off the shelf by any means.
canal plus family & cinema idents from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

For Cinema they used old 16mm film which was then treated and put through a gate (inspired by the work of Stan Brakhage) and then run thought filters in After FX.

To me the +FAMILY idents look like colourful Futurist animations where every shape has its own sound – something you rarely see in idents. +DECALE is a ‘remix’ of the audio and vision from the core channel.
Canal plus Decal idents from Tim Rabjohns on Vimeo.

Finally he said that he got to spend a lot of time in France which allowed him to get to get to know the client really well and to develop a new identity for one of the most iconic networks in Europe (as well as get through a lot of Bordeaux – well, who wouldn't?)

Credits:
Client: Olivier Schaack, Director of creative services CANAL+
Olivier Degrave, Manager of On Air Design CANAL+ France
Creative Director: Richard Holman,
Art Director: Dan Eatock, - artist/graphic designer with a very unique vision.
Design Director: Grant Gilbert,
Producer: Lucy Hunt
CORE:Director: Lee Edwards
SPORT:Director: Grant Gilbert – senior dir
CINEMA:Editor: Lifelong Friendship Society, Design: Grant Gilbert
FAMILY:Designers: Lifelong Friendship Society
DECALE:Editor:Exceeda