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Country music fans, and more than 400 country music artists and celebrities, gathered along the banks of Nashville’s Cumberland River for the 2006 CMA Music Festival, country music’s biggest party. For the June 8 –11 event, FlickerLab, the New York-based development and animation studio, created 16 minutes of animation in just two days using Kabuki™ software. The animations feature the fictional redneck and Capitol recording artist, Roy D. Mercer, who announced the daily musical lineups on the festival’s River Stages and the Main Stage. FlickerLab also created four original animations promoting Black N Blue, Mercer’s 13th collection of bodacious rants, which were screened during the festival at the Capitol Records booth.

At the ultimate summer festival experience, the heart-pounding performances and the heart-warming encounters between the artists and their admirers were captured on film for a two-hour television special to be broadcast on the ABC Television Network, Monday, July 24th at 9:00 PM/ET.

The infamous Roy D.Mercer is voiced by Brent Douglas on radio station KMOD in Tulsa, OK, where, every day, he makes rude, crude and lewd telephone calls to individuals who have been set up by their coworkers, friends or family members. In each prank, Mercer calls an unsuspecting listener and accuses them of the most preposterous wrongdoings imaginable. When rebuffed, Mercer idly threatens to give them “an ass-whuppin’ or to “put a pop-knot on your head big enough to need its own zip code.” A lively argument inevitably follows until Douglas and his partner in comedy Phil Stone drop the charade and reveal the practical joke. These routines have been the fodder for the 13 record albums which have consistently landed Mercer on the Billboard comedy charts.

To turn Roy D. Mercer into a live, real-time animated character, FlickerLab used its unique proprietary software, Kabuki™, a revolutionary animation production system that provides the ability to produce unparalleled live programming with cartoons while maintaining the traditional look and feel of 2D animated characters or cutting edge CGI. Kabuki, invented by digital animation pioneer Michael Ferraro, takes animation cel assets and assembles them into a performable database, a kind of digital actor. Cartoon characters are then puppeteered to perform live for broadcast, conferences and other entertainment venues. Lip-synch is driven by a real-time, voice-activation system.

“FlickerLab and transparent creative management, inc., which manages the Mercer brand, worked closely on developing the animated brand. Steve Keller, one of transparent creative management’s Principal Partners relates, “FlickerLab is one of those rare creative companies that understands the delicate balance of art and commerce. From the beginning, they worked with us to create an animated version of Roy that represented not just the character but an entire culture. They literally brought Roy to life!” Keller added, “Roy’s video appearances on the main stage alone were enjoyed by a combined total of 161,000 people who attended the nightly shows at this year’s festival, which is country music’s consummate fan event.”

Harold Moss, FlickerLab Creative Director, explained, “Steve Keller and his partner, Mandy West, made it all happen with the record label and the CMA Music Festival. In a matter of days, Steve wrote the pieces, edited Roy’s dialogue, and sent it all off to us. The Festival was the perfect place to introduce the animated Roy to the world. We had been developing Roy for some time, translating this very successful radio personality and his family to animation, both visually and story wise. Having designed all the characters and their world, the incredibly talented animators at FlickerLab then built out all the animation for the Kabuki model. Using Kabuki, Tim Lagasse performed the animation to the tracks Steve provided, allowing us to turn around 16 minutes of animation, including the intros, promos, and a couple of Roy’s prank phone calls, in just two days. This amount of animation would have easily taken weeks without Kabuki.” Moss continued, “Now that the Kabuki model exists, Roy D. Mercer can show up anywhere. He can do live appearances, can host a television show, or guest DJ on a country music channel as Roy, an animated character. He is freed from the constraints that you would normally associate with animation and is able to go out into the world and perform as if he were a real person. We’re in the process of further expanding the Mercer brand with a television sitcom about Roy and his family, which is currently in development.”

Animation Director/Kabuki Puppet Master Tim Lagasse added. “The earlier versions of Kabuki required a great deal of time to input a gesture, but with this latest version I was given quite a range of possibilities for Roy’s movements and, when it came time for me to perform Roy, I never lacked for a gesture; I had a very broad palette. With the software, I am really connected to this character. I perform with a keyboard, musical midi controllers, or any kind of a digital controller which can be plugged into a computer, and puppeteer a 2D character. It is remarkable to be able to create animated content in real time.”

Mercer is the first animated character FlickerLab has created with the new and improved Kabuki program and he joins the ranks of characters previously animated with Kabuki including Bugs Bunny, Big Bird and Kim Possible.

The FlickerLab creative team included Creative Director Harold Moss; Executive Producers Sally Anne Syberg and Tammy Walters; Kabuki Inventor and Technical Director Michael Ferraro; Animation Directors Tim Lagasse and Phil Lockerby; Character Designers Zartosht Soltani and Max Porter; 2D Animators Phil Lockerby and Nikolay Nachev; Kabuki Puppeteers Tim Lagasse and David Michael Friend; Composite Artists Harold Moss and Sean McBride; Brent Douglas, the voice of Roy D. Mercer, and Phil Stone, radio DJ’s at KMOD, Tulsa, OK.

Flickerlab utilized Kabuki Real Time Animation Software, Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro, PowerMac G5 dual processor, 2.5 gigs memory, Nvidia Graphics Card 256 mgs, audio and lip synch G4 laptop, MAX Msp, MOTU midi interface and EMU Midi control surface in the execution of the project.

Representing Capitol Records Nashville were President/CEO Mike Dungan; Senior Vice President, Marketing Fletcher Foster; Chief Operating Officer Tom Becci and Vice President, Sales Bill Kennedy.

About FlickerLab
Founded in 1999 as a design and animation studio, today FlickerLab’s principals, long-term collaborators and strategic partners employ their skills, technology and industry experience on a variety of projects be they concept-to-screen development and production, or design and execution of commercials or broadcast promotions. In addition to high quality creative digital content development, FlickerLab works with clients to extend their project reach through advertising, Internet impact, online marketing, and merchandising.

The company’s portfolio includes high profile work for media and entertainment companies including A&E Networks, Bravo, Comedy Central, Discovery Home, Disney Channel, Lifetime, Lions Gate Productions, Michael Moore Productions, MTV, Nickelodeon, Planned Parenthood, The Cartoon Network and The WB, and product/service companies including Bassat Ogilvy, Continental Airlines, Grey Worldwide, Johnson & Johnson, McCann Erickson, Microsoft, Party City and Procter & Gamble, among many others.

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Prehistoric Park is a new series of dinosaur adventures currently being aired on ITV. The production is the latest collaboration between Impossible Pictures and Framestore CFC, which partnership has previously produced award-winning shows in the Walking With… series, as well as Space Odyssey and Ocean Odyssey. The six one-hour episodes star Nigel Marven, presenter of several previous Impossible Pictures dinosaur documentaries, as well as a host of familiar – and new – saurian stars.

Framestore CFC worked on Prehistoric Park for 18 months, from planning and storyboards, through creating and animating the CG creatures and visual effects, to the final Digital Intermediate given to each episode. Altogether, a team of over 70 artists, technicians and producers created around 750 shots (including 630 CG shots), featuring 22 different species of prehistoric creatures, many of them with variant looks for different ages.

Bringing fresh life to a successful formula is always tricky. With Walking With Dinosaurs and its sequels and specials, Impossible Pictures single-handedly invented the dinosaur documentary genre. With increasing sophistication, the shows progressed from straightforward documentaries, wherein the dinosaurs were seen in their natural prehistoric environments – shot ’straight’ – in the style of a modern wildlife documentary, to the more recent programmes, which introduced Nigel Marven as presenter. Marven was seen actually in the shots with the prehistoric creatures, interacting with them in increasingly inventive ways.

Now, with Prehistoric Park, Executive Producer Jasper James and his team have brilliantly made the leap to a fully realised dramatic adventure. We follow the intrepid Marven on his quest to stock his eponymous Park, using ‘time portals’ to jump between the present and the past. Each episode contains several story threads, with Marven’s adventures in a variety of prehistoric environments contrasting with those of his team of Park staff in the present – including Bob (Head Keeper) and Suzanne (Vet) – as they work to ensure the safety and comfort of the captured prehistoric creatures.

In addition to the (naturally) magnificent prehistoric creatures, Prehistoric Park features some beautiful cinematography in a variety of stunning locations. Three directors – Sid Bennett, Karen Kelly and Matthew Thompson – handled two episodes each. The park footage itself was shot in South Africa, while the ‘prehistoric’ locations to which Marven travels included the Yukon, Brazil, Chile, Florida, Australia and New Zealand. The educational component is still there – Marven manages to pass on a lot of information about the dinosaurs whilst on his jaunts – but the ‘romp’ factor has been considerably boosted. Overall, the series conveys a marvellous sense of fun, wonder and excitement.

VFX Supervisor for the show was Framestore CFC veteran of twelve years, George Roper, who had already worked on a number of previous Impossible Pictures collaborations. “One of the things I think we all enjoyed about Prehistoric Park,” he says, “Was the different slant that the programme makers took this time around. It was great to be able to put on our light entertainment hats, so to speak.”

Each episode required about a month on location, and senior Framestore CFC staffers Mike McGee, Tim Greenwood, Sirio Quintavalle, Christian Manz and Pedro Sabrosa supervised these shoots, which proceeded throughout Spring and Summer 2005. Meanwhile, work had begun in London on the creatures. Animation Supervisor Neil Glasbey recall, “The first maquettes (clay models used to design the look of the creatures) started coming through in the Spring of 2005. Some of the creatures were old friends. Triceratops, T. Rex, Woolly Mammoth were all creatures we’d worked on before. But there were differences. For example, the T.Rexes, this time, were two juvenile specimens captured in the first episode, which we then follow as they grow to maturity. Also, this time around, a good 50-60% of the shots featured the dinosaurs interacting with human performers – being fed by them, chasing them and so on, so there were new challenges even there.”

“In addition,” continues Glasbey, “There were a number of dinosaurs we’d never before tried. Incisivosaurus, a bird-like, feathery raptor with big buck teeth, for example, for whom I had to choreograph a little mating dance – that was great fun. Truoodon – another raptor/bird-like creature – was another newcomer; and a sixty-foot long crocodile called Deinosuchus.”

The technical challenges of producing such an enormous bestiary in a relatively short time are considerable. “With such an ambitious project, both in terms of quality and quantity, you have to be both ultra-organised and also work smarter,” says CG Supervisor Laurent Hugueniot. “One of the great challenges was the large number of different creatures, each of them requiring modelling, texturing and rigging. Once animated, we had to recreate the lighting from each location, using onset digital photography, so that the creatures would appear to receive the light from their environment. The TD team performed brilliantly, I think, doing a fantastic job.”

Hugueniot also has a positive slant on the challenges created by the higher level of interactivity in Prehistoric Park. “In this show,” he points out, “The creatures are interacting a lot with their environment. Kicking trees, cages, bushes, or even attacking humans. This is harder to achieve, but well worth doing, as it reinforces the illusion that the creature is seated in the environment.”

Compositing started in October 2005, with a small team (led by Roper) of 4 or 5 compositors putting it all together over the following 8 months. Other 2D elements that were brought into play included a number of matte paintings – volcanoes and other environments, including the park itself – and, of course, the time portal effect. The time-doors through which Marven and the animals travel are activated by a small device planted on the ground, and take the form of a shimmery, slightly liquid distortion of the air. As Roper modestly puts it, “I didn’t want to be too Stargate about it, but you always seem to feel yourself being pulled in that direction…”

he very last step in Prehistoric Park’s journey through Framestore CFC was a visit to the company’s Digital Lab. Colourist Asa Shoul helped give the episodes a final tweak. “The Super 16 material had been superbly technically graded downstairs in our TK department first, but all the other film that was to be cut in between – stuff without visual effects – was one-lighted by another company on a different machine, so that there were matching issues. My job was to balance everything, pulling it all together.”

There is every sign that ITV – who have given the show much promotion, and time-slots aimed at a broad family audience – will have a hit on their hands with their first foray back in time with Impossible Pictures and Framestore CFC. For their part, the Framestore CFC team seem to have really enjoyed pushing their prehistoric creatures into new and more dramatic directions. And there are bound to be a few species that were missed the first time around. Like the Pokemon slogan says…

CREDITS
Prehistoric Park
An Impossible Pictures Production for ITV in association with ProSieben/M6/Animal Planet
Executive Producer Jasper James
Producers/Director Karen Kelly, Sid Bennett, Matthew Thompson

For Framestore CFC
Director of Computer Animation Mike Milne
Visual Effects Supervisors George Roper, Mike McGee, Tim Greenwood, Pedro Sabrosa, Sirio Quintavalle, Christian Manz
CG Supervisor Laurent Hugeuniot
Lead Animators Neil Glasbey, Kevin Spruce
CG Animators Barth Maunoury, Brad Silby, Catherine Elvidge, Darren Rodriguez, Gopal Dave, Jacques Comes, James Farrington, John Kay, John Lee, Julian Howard, Laurent Benhamo, Mark Brocking, Mathieu Vig, Matthieu Poirey, Rhiannon Nicholas, Rosie Ashforth, Ross Burgess, Stuart Ellis
Technical Directors Carl Bianco, Dan Sheerin, Fabio Bonvicini, Jason Baker, Jason Mayo, Joe Leveson, Matthias Zeller, Mike O’Neill, Oliver Mcluskey, Partick Lowry, Rob Richardson, Saul Reid, JP Li
Compositors Astrid Busser, Alberto Montanes, Luke Drummond, Rachel Wright, Sirio Quintavalle, Wendy Seddon, Richard Scarlett, Lorraine Cooper, Kate Porter
CG Modellers Sarah Tosh, Donald Pan, Grahame Curtis, Neehar Kohli, Romain Segurado, Ronan Carr Fanning
Digital Paint and Textures Daren Horley, Elsa Santos, David Woodland, Jason Horley, Laurence Peguy, Mark Taylor, Nathan Hughes, Rebecca Melander, Virginie Degorgue, Danny Geurtsen
Cyberscanning Guy Hauldren, Sean Varney
Tracking Michael Thompson
Visual Effects Editorial Carey Williams
Visual Effects Producers Matt Fox, Jo Nodwell
Visual Effects Line Producer Kirsty Morgan
Visual Effects Co-ordinators Lorna Paterson, Sophie Woollven, Jon Keene

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MJZ’s Rupert Sanders and Method Studios collaborate on an unusually beautiful piece for Sears. The piece is named Sears Arboretum and shows flowers opening to reveal backyard necessities .

Credits:
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Rupert Sanders
Exec. Producer: Lisa Rich
DP: Chris Soos
Producer: Kim Shapiro

Agency: Y & R Chicago
Art Director: Isabella Ferreira
Creative Director: Nancy Hannon
Executive Producer: Matt Bijarchi
Producer: Kim Mohan
Copywriter: Pete Figel

Editorial: Whitehouse Post
Editor(s): Neal Smith
Assistant Editor(s): Joanna Manning, Logan Hefflefinger

Visual Effects: Method Studios
Lead 2D VFX Artist: Cedric Nicolas
CG Creative Director: Laurent Ledru
CG Technical Supervisor: Gil Baron, Andrew Bell
3D VFX Artists: Dan Dixon, Chris Smallfield, John Baker, Pasha Ivanov, Scott Metzger, Seong Joon Lee, Chi-Wei Hsu, Marco Iozzi, Reza Rasou
Junior 2D VFX Artist: Katrina Salicrup, Sarah Eim
Visual Effects Shoot Supervision: Cedric Nicolas
Visual Effects Executive Producer: Neysa Horsburgh
Head of Production: Sue Troyan
Visual Effects Producer: Rich Rama
Telecine Company: The Syndicate
Colorist: Beau Leon

Production Designer: James Chinlund
Previsualization Company: Halon

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In a humorous take on how quickly rabbits breed, The Mill NY finished a playful spot for the relaunch of the VW Rabbit. Teaming up with Director Nicolai Fugslig, The Mill team fashioned the feeling that the automobile Rabbit was really an animal rabbit through animation and effects.

The concept centers on the idea that black and white VW Rabbits meet in Central Park. With the help of skillful stunt driving, the cars flirtatiously acknowledge one another front-to-front and soon enter a park tunnel representing a rabbit hole. They quickly come out of their rendezvous tunnel with their newly bred grey VW Rabbit babies.

The Rabbits continue to breed and soon a Rabbit can be found on every street of New York, frolicking, chasing and hopping past one another. By the end, the city is covered in grid-lock traffic with black, white, grey and harlequin Rabbits, who have multiplied before the viewers eyes. The end tag reads “The Rabbit. It’s back”.

Various circumstances required the production team to shoot Prospect Park as a stand-in for Central Park. They turned to Senior Flame Artist Dirk Greene and The Mill creatives to composite shots of New York skylines into the Brooklyn park scenes, creating the impression of a Manhattan background.

Ever wonder how production teams get a street to look so quiet, such as those where the Rabbits are roaming New York City? In addition to closing down streets during shooting, they also relied on the strong team of Mill artists to intricately clean up the shots. The Mill team removed people, cars and other distractions that took away from the feel that Rabbits were breeding whenever someone was not looking.

Many effects were needed to give the viewer the sensation that the cars were animal-like. To produce the youthful, rabbit-like movements, Nicolai and his team set up bumps and ramps on location. They tasked The Mill with removing these elements to give a hopping, bunny-like movement to the cars. Dirk also darkened up the park tunnels to create the impression that they were actually mating in urban “rabbit holes”.

Additionally, the majority of shots required the compositing of multiple plates that were shot to give the impression of more Rabbits than were actually shot.

The CG highlight of the spot is the end shot of numerous Rabbits moving in different directions, generating a chaotic sense of rabbit families jammed in traffic. The production team shot fifteen VW cars for a shot that required roughly one hundred. So it was left to the imaginative Mill 3D team led by Ben Smith and Dylan Maxwell, to create CG replicas of the real VW Rabbit. With expert skill, they made it virtually impossible to know the difference between the actual and the computer generated.

The spot is accompanied by a song entitled, “The Birds and The Bees” by Patrick and Eugene a double reference to the bucolic scene and the Rabbit breeding.

Watch the Spot here!

The Mill, London
40-41 Great Marlborough Street
Soho, London W1F 7JQ
+44 20 7287 4041
info@the-mill.com

The Mill, New York
451 Broadway 5th floor
New York NY 10013
+1 212 337 3210
info@the-mill.com

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Outside, the SOHO-based editorial, visual effects and finishing boutique’s team of collaborative artists all bring a mix of talents to the table – and last summer, when they signed Inferno/Flame artist Steve Mottershead to their roster, he was no exception.

Over the years this award-winning visual effects artist had directed an impressive roster of Music Videos, adding yet another dimension his artistic perspective. And, recently Mottershead was called upon to direct, as well as create visual effect for The Willowz, an up-and-coming group whose recent release, “Talk In Circles,” was selected by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the 50 Best Albums of 2005.

Steve Mottershead and LA-based Craig Bernard, who joined forces in 2005 to form the bi-coastal directing duo, The Beta movement, were recently called upon to create a surreal Music Video for The Willowz’s track, “Walk Straight.” Mottershead & Bernard will be in good company, as the Music Video they created will be one of 21 videos on the compilation DVD, featuring the work of such high-profile directors as John Watts, Ace Norton and Michel Gondry, who selected a number of The Willowz’s songs for the soundtrack of his feature film, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

With so many videos produced for the compilation DVD, entitled ‘SEE IN SQUARES,’ there was virtually no budget remained when it came time for Mottershead and Bernard to begin working on “Walk Straight.” The pair was challenged to complete the 35mm shoot-on-a-shoestring at various LA-area locations.

Mottershead took the post and visual effects work on the project back to his suite at New York-based Outside. He initially approached the project by mocking up the video’s concept in Autodesk’s Discreet Flame, and creating a key still image for the pitch. Once he sold the band on the idea, Mottershead and Bernard developed the scenario, which centers around two of the band members in a field, dreaming of times past. Their contemporary scene was then inter-cut with shots of a Victorian-era picnic at the same location. Observing the picnic are the band members, whose torsos appear to be grafted onto the trunks of trees as they take on the trees’ personae.

Working on Outside’s Flame, Mottershead used a flat-pass transfer for color grading, which enabled him to retain a normal, colorful palette for the present-day scenes. He then added a number of flares and other sun effects during the post production process. For the Victorian-era scenes, he created a gray and faded-blue palette reminiscent of the period.

He then composited the two band members – whom he had filmed green screen in locked-off shots – onto still photos of tree trunks. He added visual interest by introducing handheld camera moves and adding shadows and depth to the surreal landscape.

Steve Mottershead also composited in stylized birds, rendered at various angles, and a lifelike insects, which were crafted in Newtek’s LightWave 3D by Christian Moreton of Skoda Werks/Toronto.

Outside’s Steve Evans did the video’s offline edit, inter-cutting the contemporary and Victorian-era footage with some digital SLR images of plant and grass elements which Mottershead had shot at 5 fps. Then Mottershead conformed the video in Flame.

Steve Mottershead also created the cover for the compilation DVD. For this element of the job, he composited digital stills he had taken in Flame at 3K resolution. The Willowz DVD was recently released by Follin Artist Management/NY.

Outside is an independent editorial, design and visual effects boutique dedicated to providing advertising agencies with high-end, innovative solutions to their every-changing needs for creative content for both traditional and emerging media. Their 4,000 square foot loft-like duplex space is home to a world-class roster of talent, cutting edge technology, and over-the-top client services. Outside’s recent projects include spots and web-based interactive work for such companies as Jaguar, Samsung, Volvo, Yahoo, Lugz, New Balance and Intel. For additional information contact Executive Producer Sila Soyer at 212.966.3980 or go to www.outsideedit.com .

Group: The Willowz…Music Video Track: “Walk Straight”… Release Date: Summer 2006…Record Company/Management Company: Follin Artist Management/NY…Production Co: The Beta Movement, NY/LA: Directors: Steve Mottershead, Craig Bernard , D.P.: Chris Sargent, Line Producer: Ashlee Cohen…Shot : on location in LA…Editorial Co: Outside/NY: Editor: Steve Evans, Executive Producer: Sila Soyer…Post Facility: Outside/NY:OnLine Editor: Steve Mottershead, Color Grading (Flame): Steve Mottershead, Producer: Jessica Ruiz…Efx Company: Outside Editorial/NY:Visual Effects Artist: Steve Mottershead… CGI: Skoda Werks, Toronto: Animator: Christian Moreton…Audio Post: Berwyn/NY: Mixer: Eric Thompson

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Industrial Light & Magic handled effects on “Lady in the Water,” which in large part consist of two CGI characters: an “eaglon,” an eagle with a 40-foot wing span, and a “scrunt,” a dog with blades of grass for fur. For the scrunt, director M. Night Shyamalan initially saw a “dark, skulking character,” according to vfx supervisor Ed Hirsh. That changed once ILM started working.

“Once we started to develop him,” says Hirsh, “I think it sparked Night’s imagination, and he saw the possibilities and expanded the emotional range this character could have.”

Shyamalan was adamant that there be no “CG aftertaste,” according to Hirsh, and ILM had to match the CGI scrunt to an animatronic puppet that was used in some scenes. A new trailer for the film was released this morning, where you will be able to catch glimpses of ILM’s work on the feature.

To a take a peek, click here.

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At this year’s Midsummer Awards, held at a gala ceremony in London’s Savoy Hotel on 14th July, Framestore CFC claimed two of the top prizes. The company won yet more plaudits for its work on Guinness noitulovE, winning the awards for both Best Animation and Best Post Production.

Since its UK television debut in October 2005, noitulovE has racked up recognition and awards from around the world, including a Silver Clio in the US and the Grand Prix at Cannes.

The ultra-compressed reverse journey through the aeons of man’s evolution from pond life to pub life was created by AMV BBDO and directed by Daniel Kleinman for Rattling Stick. The spot is an extraordinary digital collage, made up from real elements, stock footage, custom built CG creatures, CG plant life and rocks, digital stills and VFX from the Inferno’s library of tricks.

noitulovE’s VFX Supervisor, William Bartlett, says, “It was a great project for us – a real VFX tour de force – and we had twenty six artists and technicians working on the project for over three months. It was exceptional – and challenging – in many ways, not least because so little of it existed when we were planning it. It’s a real showcase for what the post production process can offer.”

Helen Stanley, Director of Commercials Production at Framestore CFC, accepted the Best Post Production award, and Senior Technical Director, Dan Seddon, accepted the award for Best Animation on behalf of the company’s Commercials CGI team.

This was the thirteenth Midsummer Awards, and the event has become the high point of London’s advertising social calendar. Founded in 1993 by Paul Cover and Terry Howard with the aim of promoting excellence in creative work in the specific area of film and television, and judged solely by working creatives, the Midsummer Awards are an opportunity for the top creative names in the industry to gather and celebrate the joys of the English summer.

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The Mill London have just completed the post on a beautiful new commercial for Landrover called ‘Go Beyond’. Directed by MJZ Gold Cannes winnder Nicolai Fuglsig, this epic emotional journey takes the viewer through many different worlds, experiences and relationships.

Narrated by Ewan MacGregor, he explains that there is a fantasy place called ‘Beyond’ where there are no rules, where now is better that never and dare is better than don’t. That in this place called ‘Beyond’ the ordinary becomes the extraordinary and when you ‘go beyond’ your comfort zone or take a risk, then wonderful things will happen to you.

We follow the hero of our film watching these extraordinary events and inadvertently being caught up in the different experiences around him. We see magical cities and beautiful landscapes, where boys ride bareback through fields of cloud sheep, where people run naked in the rain into the sea and giant bubbles fall from the sky. A world where the heart rules the head and dirty is better than clean and today is never a repeat of yesterday.

The Mill team worked very closely with Nicolai and helped him realise and design every scene which all have a unique look. With 10 days on location this was a very intense CG piece with over 20 hours of grading and many 2nd passes.

With every scene requiring work and cosmetic beauty work, The Mill team worked tirelessly to achieve Nicolai’s vision. The film opens on a huge CG Michael Mann-esque city, which flips to a boy riding bare back through cloud sheep. The cloud sheep were very time consuming as they had to look like clouds and sheep! The 3D bubbles in the police raid scene and the CG butterflies were also among the most challenging elements.

Nicolai Fuglsig and The Mill team have created a beautiful film which is a worthy follow-up of the successful Sony ‘Balls’ campaign.

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The Mill, London
40-41 Great Marlborough Street
Soho, London W1F 7JQ
+44 20 7287 4041
info@the-mill.com

The Mill, New York
451 Broadway 5th floor
New York NY 10013
+1 212 337 3210
info@the-mill.com

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S4 VFX, a division of S4 Studios LLC has announced new working relationships with Los Angeles-based trailer company Flyer Entertainment and SSI Advanced Post, a post production services facility. According to the announcement by S4 VFX Director/Designer Geoffrey Kater, this is the first in a series of similar relationships that will solidify and augment the core business of S4 VFX, a division of S4 Studios formed by Kater in January of this year to create and produce 3D animation and graphics for motion picture advertising in trailers and TV spots. S4 VFX has recently completed projects for Fantastic Four, King Kong, The Omen, MI:3 and Scary Movie 4.

Four year-old Flyer Entertainment is a motion picture advertising agency that functions both as creator and producer of trailers and TV spots for theatrical and DVD releases. SSI Advanced Post creates sound, final assembly and online for trailers, and began life 36 years ago as Sound Services, Inc. In recent years, the company has branched out from sound mixing and editorial into picture editorial and telecine, and is opening a Digital Intermediary suite to meet the trailer industry’s growing need for HD capability.

“The relationship we have with both SSI and Flyer has benefits for everyone,” Kater explains. “We will continue to act as Flyer Entertainment’s high-end CGI house, while SSI will sub out all their MPAA fixes to us. It allows us to get involved with a project at the conceptual and production end, as well as giving us the opportunity to work out the kinks at the end for MPAA Standards and Practices. It will also allow us to not only do conceptual and storyboard, but to also design and produce the actual visual effects and do other image processing. This is a model we want to pursue with S4’s other clients as well.”

“It was never cost-effective for us to get into the high end 3D graphics end,“ says Tom Hughes of SSI. “We were farming things out to different companies, but when Flyer Entertainment introduced us to S4 VFX, we knew we had finally found a company of veterans that we could rely upon to do work that would satisfy the very stringent requirements of both the studios and the MPAA, and turn it around almost immediately, which is key in the fast paced business of motion picture advertising.”

“Geoff’s 3D animation experience is something we’ve come to rely on, whether its to fix or enhance a shot that isn’t working editorially, or to create a motion graphic design that gives a totally unique look to our movie advertising, or creating a beautiful DVD box reveal that is both eye-catching and perfectly in context with the tone of the movie,” says Flyer Entertainment’s Tom Merchant. “He has real animation chops, works out problems and provides solutions, and he does it quickly, creatively, efficiently and enthusiastically.”

S4 Studios is a multidisciplinary production company specializing in design, content development, 3D animation, 2D animation, visual effects and live action production for television, feature films, commercials and trailers and home video. Since its founding in 1999 by Dale Hendrickson, Geoffrey Kater, and Larry Le Francis, the studio has built a client roster that includes Cartoon Network, Rhythm & Hues commercials, Flyer Entertainment, The Cimarron Group, Walt Disney Television Animation, Viacom, Warner Bros and Winner & Associates. Geoffrey Kater is also the author of “Design First for 3D Artists,” published in 2005 by Wordware Publishing.

www.s4studios.com

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The Mill have just completed a humorous and endearing commercial for iconic drinks brand Guinness. Called ‘Best Mates’ the ad tells the story of a pair of Penguins precariously making their way to their local (a half sunken sailing ship) in Greenland. Dodging cracking icebergs and hungry killer whales the best mates slip and slide their way to the ‘Ship’ for a well deserved pint of the black stuff.

Directed by directing trio Lynn Fox through Blink for Irish Ad Agency IIBBDO, The Mill’s 2D and 3D teams worked tirelessly to create a clever mix of real footage and CG to create a photo realistic piece that is entertaining and engaging. Lead flame Giles Cheetham and assist Gareth Brannan did a fantastic job seamlessly compositing shot footage and 3D elements.

View the Spot here!

‘Best Mates’ is going out in Ireland only.

The Mill, London
40-41 Great Marlborough Street
Soho, London W1F 7JQ
+44 20 7287 4041
info@the-mill.com

The Mill, New York
451 Broadway 5th floor
New York NY 10013
+1 212 337 3210
info@the-mill.com

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