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The Mill has announced plans to open a major facility in Santa Monica, Los Angeles. The move will make the company the first post-production company to operate in three global locations for commercials production: London, New York and now Los Angeles.

The Mill opened their New York office in 2002 with a team of six. It now comprises a core team of 70 housed in 15,000 square square foot Soho facility. The Mill London is based in Soho, the heart of London’s advertising industry. Since opening in 1990 it has grown into a 30,000 square foot production facility with over 200 staff. The London office houses 11 Flame suites, 3 short turn-around Smoke suites, two Spirit Datacine machines and a CGI department with up to 40 workstations running a variety of software solutions.

At least 12 professional and technical staff will work in the Los Angeles office from the outset. Most of the key staff relocating to Los Angeles are well known to Los Angeles’ directors, editors and agencies and the full team will be announced later in the year.

Earlier this year, The Mill was named as the world’s Number 1 Facility by Shots magazine, the key global publication for the advertising industry. The Mill has worked on numerous award-winning productions include work for Sony PlayStation, Honda and Guinness. It remains the only UK visual effects company to win an Academy Award (Gladiator, 2001).

The new office in Santa Monica is due to open for business in January of next year and will be staffed by key creatives relocated from London and New York as well as local talent.

Robin Shenfield, co-founder and Chief Executive of The Mill, said:
“We have so many advertising agencies, production companies and editorial clients already focused on these cities that it makes absolute sense to locate ourselves in the same place. Creative advertising still relies on a great deal of personal interaction. There are some things that simply cannot be done as well without being there.

”The feedback we have had from clients on the West Coast is that there is a real appetite for a more European look, particularly in terms of compositing. That has very much been our experience in New York and we anticipate that to be the case on the West Coast.”

The Mill also owns BEAM.TV , the leading global advertising distribution business which uses the internet to immediately deliver digital advertising across different platforms and countries. BEAM.TV helped pioneer the digital asset management industry and has become the world’s leading choice for online distribution.

About The Mill
The Mill is a world-leading visual effects company with bases in the globe’s most important advertising centres – London and New York. We also have a network of in-house agency-based facilities, called Mini-Mill’s, which deliver Mill expertise with in-house convenience. The Mill compliments these services with BEAM.TV – an internationally-acclaimed, high-bandwidth, digital asset management system for content storing and sharing of all advertising and production materials. All four elements work together to fulfil every possible post production requirement to the utmost standard.

www.the-mill.com

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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Post Logic Studios, a leading independent post-production and digital intermediate (DI) service facility, is providing end-to-end post services for the upcoming independent feature film, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh produced by Groundswell Productions.

“More than being a complete pleasure, working with Post Logic Studios has been a very practical choice for us. They are total pros when it comes to feature post, and have an incredible in-house talent base to manage everything from visual effects supervision and dailies to creating effects and DI. It is so nice that one individual vendor can manage so much of our post throughput,” said Michael London, Groundswell Productions.

From the producers of the Academy Award-winning Sideways, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, based on the best-selling novel by Michael Chabon, chronicles the last true summer of Art Bechstein’s (played by Jon Foster) youth. Also starring Mena Suvari and Peter Sarsgaard, the film is the first full-length feature for which Post Logic is providing on-set effects supervision in addition to visual effects and DI.

“We have the talent base, equipment, infrastructure and pipeline flexibility to manage whatever digital post production requirements our clients have. We can competently accommodate anything from dailies to CG and final digital color grading for film and television projects in SD, HD, 2K or 4K,” says Larry Birstock, CEO, Post Logic. “With a sweet spot in DI, we are already brining together all of the elements of a film for final color correction, so we’re well positioned and equipped to deliver any of the digital services needed along the production chain.”

Post Logic’s Joseph Francis is the film’s visual effects supervisor. In this role, he is on-set guiding the production’s shooting at critical moments in order to make the visual effects creation process more efficient.

“Sometimes a small adjustment during shooting can make a big difference in the quality or cost of an effects shot,” said Francis.

In addition to on-set visual effects supervision, Post Logic’s visual effects team also provided sky replacements for weather continuity, compositing, green screen, clean up, 3D camera tracking, rig removal, CG element creation, digital matte painting and other stylistic effects as called for in the script. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh will be released in 2007.

Click For More Information!

About Post Logic Studios
With technologically advanced facilities in Los Angeles and New York, Post Logic Studios has distinguished itself as a leader in digital intermediate and feature film restoration, and continues to expand into new and emerging arenas within the post-production realm. The company provides unmatched digital intermediate, digital mastering, editorial assembly, restoration, visual effects and audio postproduction services to feature film and television clients from its flagship Hollywood facility and Manhattan-based satellite, Post Logic Studios N.Y. Encompassing a team of the feature film and television community’s most talented digital artists and a 1,500-square-foot digital cinema-enabled theater, Post Logic Studios continues to lead and innovate.
www.postlogic.com

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The creative team at Manhattan-based design and production company UVPHACTORY (UVPH), working under the direction of Morgan Almeida, Director of Creative Al Jazeera English, was a key collaborator in the design, production and branding of Al Jazeera English, the first 24-hour English-language news and current affairs channel broadcast from the Middle East.

UVPH created the main HD news graphics package for the channel; eight :15 3D animated, high definition on-air logos; and 30 :15 live-action international overview IDs all of which were delivered in both PAL and HD formats, and which debuted when Al Jazeera English began broadcasting globally on November 15.

To shoot the 30 high definition live-action international overview IDs, UVPH dispatched a team to South Africa, which afforded them a diversity of environments. Striving to capture Al Jazeera English’s objective overview of all issues, looking at every angle and every side, the UVPH team spent 35 hours in a helicopter, shooting over Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town with gyro-stabilized camera mounts on a Panasonic HD Varicam. South Africa proved to be an ideal location as it allowed UVPH to shoot, in a relatively short period of time, a wide range of environments – beaches, metropolitan cities, deserts and wilderness – all of which were in close proximity.

“At UVPHACTORY we frequently shoot live-action but combine the footage with 3D, effects and type. In this instance our mandate was to capture the most beautiful shots possible – there would be no postproduction, no effects, no nothing – only exquisite images,” stated UVPH Creative Director Alexandre Moors. “We were able to plan some of the shots in advance – we knew for instance that we would catch a soccer match here or a power plant there – but changes in the weather forced us to look for images on the fly and we came upon some remarkable scenarios that proved to be perfect for our IDs. It was an extraordinary photo safari.”

At the same time UVPH Executive Producer Brian Welsh and Moors were shooting in South Africa, a team of animators and compositors in New York were creating the 3D high definition animated logos. One of the UVPH team fortunately knew both Arabic and Arabic calligraphy and his expertise was invaluable in the creation of the logos. He broke down the Al Jazeera logo into the different letters, and a sequence of how each letter lays down – which is the first point and the last point of each letter – and made a sheet so that when the UVPH team was animating or thinking about a logo everyone would have a point of reference. “The logos were to function like section headings in a newspaper,” explained Alexandre Moors. “Handmade represents the arts and has a painterly gold feel that writes on the logo; Politic represents the exchange of political ideas; For Spirit, which represents spirituality, we focused on Jinn, the genie in the bottle; Technicity heralds technical advances and has an ultra modern feel; for Tradition, which represents cultural events, we employed Arabian colors and textures – reds, yellow and the look of silk, and so on,” he continued.

“As we constructed and deconstructed the eight logos each presented its own challenge – for example, one is liquid, another cloth, so a number of different software packages were utilized to make the motion natural. In addition, the renders were huge. First we did pre-visualizations at half res and then final renders in full res HD. They were truly challenging to manage,” Brian Welsh continued.

“This was a complex collaboration” added Welsh. “Al Jazeera’s Morgan Almeida drove the creative direction, strategy and branding which positions the channel across all four centers – the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. We incorporated the creative direction and initial conception of a British branding agency that approached us to further develop their initial concepts. We designed the eight logos animations that would cross numerous cultural boundaries and echo the diversity of Al Jazeera’s audiences and programs, and therefore appeal to all sorts of aesthetics and mindsets across the globe. For the international overview IDs, Morgan Almeida’s brief was to connect with the viewer both geographically and emotionally using timeless filmic IDs without any overt graphic styling. The branding we created for the news hour opens and the overarching animations echo the idea that Al Jazeera English broadcasts across time zones so we incorporated strong vertical lines which are a metaphor for the lines of longitude and the movement of time around the earth.”

Of his experience working with UVPH, Al Jazeera English Director of Creative, Morgan Almeida, said, “UVPHACTORY did a brilliant job. Their team went off to South Africa and scouted and shot footage that turned out to be an integral part of our branding. Working with UVPHACTORY made for an excellent collaboration. All around, it was a fantastic relationship.”

As the Al Jazeera English news desks follow the stories of the day, they also follow the sun. The day begins with three hours of coverage from Kuala Lumpur. Doha, Qatar has the middle 8 hours, then on to London, and Washington DC, and back to Kuala Lumpur. Al Jazeera also has studios in 20 other countries.

Al Jazeera English is now available to 80 million homes – double its target audience – in Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia. In the United States, the channel is available via a broadband Internet connection.

The UVPH creative team responsible for the Al Jazeera English branding included Principal/Co-Founder Scott Sindorf; Principal/Co-Founder Damijan Saccio; Creative Director/Director Alexander Moors; Executive Producer Brian Welsh; Designers Alexandre Moors, Bashir Hamid and Colin Hess; Lead 3D Animators Scott Sindorf and Bashir Hamid; 3D Animator Ryan Bradley; Compositors Bashir Hamid, Shuyi Wu and John Stanch; Editor Robert Lopuski; Director of Photography Brian O’Carroll; and Production Manager Melissa Sarno.

UVPHACTORY utilized Softimage|XSI 5.1, Syflex Cloth Simulator, Next Limit’s RealFlow fluid simulator, Apple Final Cut Pro 5.0, Adobe After Effects 7.0, Adobe Photoshop CS and Adobe Illustrator CS in the completion of this project.

While shooting in South Africa, UVPH worked with film facilitators BLM Productions (Durban, South Africa).

Representing Al Jazeera English were Director of Creative Morgan Almeida, Art Director Patrick Bedeau and Design Coordinator Celine Legoas.

About UVPHACTORY
UVPH is a New York-based design and production company offering a complete range of creative services including conceptualization, live-action direction and production, editorial, 2D/3D animation, sound composition/design and final compositing for broadcast, commercial, film, music video and web clients. Additionally, UVPH has leapt full force into the longer format arena, directing and producing music videos. Since the company’s formation in 2000, UVPH has attracted a diverse client base including AT&T, BET, Bravo, Cartoon Network, CBS, Cinemax, Cingular, Coca-Cola, Comedy Central, ESPN, FOX Sports, General Electric, HBO, IBM, IFC, Miramax, MTV, NBC, Scripps Networks, SCI FI Network, Showtime, USA, US Cellular, VH1, and VOOM HD Network, among any others.

UVPHACTORY is headquartered at 224 Centre Street, Suite 2E, New York, NY 10013; 212-483-0040; Fax: 212-483-9371; For more information, or to see a reel, contact Senior Producer Brian Welsh. Visit the UVPH website at www.uvph.com

About Al Jazeera English
Al Jazeera English is a 24-hour English-language news and current affairs channel headquartered in Doha, Qatar. A subsidiary of Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera International is the world’s first English-language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East. With broadcasting centers in Kuala Lumpur, Doha Quatar, London and Washington DC, and supporting bureaus worldwide, the channel provides both a regional voice and a global perspective to a potential world audience of over one billion English speakers. The station broadcasts factual programming including news, features and analysis, documentaries, live debates current affairs, business and sports.

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SWAY Studio, one of North America’s leading visual effects studios, announced today its contribution to the new U2 and Green Day music video entitled, “The Saints are Coming.” For this powerful production, SWAY integrated many photo-real CG elements, including Harrier jets, Apache helicopters, Stealth Bombers and tanks into existing news footage from Hurricane Katrina. The result is a thought-provoking and emotional video that shows what it might have looked like had the government responded differently to the disaster.

Directed by Chris Milk of Radical Media, this controversial video was produced to raise funds for Gulf Coast musicians affected by the Hurricane Katrina disaster. “The Saints are Coming” has been featured on prominent newscasts such as CNN and is currently airing on VH1 and MTV. It can also be viewed online at mtv.com or vh1.com.

“This project had a very tight deadline of two and a half weeks from start to finish,” said Mark Glaser, Owner and Creative Director at SWAY Studio. “This made our work particularly challenging because the CG elements that were integrated into existing news footage needed to have a very high degree of photorealism to be successful.”

Working closely with Director Chris Milk, Glaser and his team worked meticulously to ensure all shots were done to the high level of detail and quality that was expected. SWAY’s main challenge was to make the Iraqi Desert Storm aircraft and tanks look like they were actually there in New Orleans for the rescue and mass evacuation. Every shot was scrutinized, worked and reworked to ensure its believability – all within a tight timeframe.

“SWAY also added video degradation to the CG elements so that they would match the original footage, which varied substantially from shot to shot,” continues Glaser. “The most challenging was taking a shot of a flooded main boulevard and adding rows of tanks rolling through the water. We developed some incredible techniques to make this feasible.”

SWAY utilized a variety of off-the-shelf and proprietary hardware and software to compete the project. The most prominently used tools were 3ds Max, V-Ray, Flame, NUKE and After Effects. All of the water effects were done using Real Flow 4.

“The Saints are Coming” is performed by U2 and Green Day, and directed by Chris Milk of Radical Media. All proceeds from the sale of “The Saints are Coming” will go to Music Rising, an instrument replacement fund for musicians located on the Gulf Coast. To watch the video visit: mtv.com or vh1.com. To obtain SWAY production images visit: swayftp.com/Saints_PR.htm.

About SWAY Studio
SWAY Studio is one of the top visual effects shops in North America. SWAY’s aim is to help advertising agencies eliminate traditional views of how their products are seen and enable exciting new creative ideas. The goal is to create unforgettable imagery and to confuse the viewer into believing that everything is real with no thought about effects.

SWAY’s proprietary software, the SWAY Driving Simulator has been used to create stunning visual effects and spots for Chevy, Mazda, Pontiac, Hyundai, Hummer and Toyota. This software replicates the performance of any vehicle with complete precision.

In addition to their commercial work, SWAY has begun visual effects work on their first feature film titled “Mr. Brooks,” starring Kevin Costner and Demi Moore.

Currently located in Westwood, Calif., SWAY is moving its headquarters to Culver City. For additional information on SWAY Studio, visit its website at www.swaystudio.com.

SWAY CREDITS – U2 and Green Day “The Saints Are Coming”

Creative Director: Mark Glaser
Executive Producer: Mike Pardee
Executive Producer: Shira Boardman
Producer: Matt Winkel
Production Coordinator: Daughn Ward

Flame Artist/Compositing Lead: Ben Looram
CG Supervisor: Wayne England
Artists 3D: Richard Wardlow, Rob Meyers, Aaron Powell, Daniel Buck, Rob Glazer, Josh Hooker, John Allardice, Greg Tsadilas
Compositing: Ryan Gibson, Maciek Sokalski, Chris Bankoff, Feli DiGiorgio, Lauren Mayer-Beug
Technical Directors: Graham Fyffe, Carlos Anguiano
Rotoscoping & Paint: Lyndal Heathwood, Edgar Diaz, Christine Felman
I.T. dept: Nick Swartz, Kevin Beier
Production Assistants: Nick Mayer, Jessica Anderson

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Following Pr Rodolfo Coria, a world-reknown Argentinian paleontologist, we visit sites of major discoveries he has contributed to in Patagonia and travel back in time to see these amazing beasts come to life.

Patagonia has given us the largest living animal to have ever walked the Earth: the titanesque plant-eating Argentinosaur, and its nemesis, the Giganotosaur. Dinosaurs 3D will be in Theatres on March 1st, 2007.

For more information see the official Dinosaurs 3D Website here!

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‘Diversion’ is a brilliant short film created by Mill animator Aidan Gibbons and Simon Reeves. Both animators have graduated from the University of Hertfordshire time with 1st Class Honours in Digital Animation. Aidan has been employed at The Mill and Simon has been employed at Fluid Pictures.

The film is about a group of road signs that go for a ramble and wreak havoc in the local village. The renegade group of signs grows in size as their journey continues with one sign making a greak for the border as it boards a plane to Croatioa!

You can get the full breakdown of the making of Diversion as well as a hi-res version by reading the Diversion Production Blog at the Official Diversion website here! You can also discuss the Film with the authors in this thread over at VFXTalk.com!

The main idea behind the film was to create something lighthearted, original and something that would hold the audience’s interest. They also wanted to create a film that had a flexible narrative during filming. Previous to ‘Diversion’ they had both made full 3D films the year before and wanted to try their hands at something new. Aidan and Simon were inspired by the innovative commercials and music videos they saw coming out of post production houses such as The Mill.

The quirky film incorporates 3D elements composited into a live action background. They used a trusty Panasonic GS400 DV cam to shoot the live action elements and then tracked the rushes which gave them a digital copy of their analogue camera footage.

They then rendered all of their 3D elements on to several layers (sometimes as many as twenty) and then applied those layers on top of the live action. The final stage was the colour grade which made the layers appear as seamless as possible.

The whole film took approximately 5 months to complete from storyboarding to final grading and they used a variety of software. XSI was used for the majority of 3D work and compositing, Shake was also used to composite and Rotoscope, whilst Boujou was used to track and Combustion was used to grade.

Aidan and Simon have recently won an award for Best Visual Effects at the Global Student Animation Awards (http://www.stashmedia.tv/gsaa/index.htm). The film will also feature in Manchester’s ‘Exposures’ film festival in December and will be on display at Bury St Edmund’s Gallery for the Platform 7 event. It also picked up the Jurys’ special mention award at the University of Hertfordshire’s film day.

Click here to view video!

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

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Visual effects studio Guava made its first foray into effects for feature films with Casper’s Scare School, an entirely CG feature film finished in HD that premiered on the Cartoon Network during Halloween season recently.

Guava VFX supervisor Alex Catchpoole completed 20 shots for the movie, including adding smoke to several shots, digitally relighting several scenes, and adding lens distortion. In several scenes, Catchpoole added smoke to several shots of Casper’s classroom after his teacher, an irritated dragon, nearly toasts the class with a blast of fire. This was done by manipulating real smoke to make it match the CG fireball effects, then tracking and color-correcting it to fit the scenes. Foreground objects were rotoscoped to give the shots more depth. Then, Catchpoole re-composited the fireball to make it larger and have more impact, which involved additional color correction of the classroom to give the effect that the room was being “lit up” by the fireball.

The digital relighting and shadow effect was done through color correction of supplied 3D elements and animated 2D reveal mattes created in Autodesk’s Flame. The reveal mattes were animated to follow the rough contours of the body, and as the character moves forward, the mattes follow the movement, creating the effect of stepping out into the light. Catchpoole created a “coming out of the shadows” effect, adding lens distortion and digital broken glass to a telescope shot, and created particle animation for the spray of food.

“Most of these were effects that evolved as the project came together,” Catchpoole says, “story points that needed a little extra punch.” Catchpoole enhanced a few shots of Casper traveling through a magical portal, and created the effect of him passing through the surface of the portal. There was also a transformation scene, where a young vampire transforms into a bat. He enhanced that transition with light and flow effects.

The movie builds on the work that company completed on other non-commercial projects.

New York-based visual effects company Guava (www.guavanyc.com) was established for creative artists and producers to make striking images using the most effective means. Guava’s visual effects artists include Aron Baxter, Alex Catchpoole, Mark Wilhelm and Amber Wilson. Guava’s 3D artists include Steve Takowski, Dave Bernkopf, Spyro Serbos and Adrian Graham.

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Phoenix Editorial and Designs, just completed two new spots for ad agency Duncan/Channon. “Boom,” directed by John Perez of production company Notorious 24:7, promotes the new “Sonic The Hedgehog” title from Sega for PS3 and the Xbox 360. Director Jordan Brady from prodco Uber Content helmed the ad “Sensei,” which introduces the Ubisoft title “Red Steele” for the new Nintendo console Wii. Both spots broke nationally this month.

In addition to editing from Bob Frisk, Phoenix contributed substantial visual effects work on both spots. The ad “Boom,” which was posted in 1080i HD, had effects director Matt Silverman compositing cloud tank footage with practical foregrounds to create a menacing force of nature rolling across a sleepy farm town. In “Sensei,” online editor John Crossley performed extensive rig and wire removal, as well as transitional effects on the Sensei character.

“Boom” features beautiful cinematography of a placid countryside just as a foreboding force of nature blows in. The shots are edited to build up anticipation for this extraordinary event. A weathervane twirls atop a barn, a dog perks up his ears, laundry sways on the line and a farmer looks up from tending the field to see a white blast careening across the sky, just as a male v/o says, “They don’t call it a Sonic Boom for nothing.” The closing shots show game footage, and finally, a field with a crop circle of the recognizable Sonic The Hedgehog logo, being carved out by Sonic himself.

In “Sensei,” a young man engaging in the swordplay adventure game “Red Steele” calls upon his master for guidance. Suddenly, a white-haired, bearded man in a long, flowing robe materializes. Shot in a retro chop-suey style, with lots of dramatic zoom-ins, the master floats towards the young man. He instructs his young protégé on how to wield the wand-like Wii controller, which operates the swords and guns in this first-person shooter game.

Both spots were offline edited on an Avid Media Composer. Visual effects were produced in Autodesk Smoke and Adobe AfterEffects, and finished in Smoke. Phoenix Editorial & Designs also recently completed editorial on a TV commercial for the EA Games title “Need for Speed: Carbon” via ad agency HEAT.

About Phoenix Editorial & Designs
Phoenix has been a mainstay in the San Francisco creative post-production community since 1991. With a roster of award winning editors, graphic designers and effects artists, Phoenix works with creative-driven advertising agencies including Venables, Bell & Partners, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Publicis & Hal Riney, Heat (formerly Black Rocket), Duncan/Channon, and McCann. The company produces spots and HD motion graphics packages for Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Intel, Yahoo, PG&E, Disney, McDonald’s, Palm, Toyota, Hewlett Packard, Comcast and the Got Milk campaign. In August 2005, the company moved into a new state-of-the-art HD facility located on the lush grounds of Sydney Walton Park in downtown San Francisco.

www.phoenixedit.com

PRODUCTION CREDITS FOR “BOOM”

CLIENT:
Client: Sega
Product: Sonic XBox 360
Title(s): Boom :30
Airdate: 11/9/06

PRODUCTION COMPANY:
Company: Notorious 24:7
Director: John Perez
DP: John Perez
Exec. Producer: Neale Ferguson
Line Producer: Laura Morris
Location: Half Moon Bay, CA

AGENCY:
Agency: Duncan / Channon, San Francisco
Exec. CD: Parker Channon
AD: Ken Hall
Copywriter: John Munyan
Producer: LauraLe Wunsch

EDITORIAL:
Edit House: Phoenix Editorial
Editor: Bob Frisk
Online Editor: John Crossley
Exec. Producer: Jonathan Hinman

TELECINE:
Telecine House: Co3, Los Angeles
Colorist: Steve Rodriguez

VISUAL EFFECTS:
Effects House: Phoenix Designs
Artist(s): Matt Silverman & John Crossley
Graphic Designer: Matt Silverman
Executive Producer: Jonathan Hinman

SOUND & MUSIC:
Sound Designer: Steve Bissingerv
Mixer: Mark Pitchford @ M Squared, San Francisco

PRODUCTION CREDITS FOR “SENSEI”
CLIENT:
Client: Ubisoft
Product: Red Steele
Title: “Sensei” :30
Airdate: 11/11/06

PRODUCTION COMPANY
Company: Uber Content
Director: Jordan Brady
Executive Producer: Preston Lee
DP: Mateo Londono

AGENCY:
Agency: Duncan/Channon
ECD, Copywriter: Parker Channon
CD, Art Director: Anne Elisco-Lemme
Broadcast Producer: LauraLe Wunsch

EDITORIAL:
Edit House: Phoenix Editorial
Editor: Bob Frisk
Online Editor: John Crossley
Executive Producer: Jonathan Hinman

VISUAL EFFECTS:
Effects House: Phoenix Designs
Artist(s): John Crossley
Executive Producer: Jonathan Hinman

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Take a look at Shilo’s latest advertisement for Cingular. One seamless take of highly stylized realism portrays a series of fans, cuts, flips, and flourishes that build to a crescendo of the myriad of devices that make up the stylish and compact Blackjack.

In this advertisement Shilo does an amazing job at putting Samsung’s all-in-one handheld in a totally new perspective. In addition to directing the spot, the team at Shilo were responsible for all design, animation & editorial work. Cut as a single uninteruppted 30 second take, “BlackJack Flourish” has just hit the air. If you haven’t seen it on TV yet then take a look at the link below.

About Shilo:
Shilo is a collective of designers, animators and directors who share a common passion in forging new perspectives in storytelling through design and visual effects driven production. Shilo strives to not only push the boundaries of contemporary motion graphics and direction, but also to strike a nerve in an ever-numbing audience. The studio endeavors to create projects with boundless emotional impact by seamlessly combining live-action, 3D-CGI, classic typography and illustration with music and sound design. In September of 2005, the studio won an Emmy® Award for Outstanding Achievement in Main Title Design for Showtime’s dramatic series “HUFF.”

Shilo has offices in New York and San Diego. For more information or to request a reel contact Tracy Chandler at Tel. 212-352-2044 or visit Shilo online at www.shilodesign.com

www.shilo.tv

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CoolBrands, an initiative by Superbrands (an independent authority and arbiter on branding), has grown to become the key barometer of the United Kingdom’s ( UK) coolest brands, people and places. And Tiger beer, among 1,200 brands, has once again been accorded this distinction!

For the third year in a row, Tiger was affirmed by the independent and voluntary CoolBrands Council which consists of eminent individuals and opinion leaders in the UK to select the coolest brands in the nation. This recognition validates that Tiger is extremely desirable among the style leaders and influencers in the UK; and for the first time, the CoolBrands selection process took into consideration the votes of over 1,700 British. The increased rigour behind the selection process is to reflect the importance of today’s savvy consumers who are taking an active interest in the brands they consume and depend upon in their everyday life.

The following 75 second TV advertisement was used to promote Tiger Beer this year in New Zealand, featuring a man who enters several phases of incarnation. It opens with a Chinese man arriving in a caity on the back of a duck truck.

It then cuts to a bird’s eye view (literally!) of a outdoor Tiger Beer billboard, and as the bird fails to get the beer he is re-born as a fish in a restaurant fish tank who tries to escape to get to the beers the people around him are drinking.

Our reincarnated spirit then goes through another transformations as a cat before finally ending up in a mans body, standing in front of a bar with a beer walking by! Little does he know that a panda has been going through the same journey, giving the advertisement the tag line, “Taste It In This Life”

Production Information

Official Website: http://tigerbeer.co.nz/tasteitinthislife/

The Tiger Beer “In This Life” was developed by Saatchi & Saatci, New Zealand
Executive creative director Mike O’Sullivan
Creative director Toby Talbot
Art directors Andy DiLallo, Jay Benjamin and Cameron Harris
Writers Jay Benjamin, Andy DiLallo, Cameron Harris, Tom Hazeldine.

Filming director Jesse Warn at Film Construction
Producer Jack Sainte-Rose.

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