Noteworthy

Some creative pieces that I've come across the past few months that are, well, noteworthy.

Deluxe's Method Studios was tapped by production company RSA to concept and create this year’s AICP Sponsor Reel. The AICP awards celebrate global creativity within commercial production. The Method team wanted to create an entertaining piece of design that encapsulates the innovative and prolific nature of this industry. Our aim was to showcase the AICP sponsors as various dancing avatars, which playfully reference the visual effects used throughout production. Motion capture, procedural animation and dynamic simulations combine to create a milieu of iconic pop dance moves that become an explosion of colorful fur, feathers, particles and more. CREDITS Client: AICP/RSA Project: 2016 AICP Sponsor Reel Concept, Design & Direction: Method Design Director: Rupert Burton Creative Director: Jon Noorlander Art Director: Johnny Likens Production: Method Studios NY Producer: Adrienne Mitchell VFX: Method Studios Houdini FX Artist: Tomas Slancik Houdini FX Artist: Vraja Parra Rigger: Ohad Bracha Motion Capture: House of Moves Motion Capture Supervision: Rupert Burton, Shane Griffin Music: Major Lazer - Light It Up (Remix) http://design.methodstudios.com

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy Portland Director: The Daniels Director of Photography: Larkin Sieple Art Director: Susan Land Copywriter: Edward Harrison Production Company: Prettybird Editor: Angus Wall Editorial Company: Rock Paper Scissors Country: United States Released: August 2016

DixonBaxi changes the game for Premier League DixonBaxi have designed and created a radical new TV experience for the world’s most watched football league. Changing the game for over 2 billion fans around the world. Football will never be the same. Show titles, in-match graphics, augmented-reality, touch-screen, studio graphics, all united by a unique ‘Field of Play’ motion behaviour and an epic, official Premier League soundtrack.

Project Profile - 2015/2016 America's Cup Wolrd Series Titles

A comparison of an early animatic vs final delivery for the world feed titles for the 2015- 2016 America's Cup World Series. The animatic was created in Cinema 4D with with an edit built in After Effects. The animatic went through many revisions to adjust for things such as music changes as well as animated characters which had an effect on timing and composition. The project involved elements created in Cinema 4D, Houdini and Maya. Alembic and FBX files were used to export camera and boat animations out of Cinema and into Houdini to create the water sims and Maya for character animation, texturing and lighting. The first two shots came out of Cinema as the boat forming was created with a PolyFX modifier. The Cup was also rendered out of Cinema. Everything else was rendered out of Maya. Everything was then composited in After Effects.

A comparison of an early animatic vs final delivery for the world feed titles for the 2015 - 2016 America's Cup World Series.

The animatic was created in Cinema 4D with the shots edited in After Effects. The animatic went through many revisions to adjust for things such as music changes as well as animated characters which had an effect on timing and composition.

Style frames created for the initial pitch process, as well as being a bit of RnD early on, served as the starting point for the animatic. I built my scenes to be animation ready.

The project involved elements created in Cinema 4D, Houdini and Maya. Alembic and FBX files were used to export camera and boat animations out of Cinema and into Houdini to create the water sims and Maya for character animation, texturing and lighting. The first two shots came out of Cinema as the boat forming was created with a PolyFX modifier. The Cup was also rendered out of Cinema. Everything else was rendered out of Maya. Everything was then composited in After Effects. You can watch the final results below.

The Louis Vuitton America’s Cup has kicked off with it’s first World Series race in Portsmouth and Brandspank is right in the middle of it. In January we won a pitch to create the opening titles and on-screen look for the world feed broadcast of both the World Series and the Finals. After obtaining sign off on concept and storyboard from Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts Brandspank set about creating the opening sequence along with all graphic design and production involved in the on-air look for information graphics seen during live coverage. The final sequence aims to deliver on the brief of conveying the speed, technology and athleticism that makes America’s Cup racing such great viewing.

Art in the Dark Promo

We embraced glitch for this projection promoting Art in the Dark here in Auckland. Art directed and designed Logan Bradley. This was a quick recording of the projection from an iPhone, hope to post a better quality clip soon.

Update - A proper edit of the projection;

Art in the Dark Promo Animation from Robert Brienza on Vimeo.

Video Glitch - Art In the Dark Promo Billboard from Brandspank on Vimeo.

PromaxBDA ANZ Sydney 2012

As part of the team over at Brandspank, I had the opportunity to work on the conference open and branding for PromaxBDA ANZ 2012 in Sydney. The origins for this sequence came from what we had done for the PromaxBDA New Zealand back in May of this year. This time we put less focus on a narrative and emphasize beautiful imagery. I personally worked on the 3D elements, including animation. I also got a chance to help out with some of the compositing but it was team effort to push this sequence as far as we could with the time available. Really happy with the results, especially with the audio which was done in-house by Nathan King. It was a cool project to work on, and it was great to head over to Sydney and check out the conference and attend some great keynotes.

This piece was created with Cinema 4D and After Effects.

PromaxBDA Conference and Awards, Sydney 2012 from Brandspank on Vimeo.

The best inforgraphics are the scray ones!

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus

Chrome Speed Test

Very creative use of high speed footage. Shot with a Phantom v640 High Speed Camera at 1920 x 1080 at 2700 fps.



Emmy Award winner, I didn't even know I was nominated...

This week the 31st Annual Sports Emmy Awards were held in New York. Big Studios, the shop I work at was nominated for three Emmys this year and walked away with one for work done for the MLB Network's MLB Tonight show package.

This was the first big job I helped with after my one year sabbatical in Australia - my first all-nighter in a while but it seems it was worth it.  This is Big Studios 4th Emmy win, so kudos to the team on a job well done.

The Gift, by Carl Erik Rinsch

An interesting mix of film making and advertising, reminds me a bit of the shorts put out by BMW a few years ago (in terms of quality/production value). This was interesting enough that I will forgive the Philips TV product placement (they did pay for this so it seems fair). This is now in the process of being turned into a feature film, shocking.

This is one of five shorts that are part of a campaign called Parallel Lines, you can view the other film over at www.cinema.philips.com.

Life in an 8-bit world...

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics Handover Animation

Great animation for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics Handover from the Vancouver closing ceremonies as well as the logo presentation.

Canon 7D Video Test #2 - Subway

I've revised my initial edit, done a bit more post work in regards to colour correction and added some music.

Canon 7D Video Test #1 - Subway

I recently made the jump and purchased a Canon 7D, upgrading from my first DSLR, a Sony Alpha a100. It's a very impressive camera, amazingly fast, very quiet and impressively built.

At the moment I've only got one lens, a Canon 50mm 1.4. Seeing how I use my Minlota 50mm 1.7 on my a100 about 90% of the time I figured this would be a good choice. At least until I can get a Canon 16mm - 35mm 2.8.

This is a little edit I put together of some test footage I took one day while heading home from work. Just random footage, all hand held to just learn how the camera deals with video. It's actually been pretty busy at work so I haven't had much chance to use the 7D. I'd like to record some full HD video at 24fps.

For this clip, as I mentioned the footage was recorded at 1280x720 at 60fps. I then did a rough edit in After Effects where I also did a general levels adjust and quickly stabilized a couple of shots. I then worked my way down to a 30fps QuickTime with Photo-JPEG compression at 50% at 960x540 which is the clip I've uploaded to Flickr.

PUMA Pitcrew Builds Ferrari Car Out of Clothes

Maybe the only way I can get behind the wheel of a Ferrari F1 car any time soon...

MTV's New Look

With the help of UK studio Universal Everything MTV is launching a new look across it's 64 international channels...

MTV International / Sweetheart from Universal Everything.

MTV International / Chocolate Gold Sunset from Universal Everything.

MTV International / Mad Drummer from Universal Everything.

For more info and a few more clips check out the posting on the Creative Review blog.

Interactive Reaction 2009

A nice little piece by Imaginary Forces for Google's Chrome web browser.

Fun with burst mode....

Here's a little clip I made with a sequence of images I took in burst mode while out Saturday for Door Open Toronto.  So who needs a 5D MkII any way...

Fun with time...

So I recently came across two very interesting pieces of video, both essentially created to advertise new products but both interesting to watch.

First up is a demo reel from I-Movix to showcase their SprintCam V3HD that was recently announced at NAB. This broadcast native HD camera can capture ultra-slow-motion solution offering frame rates of 500 to 1,000 fps with instant replay.

Next up is a really well executed piece for Philips to show case their new lince of ultra wide screen tvs. Check out the official site for the full experience but you can get a preview from the YouTube clip below.