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Mud-baked automobiles piled high under overpasses, damaged houses with fresh water and mold lines inside and out, downed fences and debris strewn lots where homes formerly stood, all the internal visual effects for the ten hour opening season of HBO new drama series, ‘Treme,’ were designed and executed by the design and visual effects house Phosphene.

Set in one of New Orleans oldest neighborhoods ?‚àö√ë‚àö¬® a hub of African-American and Creole culture known for its rich musical tradition ?‚àö√ë‚àö¬® ‘Treme’ is the brainchild of David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’ and ‘Generation Kill,’ and Eric Overmyer, writer/executive producer of ‘Law & Order,’ and chronicles the rebuilding of the city unique culture and features a rich gumbo of characters including several struggling musicians and other New Orleans locals in the aftermath of the 2005 devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

Visual Effects Director John Bair and Executive Producer Vivian Connolly, Founders and Co-owners of Phosphene, and their creative team, were tapped to digitally retrofit the post-Katrina landscape for ‘Treme’ (pronounced truh-MAY), which premiered Sunday April 11.

‘The entire first season takes place in the months immediately after Katrina and, fortunately, things have improved in New Orleans since 2005. In general, the bulk of our work, and our most complex shots, involve the recreation of the look and feel of a specific moment in the history of the city. The producers wanted to include locations that no longer looked as they did which meant adding back the horrendous damage and destruction done to the landscape. Reference photos and extensive research provided the inspiration for the environments we created, ‘explained Phosphene John Bair.

‘Another massive group of effects involve the dressing of locations that were not damaged, or have recently been refurbished ?‚àö√ë‚àö¬® removing air conditioners, boarding up windows – essentially taking now functional residences and retrofitting them to look as they did when they were closed off from the public. Further, there are some driving shots lensed green screen and a number of straight forward effects.’

“Although John was not on location he worked closely with the preproduction team in anticipation of their shoot in New Orleans. There were several shots, key visual moments, on which he collaborated throughout the prepro phase. A digital still photographer shot every day, grabbing references and resources and documenting all the locations. We are always excited about participating as early in the process as is possible. It was all planned out ahead of time and has really paid off,” added Vivian Connolly.

‘There was a lot of camera movement and characters that pass in front of the environment and our work really had to look like it was there when the footage was shot. Tracking all the elements, matching lighting and texturing and making sure that our work is accurate and believable is always a challenge. The entire series has a high level of authenticity and our effects, of course, must as well,’ continued Bair.

HBO Post-Producer Jessica Levin says of their work experience, ‘Phosphene’s John Bair is the most talented Visual Effects Artist in New York, and Executive Producer Vivian Connolly is a production’s best friend. Phosphene does the best possible creative work (some of my favorite shots in my films), on-time and budget, and they’re a pleasure to work with. I’d be lost without them!’

The Phosphene creative team, lead by Bair and Connolly, included Associate Producer Jody Peters; Senior Compositor Scott Winston; Composite Artists Connie Conrad, Tara Jacobson, Sergei Martirosov, Thomas Panayiotou, Aaron Raff and Mark Rubbo; and 3D Animators Vance Miller and Steve Sullivan.

Phosphene utilized After Effects CS4, Photoshop CS4, 3ds Max 2009 and Nuke and PC (Intel Xeon Processors running Windows XP 64-bit) in the execution of this project.

Representing HBO/Blown Deadline were Executive Producers David Simon, Nina Noble, Eric Overmyer and Carolyn Strauss; Co-Executive Producer David Mills; Producer Anthony Hemingway; Line Producer Joseph Incaprera; Post-Producer Jessica Levin; and Associate Prod: Laura Schweigman.

Postproduction was completed at PostWorks (New York, NY) by Online Editor Pat Kelleher and Colorist Ken Rubenfeld who handled the film-to-tape assignment.

About Phosphene
Phosphene is an independent design and visual effects house led by Founders/Co-Owners John Bair and Vivian Connolly. The principals and their creative team recently completed visual effects for ‘You Don’st Know Jack’ (HBO) directed by Barry Levinson and starring Al Pacino; they are in the process of completing visual effects for ‘The Adjustment Bureau’ starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt; On set VFX Supervision and VFX for ‘The Beaver’ starring Mel Gibson and Jody Foster; VFX for ‘Vanishing on 7th Street’ with Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo; VFX for ‘Salt’ starring Angelina Jolie and Liev Schreiber; and ‘The Real Housewives of D.C.’ (Half Yard Productions) for which they are designing and animating the show package; John Bair will direct the talent on this shoot.

CREDITS
Airdate: April 11th, 10PM premiere on HBO
Title: ‘Treme’
Length: 10, 1 hour episodes

Description: Mud-baked automobiles piled high under overpasses, damaged houses with fresh water and mold lines inside and out, downed fences and debris strewn lots where homes formerly stood – all the internal visual effects for the ten hour opening season of HBO new drama series, ‘Treme,’ were designed and executed by the design and visual effects house Phosphene.

Visual Effects Company: Phosphene
City/State: New York, NY
VFX Director: John Bair
Executive Producer: Vivian Connolly
Associate Producer: Jody Peters
Senior Compositor: Scott Winston
Composite Artists: Connie Conrad, Tara Jacobson, Sergei Martirosov, Thomas Panayiotou, Aaron Raff, Mark Rubbo.
3D Animators: Vance Miller, Steve Sullivan

Software/hardware: Phosphene utilized After Effects CS4, Photoshop CS4, 3ds Max 2009, Nuke and PC (Intel Xeon Processors running Windows XP 64-bit) in the execution of this project.

Client: HBO/Blown Deadline
Executive Producers: David Simon, Nina Noble, Eric Overmyer, Carolyn Strauss
Co-Executive Producer:David Mills
Producer: Anthony Hemingway
Line Producer: Joseph Incaprera
Post-Producer: Jessica Levin
Associate Producer: Laura Schweigman

Location of Shoot: New Orleans, LA

Postproduction Facility: PostWorks
City/State: New York, NY
Online Editor: Pat Kelleher
Colorist: Ken Rubenfeld

RELATED LINKS
www.phosphenefx.com
www.hbo.com

Popularity: 2% [?]

Louis Leterrier has directed ‘Clash of the Titans’, a remake of the 80 classic featuring the war between man and the gods. MPC completed 214 VFX shots for the film including extensive creature work for the Kraken, Pegasus and Harpies, cityscapes, digi-doubles, crowds and fx.

The team led by VFX Supervisor Gary Brozenich was involved from the outset working closely with the production team and director to design the city of Argos. Once the layout and look of the city was signed off, MPC 3D team worked on Maya to create the CG city and used matte-painting to complete the environment.

For the final sequence, MPC created the Kraken and a CG ocean. To achieve a fully realistic fluid animation over 20 passes of water were used, combining volumetric rendering for water particles and mesh rendering for the water surface. All fluids were done using Flowline and rendered through RenderMan. MPC also created the FX for the ?‚àö√ë‚àö‚â§rockifying’s Kraken. To achieve the shattering effect, MPC used proprietary software PAPI.

To create Pegasus, MPC R&D team developed an extension to proprietary tool Furtility, to groom a blend of feathers and fur. For the flying shots, a fully CG Pegasus and digi-doubles were created and CG wings were added to the live action plates. Other creature work MPC worked on includes the fully CG Harpies and Zeus’s eagle transformation.

MPC completed work on crowd simulations for the armies and the city, Calibos transformation, smoke and fire effects and underwater sequences.

Clash of the Titans went on release early April 2010.

About MPC
The Moving Picture Company (MPC) is a world leading post production facility creating high-end digital visual effects and computer animation for the feature film, advertising, music and television industries. A wholly owned subsidiary of Technicolor, MPC is based in Soho ?Äì London, Santa Monica ?Äì CA and Yale town ?Äì Vancouver. The facilities are centrally located, networked and have a dedicated digital infrastructure designed and built for our future.

RELATED LINKS
www.moving-picture.com
www.clash-of-the-titans.warnerbros.com

Popularity: 3% [?]

Philips have debuted five innovative and compelling films that comprise “Parallel Lines” a project commissioned for Philips Cinema 21:9 TV. Among them is the dazzling, cinematic thriller “Podarok” which was written and directed by RSA’s Carl Erik Rinsch and edited by Cut + Run’s Dayn Williams and Dan Swietlik.

A follow-up to the award-winning “Carousel” short film, ‘Parallel Lines’, is part of a new global campaign to promote the unique cinematic viewing experience offered by Philips’ range of TVs. For the project, Philips selected a single unifying theme and challenged RSA’s directors to submit treatments for a short film in a genre of the director’s choice. Forty-five treatments were received from which Philips selected five it believed were most groundbreaking including Carl Erik Rinsch’ tale of otherworldly espionage.

Cut + Run editor Dayn Williams, who previously collaborated with Rinsch on projects for Hiscox Insurance and Sci-Fi channel, calls Podarok: “an amazing opportunity to edit commissioned film with incredible scope, brilliant imagery and feature film pacing.” He adds, “Plus I got to work with Carl and Dan Swietlik, ACE. It doesn’t get better that that.”

Dan Swietlik adds, “The story has an interesting arc, starting out in a very slow and subtle way, but ending in a surprisingly chaotic cliffhanger. It’s a wild trip in an anachronistic world created by director Carl Erik Rinsch — a pleasure to work with because he’s basically a mad scientist with a camera.”

Now on view at www.philips.com/cinema the films are being shown using the Philips’ ‘Ambiplayer’ – a special online media player which recreates the effect of Philips’ unique Ambilight technology, plus picture quality and sound quality of Philips TVs.

The campaign was promoted extensively through social media including a Facebook Fan Page – View here.

Credits
PROJECT: PHILIPS ‘PARALLEL LINES’
TITLE: ‘PODAROK’

CLIENT: PHILIPS
VP, HEAD OF INTEGRATED MARKETING: GARY RAUCHER
SR DIRECTOR, INTEGRATED MARCOMS: EVA BARRETT

AGENCY: DDB LONDON
GLOBAL CREATIVE DIRECTOR: NEIL DAWSON
ART DIRECTOR: SHISH PATEL
COPYWRITER: SAM OLIVER
BUSINESS DIRECTOR: NEILL ROBB
AGENCY PRODUCER: LUCINDA KER
AGENCY PRODUCER: NATALIE POWELL

PRODUCTION COMPANY: RSA FILMS
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: CASPAR DELANEY
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: KAI LU HSIUNG
DIRECTOR: CARL ERIK RINSCH
PRODUCER: MARGO MARS
PRODUCTION MANAGER: IMOGEN DE TRAFFORD
COSTUME DESIGNER: SUSIE COULTHARD

FACILITY COMPANY MOSCOW: MONTY
FACILITY PRODUCER: JAMES ELKUS
1ST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: ANDREY RAMAZOV
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ROMAN VAS’YANOV
ART DIRECTOR: DENIS LISCHENKO
STUNT CO-ORDINATOR: VIKTOR IVANOV

EDITING COMPANY: CUT + RUN
EDITOR: DAYN WILLIAMS
EDITOR: DAN SWIETLIK
ASSISTANT EDITOR: STERLING ROBERTSON
PRODUCER: CARR SCHILLING

VISUAL EFFECTS BY: BIG LAZY ROBOT
VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR: J.J. PALOMO
ORIGINAL ROBOT DESIGN: JEFF JULIAN

TRANSFER, TK, CONFORM & DCP: MPC
HEAD OF DATA LAB: CHRIS VINZCE
COLOURIST: MARK GETHIN
PRODUCER: LOUISA CARTWRIGHT

MUSIC BY: AMON TOBIN

SOUND DESIGN & MIX: 740 SOUND DESIGN
SOUND DESIGNERS: ROMMEL MOLINA, ANDREW TRACY, EDDIE KIM
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: SCOTT GANARY
MIXER: MIKE FRANKLIN

Popularity: 2% [?]

Pete Candeland and Passion Paris inject some fruity fun into Oasis The with a new campaign from Publicis WAM. The director, famed for his work for virtual band Gorillaz, has created a summery set of spots to advertise the iced tea drink. The campaign sees a trio of fruity characters stumble upon a Land of The Lost-style tribe of tea leafs, and features the wit and energy characteristic of Candeland work.

Fast-moving and colourful, the campaign shows a lighter side to Candeland work, following the brooding menace of recent Gorillaz music video Stylo. It also the first time the multi-award winning director has shot a campaign specifically for the French market.

The campaign, which consists of a 10s, 30s and 45s spots, will be airing in France, Belgium and Holland across TV, cinema and the internet.

About Pete Candeland
Pete Candeland began his career at Disney in Sydney where he was hired straight from high school on the strength of his drawing skills. From 1993 – 1999 Candeland worked for animation studios Red Rover and Uli Meyer in London on commercials projects, and for Disney in both Toronto and Los Angeles on the feature film Beauty and the Beast. Pete joined Passion Pictures as a director in 2000 and began working across many media including design, drawn and computer animation and live action.

In 2001 Candeland and Passion Pictures began a long lasting collaboration with designer Jamie Hewlett and co-creator of the band Gorillaz. This creative team directed 8 award winning music videos for the band from both their albums, Gorillaz (2001) and Demon Days (2005). In addition to these videos Candeland also directed a series of ‘live’ performances where the band members were created as computer generated characters for the Brit Awards, MTV Europe Awards and the Grammy Awards in 2007 where the band performed on stage with Madonna.

Commerical & Ident Work
The award winning BBC World Cup idents for 2002 World Cup, featuring manga style caricatures of both the players and the BBC commentary team, and commercials for Super Target, Tizer, Motorola, 3 Mobile, Korean car brand Kia, and Gordon Gin, amongst others. In 2008 Candeland and Jamie Hewlett collaborated again on the BBC hugely popular titles for the Beijing Olympics featuring the Monkey King and other characters from Chinese mythology.

Games
Candeland has also designed and directed cinematic trailers for music based computer games including Guitar Hero (Xbox) and Rock Band 1 and 2 (Harmonix). He has also recently directed spectacular intro and outro cinematics for the new Harmonix/MTV launch of The Beatles: Rock Band.

CREDITS
Client Oasis
Title Oasis Th?©
Length 45″

Agency: Publicis WAM
Creative director: Florent Inbert
Art director: Emmanuel Lalleve
Copywriter: Ludovic Marocco
Account manager: Joris Vigoroux
TV producer: Timoth?© Rosenberg

Production Company: Passion Paris Production
Directors: Pete Candeland
Executive Producer: Marc Bodin-Joyeux
Post producer: Emilie Walmsley

PostProduction: Passion Pictures
Producer: Erika Forzy
Production manager: Gilles de Lusignang
3D Coordinator: Helen Lord
Lead direction: Mario Ucci and Rick Thiele
Lead animator: David Sigrist, Nora O’sSullivan, Stuart Doig, Kristian Antonelli
Modelling: Ian Brown, Dan Sweeney, Mattias Bjurstrom
Texturing: Melanie Climent
Development and Particles simulation: Julian Hodgson, Alex Doss, Sajjad Amjad
Matte Painting: Joao Ruas, Max Dennison (Matte Painting UK)
Rendering Team: Claire Michaud, Celine Desrumaux, Yann Benedi
Rigging: Francois Pons
Titles: Stephane Coedel
Colourist: Paul Harrison @MPC
Flame artist: Kamen Markov @ MUNKY
Sound design studio: Wam

RELATED LINKS
www.passion-paris.com

Popularity: 5% [?]

In an ordinary barn, in a quiet small town, a little girl will be faced with an extraordinary event. ‘Meet Meline’ tells the story of a young girl who spends much of her time playing in a dusty old wooden shed at her grandparents home.

One day, whilst engrossed in of her favourite past time of drawing, Meline suddenly finds herself face to face with an unknown furry creature. This short animated film follows a petite heroine called Meline as she makes a discovery of a lifetime.

‘Meet Meline’ is the enchanting and beautifully animated creation of 3D artists and creative directors Virginie Goyons and Sebastien Laban.

Initially the idea behind the project was to produce a 20 second clip that would provide a platform on which the two artists could develop and perfect their skills – two years later the piece has developed into a short animated film.

The making of ‘Meet Meline’ has also lead to the production of a hard backed book and some beautiful, emotive poster artwork.

Virginie Goyons is 26 years old and a lead 3D Artist at the video games company Eden Games (ATARI). Virginie honed and developed her 3D skills during 3 years at the ESMA, and past profile projects include ‘Alone in the Dark’ and ‘Test Drive Unlimited 2′.

Sebastien Laban is 25 years old and studied 3D Animation and Compositing at ‘Arts Appliques Bellecour’ for 3 years. After a working with Eden Games as Visual Effects Supervisor on ‘Alone in the Dark’, he spent 6 months at Framestore as a Technical Director for Brian Singer ‘Superman Returns’. Laban is currently working on 3D cinematic, live film and photography projects as Director and Artistic Director at Diplomatic cover.

CREDITS:
Written by: Virginie Goyons & Sebastien Laban
Animated by: Virginie Goyons & Sebastien Laban
Sounds by: Cedric Denooz
Music by: Guillaume ROUSSEL!

RELATED LINKS:
www.meetmeline.com

Meet Meline Blog on CG Society

Popularity: 7% [?]

Motion graphics + live action company nailgun* super-sized their creativity for consumer electronics, mobile communications and home appliances giant LG, designing and animating their ‘It’s The Next Big Thing’ website. Working with digital agency VML, Kansas City, MO, (a division of Young & Rubicam) the online component is part of the multi-faced campaign for LG line of large capacity home appliances for the United Kingdom market.

‘Our goal was to create an immersive experience miles away from the average website’, Michael Waldron, nailgun* Creative Director, says. ‘We knew it needed to tie into the overall campaign, but we also wanted to give it its own flourish and style to make it a special experience for consumers’.

The overall concept of the campaign imagines a literally larger than life world of giant size clothing drying in the environment. When visitors land on the LG ‘It’s The Next Big Thing’ website they are immediately greeted with an overhead shot of a beautifully animated natural LG world. A sweeping camera move brings us up close to the first in a series of iconic animation — a pair of jeans hanging from a giant suspension bridge over a lush blue-green river with a green sock attached with a clothes pin to a wind turbine.

Click on the arrows to the left and right of the screen and visitors are whisked away (the pages never refresh) to other animated areas of the LG world, including an Easter Island setting with the famed statues holding a pair of giant overalls; and a cityscape where an enormous men shirt hangs between two office towers and giant baby pajamas wave in the breeze from atop the front entrance of an impressive government building. Clicking the on-screen ‘+’ symbols changes the perspective yet again with the camera tilting up toward the blue sky and zooming in to the clothing, revealing both specific information about LG products and the eye-catching details of nailgun* animation.

‘The idea was to create these big, fun visual comparisons,’ nailgun* Director of Production Erik van der Wilden explains. ‘Details are extremely important with something like this, which is why we chose to build all of the elements from scratch in 3D, even though it meant dealing with long rendering times. We also spent a lot of time choreographing the camera moves and how visitors would navigate and experience this world. Simple, elegant animation and subtle movements were key for this working creatively’.

Waldron notes that website animation is becoming more sophisticated because brands today want their online presence to match creatively with what they’sre doing on television, print, mobile and beyond, which bodes well for multi-faceted creative studio like nailgun*.

‘More and more clients are looking to us to bring the same high-level of conceptual design and animation we’sre known for in the broadcast world to their online work’, Waldron says. ‘It an exciting time because brands like LG want to go further creatively with their online branding and are looking to companies like nailgun* to lead the way’.

About nailgun*
Founded by Michael Waldron and Erik van der Wilden in 2003, New York-based nailgun*, is a collaborative of artists ?‚àö√ë‚àö¬® designers, writers, photographers, editors, producers, animators, filmmakers, illustrators, strategists, painters – who’ve come together to create unique visual solutions for clients that include ESPN, HGTV, Spike, VH1, E!, Versus, TV Land, Universal Channel, Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, Publicis, McCann-Erickson NY and Ogilvy & Mather.

RELATED LINKS:
Click here to visit the LG ‘It’s The Next Big Thing’ website.
http://nailgun.tv

Popularity: 2% [?]

Merge@Crossroads’s Mark Pellington further established his big-act musical legacy with a trio of artistic videos, for indie-rock sensation Alpha Rev, Grammy-nominated mainstay Moby, and Grammy winners The Fray. Pellington approached each of these videos with his unique abstract narrative style, merging vocal performance with conceptual and thematic imagery.

Alpha Rev’s New Morning is a heartfelt collage of memory and family set among flat and forested landscapes of Austin, Texas where the band hails from. The cast of men, women and children run the gamut from serenity to tumult to mutual embrace, as the video winds through its explosive catharsis and emotional arc.

‘I created these videos on a very small scale and in a highly personal manner-each was a collaboration of trust with the artist. They were open to my interpretation of their lyrics and the creative execution proved fruitful and meaningful,’ noted Pellington. ‘I love doing videos because they are a highly personal form of expression for me, and yet can be open to many interpretations.’

Pellington is attached to direct the remake of The Orphanage for Warner Brothers and producer Guillermo del Toro as his next feature project.

A multimedia and content creation firm, Crossroads offers a clear vision, innovative leadership, and unparalleled reach into the entertainment talent pool.

With headquarters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, and an affiliate office in Toronto, Crossroads has five divisions: Film, Commercials, Music Videos, New Media, and Creative Services. All offer exclusive talent featuring some of the world top directors, show creators, writers, and producers.

Founded in 1989, Crossroads has been a consistent leader in the development and production of feature films and television programming, as well as producing award-winning commercial and music video content for top-tier brands, agencies and performing artists.

CREDITS
Artist: Alpha Rev
Song Title: New Morning

Label: Hollywood Records
CD(s): Dave Snow, Mike Sarkissian

Prod Co: MERGE@Crossroads
Director: Mark Pellington
DP: Eric Schmidt
EP: Joseph Uliano, Neil Maiers
Producer: Norm Reiss

Editorial Co: MERGE@Crossroads
Editor: Nathan Cox

Telecine: Rushes
Colorist: Marshall Plante

Shoot Location: Austin, TX

RELATED LINKS
www.crossroadsfilms.com
www.mergefilms.com

Read more: http://www.trustcollective.com/portfolio/content/crossroads_2010mv.php#ixzz0kcNgjDm8
Attribution: Written content created by TRUST: http://www.trustcollective.com
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Share Alike

Popularity: 2% [?]

Digital production company Bobby.se and creative house Feiner Arts created an incredible piece of animation for the 2010 Goteborg International Film Festival at the start of the year. ‘Dragon’ is a special short produced as an intro and played before each and every film screened at the festival. After a total of approximately 800 plays, it received a great deal of attention and was appreciated by the GIFF crowds.

Dragon is a collaboration between Bobby, Feiner Arts and festivals agency SCP. The idea grew from the GIFF logo which is a full grown dragon, and was inspired by the 1960 foetus photos created by the famous Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson.

‘In the beginning of the film we wanted to get a nice underwater feeling, with anemones and corals. When we first get a glimpse of the foetus the feeling should be that it is a human and the surprise comes when we show the wings and the whole dragon’ explained Bobby animator Richard Blank.

The dragon and organic structures were conceptualized and modelled by Feiner Arts, with the first challenge to design the dragon foetus within its surroundings. The team used different animal foetuses, including crocodiles and birds, for reference.

It was essential that the foetus appeared believable and not plastic or artificial, so the animators worked hard to create a sound sub surface scattering, whilst keeping the render time down. Depth of field was also important to ensure a macro feeling to the piece.

Z-Brush and 3ds Max were used for modelling, all animation was created in Maya; rendering was produced using V-Ray, compositing with Nuke.

About Bobby
Bobby is a digital production company that helps leading brands and agencies to develop and visualize communication ideas for film and interactive media. Bobby consists of designers, directors, artists and producers with a strong focus on motion media.

About Feiner Arts
Feiner Arts specializes in visual cross-solutions, ranging from 3D and image-editing, to illustration, photography and design. Feiner Arts in based in Gothenburg, Sweden.

About G??teborg International Film Festival
GIFF is the biggest film festival in Scandinavia, and with audience figures of over 200,000 each year, is one of the largest events in the annual festival calendar. GIFF offers a film and seminar programme alongside concerts, performances and parties; and encourages new talent with two exciting international competitions: The Dragon Award and The Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award.

(Dragon Animation – Breakdown)