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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.

 

SKY App for Android TV Ad

Taking a break from the usual flying 3D logos to bring you a project I wrapped up last week while at Brandspank, an ad for SKY TV's Android app. It was an interesting project to work on, involving keying, tracking, and a bit for 3D for some of the character movements and phones but my proudest moment has to be the fingernail replacement around the 10 second mark Putting that on the CV!

 

SKY App for Android - 45 second TVC from Brandspank on Vimeo.

 

Learning Cinema...

The breakdown video above is a good motivator to looks past my annoyances with Cinema 4D and embrace it for motion graphics work. You can view the completed piece over on Vimeo.

Turns out here in Auckland, a lot of production studios use Cinema 4D. I had heard it was geared towards motion graphics and this week I did my first bit of work in Cinema 4D and it was... fine. Coming from 3D Studio Max, it is obvious how some things in Cinema are much easier to do. What had me a bit frustrated at times were the really basic things. Gizmo/pivot points seem to be a bit illogical once you start building up splines or add modifiers. Extrusion and bevel controls feel a bit limited. Either I'm missing something but why can't I create proper dummy objects?

It's still early days for me so my opinion isn't final, and I'm sure in a few weeks I'll be raving about Cinema. Until then I shall do right by the Internet and bitch about the learning process!