Monday, 21 November 2011
Use Your Weapon
Here is an advert made by US-based creative studio Imaginary Forces. The sequence is entirely made in CG apart from the liquid and the final shot. Brilliant texturing and lighting and a great concept, but if I say much more I'll be giving it away... just watch it.
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Emotional Stock Market
I've been keeping my eye out for interesting uses of Twitter since I worked on the Twitterwall project at University and this one by Max Dovey really made me laugh.
With three computers connected up to search for happiness, sadness and love, tweets were collated and printed out on streams of ticker tape. The tweets were bought, sold, printed and recorded over one week at Wimbledon College of Art Degree Show. In seven days, they ended up printing over four miles of 'global feeling'. This chart cracks me up too...
Saturday, 19 November 2011
FA Cup Tilt-shift
Check out this really nice footage from last year's FA Cup final between Man City and Stoke. Not sure how it advertises ESPN exactly but it's mesmerising to watch.
Friday, 18 November 2011
Catvertising
"To stay on top of the ever-changing advertising landscape, john st. has opened the world's first cat video division. With production, filming and seeding all in-house. Ask yourself, what can cat videos do for your business?"
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Linda Dong
I introduce to you, Linda Dong and her very nice website. I just stumbled across this the other day and I really like the site. It reminds me of Jon Gold's website in that it has the same colour palette and is quite typographic.
What I really love though, is this alarm clock...
Made from two simple wooden blocks the alarm clock has five varying volumes and an off setting, depending on which way up the red cube is placed. It is such a beautifully simple idea but I'm sure it would work so much better than a normal alarm clock. Although finding on blank side of a cube is barely a challenge for a toddler, I can imagine myself struggling with this low level logic in the early hours of the morning. Just a moments problem solving would force me to open my eyes and engage with the day.
If you're reading this Linda, I want one of these alarm clocks!
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Copa America Graphics
OK, today's post is a proper geek-out on my part, combining two of my obsessions: football and motion graphics... I've just been admiring the graphics made by Superlativ for this year's South American national football competition, Copa America.
Everything about it I think is really well thought-through and it's refreshing to see a different take to the repetitive styles of Sky, BBC, ITV, ESPN we get in the UK. The strong diagonal layouts work well and the movement on all the graphics is really smooth, particularly on the team line-ups I think.
The cloth, which is always difficult to animate, was made in Maya and then it was all composited in After Effects, as you can see in the render tests uploaded to their Vimeo.
I think the above video really shows the value of editing a project into a promo to some good music. Punchy and energetic, with some great sound design on top.
With Luis Suarez winning with Uruguay as well as bagging player of the tournament thanks to 4 goals and a golden boot, I don't think it could have been a much better from my perspective!
Everything about it I think is really well thought-through and it's refreshing to see a different take to the repetitive styles of Sky, BBC, ITV, ESPN we get in the UK. The strong diagonal layouts work well and the movement on all the graphics is really smooth, particularly on the team line-ups I think.
The cloth, which is always difficult to animate, was made in Maya and then it was all composited in After Effects, as you can see in the render tests uploaded to their Vimeo.
I think the above video really shows the value of editing a project into a promo to some good music. Punchy and energetic, with some great sound design on top.
With Luis Suarez winning with Uruguay as well as bagging player of the tournament thanks to 4 goals and a golden boot, I don't think it could have been a much better from my perspective!
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Channel 4 At Promax UK 2011
As the Promax UK awards have just been announced for 2011, I thought I'd do another post as I did last year, picking my favourite TV promos from the last 12 months. I haven't picked gold-awarded promos only, I've simply gone for the ones that caught my attention personally. Obviously that means it's a bit biased and I'm only selecting ads in which I am probably the target audience of the content.
And urmmm... Looking at what I've pulled together, there's a lot of Channel 4... well it's all Channel 4. What can I say?... Well in my opinion it should be 'Channel of the Year' almost every year! Actually that award went to the Discovery channel, which I don't even have... another reason why I'm not an official judge. Ok, we've established this blog post is unfair, now just watch the promos...
Best Ident or Branding Device (Gold)
Best Channel Branding Package (Bronze)
Best Graphic Design or Animation Promo (Gold)
Best Use Of Humour (Bronze)
Best Entertainment Promo (Silver) &
Best Use Of Direction (Silver)
Best Entertainment Promo (Bronze)
I was going to post a couple that weren't Channel 4 but they weren't embeddable. There was the BBC promo by RKCR/Y&R that edited all the big shows into a song, and also Film1OnAir's latest clip-based promo. This Dutch film channel was behind the excellent 'March' edit last year, and this year's cut won both 'Best Film Promo' and 'Best Editing', to a Missy Elliott mash-up. You can view them on the Promax site here.
And urmmm... Looking at what I've pulled together, there's a lot of Channel 4... well it's all Channel 4. What can I say?... Well in my opinion it should be 'Channel of the Year' almost every year! Actually that award went to the Discovery channel, which I don't even have... another reason why I'm not an official judge. Ok, we've established this blog post is unfair, now just watch the promos...
Best Ident or Branding Device (Gold)
Best Channel Branding Package (Bronze)
Best Graphic Design or Animation Promo (Gold)
Best Use Of Humour (Bronze)
Best Entertainment Promo (Silver) &
Best Use Of Direction (Silver)
Best Entertainment Promo (Bronze)
I was going to post a couple that weren't Channel 4 but they weren't embeddable. There was the BBC promo by RKCR/Y&R that edited all the big shows into a song, and also Film1OnAir's latest clip-based promo. This Dutch film channel was behind the excellent 'March' edit last year, and this year's cut won both 'Best Film Promo' and 'Best Editing', to a Missy Elliott mash-up. You can view them on the Promax site here.
Monday, 14 November 2011
Volkswagen: The Dark Side
Volkswagen recently advertised themselves as an eco-friendly corporation, with playful and illustrative style in their TV spot here...
But Greenpeace pounced on them.
Something should have twigged your mind in that first sentence to be honest. Hold on! A car company claiming they are doing good for the planet?! I don't think so.
Greenpeace launched a campaign called 'The Dark Side', using Star Wars as a theme to start a rebellion.
The simple matter is that Volkswagen are saying they want to be the greenest car manufacturer in the world but they're not backing up their actions. What they are doing is funding lobby groups who are trying to stop Europe passing key environmental laws and targets. Greenpeace argue that as Volkswagen are the biggest car company in Europe, they have the biggest responsibility. Fair point.
But the campaign itself I find a little weak personally. After the initial controversy when Lucasfilm™ removed their spoof from YouTube under copyright laws and were lambasted as 'hating the environment' (i.e. it was a talking point), the whole theme actually becomes a bit weak.
The website shows a counter displaying the 'number of Jedis™ that have joined the rebellion' and they've put the VW logo on the Death Star™. They even had Storm Troopers™ handing out leaflets in Shoreditch. All very creative but I still don't think it communicates the aims, it ends up connecting a much-loved film series with Volkswagen, which is exactly what they had paid for in one of their recent TV ads.
Greenpeace won't name the creative team or agency behind the campaign as it said it would "distract from the message", possibly because they've been paid a hell of a lot of money, taking charge of a marketing budget that launched in fourteen countries around the world. Call me cynical but how much does it cost the planet to make hundreds of Storm Trooper™ outfits? And Lightsabers™?! That's serious CGI!!
However I did notice that this agency with the big budget was also switched on, knew their buzzwords and noticed an opportunity for 'user-generated content' in some form. I noticed this film competition Greenpeace were also running on the website. It allowed users to upload their subversions to the website, encouraging the production of 100s of virals. You can vote online now and I've just picked one that undermines the original advert in one slick move. It gets the message across and I would even say it's pulled off the aesthetic better than the original. I give you "Think Blue. Comedy"...
But Greenpeace pounced on them.
Something should have twigged your mind in that first sentence to be honest. Hold on! A car company claiming they are doing good for the planet?! I don't think so.
Greenpeace launched a campaign called 'The Dark Side', using Star Wars as a theme to start a rebellion.
The simple matter is that Volkswagen are saying they want to be the greenest car manufacturer in the world but they're not backing up their actions. What they are doing is funding lobby groups who are trying to stop Europe passing key environmental laws and targets. Greenpeace argue that as Volkswagen are the biggest car company in Europe, they have the biggest responsibility. Fair point.
But the campaign itself I find a little weak personally. After the initial controversy when Lucasfilm™ removed their spoof from YouTube under copyright laws and were lambasted as 'hating the environment' (i.e. it was a talking point), the whole theme actually becomes a bit weak.
The website shows a counter displaying the 'number of Jedis™ that have joined the rebellion' and they've put the VW logo on the Death Star™. They even had Storm Troopers™ handing out leaflets in Shoreditch. All very creative but I still don't think it communicates the aims, it ends up connecting a much-loved film series with Volkswagen, which is exactly what they had paid for in one of their recent TV ads.
Greenpeace won't name the creative team or agency behind the campaign as it said it would "distract from the message", possibly because they've been paid a hell of a lot of money, taking charge of a marketing budget that launched in fourteen countries around the world. Call me cynical but how much does it cost the planet to make hundreds of Storm Trooper™ outfits? And Lightsabers™?! That's serious CGI!!
However I did notice that this agency with the big budget was also switched on, knew their buzzwords and noticed an opportunity for 'user-generated content' in some form. I noticed this film competition Greenpeace were also running on the website. It allowed users to upload their subversions to the website, encouraging the production of 100s of virals. You can vote online now and I've just picked one that undermines the original advert in one slick move. It gets the message across and I would even say it's pulled off the aesthetic better than the original. I give you "Think Blue. Comedy"...
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Phoneshop Credits
Just watched the first episode of the new series of Phoneshop, a comedy show on Channel 4. Not the greatest start to the new series in my opinion, but the credit sequence took me by surprise! Similar to the Enter The Void title sequence, the credits were blasted out in a series of flashing illegible layouts. They prioritised style and energy over information and name-dropping: it's such a deliberate throw-away, so it's almost ironic that I've decided to focus on it and post a blog about it. Really you need to watch it with the music and editing too, so click here to watch the show.
Saturday, 12 November 2011
Lytro
Is this camera going to revolutionise the way we take and view photos?
I've just found this really unique camera called a Lytro. Rather than capturing photographs in a traditional sense, the Lytro captures 'light fields'. Now I put 'light fields' in inverted commas because, to be frank, I don't understand what they are! But what it allows you to do, is refocus your photos beyond the moment. Check out these shots below, you can click on different areas of the shots and choose a focal point.
This allows for a more interactive and playful experience when viewing photos digitally and via the Lytro website it's easy to embed them or post them on Facebook.
The camera itself has an extremely sleek and simple design and is very user friendly, with a small touchscreen on the end of the cuboid that allows you to edit the exposure. The only catch at the moment is the price, starting at $399. On their (very well designed) website it says that the photos are HD-quality, but at no point does it mention the actual resolution, which is unusual for a camera. Rather than so-and-so megapixels, it's 11 'megarays'. This camera doesn't just plug into your iPhoto library either, it produces .lfp files for you to upload to the Lytro website, so you can view the interactive versions wherever you are.
It's unusual and still quite niche, but I see it as a starting point. How long until we can film HD video with the ability to refocus in post production? This could be one step towards virtual reality, giving interactive experiences a 3D dimension without having to wear glasses and get headaches. In a world surrounded by iPads, this is a great way of viewing photographs, but there is also scope for this technique to be used within advertising and storytelling with the user literally able to focus on the subject of their choice.
I may not have fully grasped the science behind the Lytro but there is more detail available on their website here.
I've just found this really unique camera called a Lytro. Rather than capturing photographs in a traditional sense, the Lytro captures 'light fields'. Now I put 'light fields' in inverted commas because, to be frank, I don't understand what they are! But what it allows you to do, is refocus your photos beyond the moment. Check out these shots below, you can click on different areas of the shots and choose a focal point.
This allows for a more interactive and playful experience when viewing photos digitally and via the Lytro website it's easy to embed them or post them on Facebook.
The camera itself has an extremely sleek and simple design and is very user friendly, with a small touchscreen on the end of the cuboid that allows you to edit the exposure. The only catch at the moment is the price, starting at $399. On their (very well designed) website it says that the photos are HD-quality, but at no point does it mention the actual resolution, which is unusual for a camera. Rather than so-and-so megapixels, it's 11 'megarays'. This camera doesn't just plug into your iPhoto library either, it produces .lfp files for you to upload to the Lytro website, so you can view the interactive versions wherever you are.
It's unusual and still quite niche, but I see it as a starting point. How long until we can film HD video with the ability to refocus in post production? This could be one step towards virtual reality, giving interactive experiences a 3D dimension without having to wear glasses and get headaches. In a world surrounded by iPads, this is a great way of viewing photographs, but there is also scope for this technique to be used within advertising and storytelling with the user literally able to focus on the subject of their choice.
I may not have fully grasped the science behind the Lytro but there is more detail available on their website here.
Friday, 11 November 2011
Film Challenge
I only recently stumbled across this excellent animation for The Guardian's film season. It was a competition devised by ad agency Wieden + Kennedy in which you have to name all the films referenced. Before you get excited this was for 2010 and the prize of winning all the featured films on DVD has long since scarpered. But I still think it's a brilliant piece of iconographic motion design worth sharing. Some of the references are quite subtle but see how many you can get, I managed 21 out of 26. If you want the answers, click here.
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