Riot Completes Mesmerizing VFX for MGM
January 10, 2009Supply and Demand recently tapped the visual effects team at Riot to collaborate on a new spot for the MGM Grand with ad agency SKG. Directed by Bruce Dowad, the Busby Berkeley-inspired, 30-second commercial features extensive visual effects by Riot.
About Riot:
Riot is a creative studio featuring a diversity of high-end talent and technology. The Riot team dedicates itself to attentive collaboration, approaching each project holistically, drawing upon a deep knowledge of visual effects, color correction and live action experience. Recent feature film credits for Riot include: Time Traveler’s Wife, The Spirit and Jumper, and 17. Commercial campaigns and music videos recently completed at Riot include spots for Target, MGM Grand, Burger King, Spike TV and Nike.
Animated Feature Film 9 – Trailer
January 10, 20099 is a feature length animated film written and directed by Shane Acker, which re-tells the age old story of good against evil. The film centres on a society of ‘rag-dollesque’ people who live their lives in constant fear of an enemy intent on the destruction of the remains of civilisation. When the main character “9″ (voiced by Elijah Wood) first comes to life he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world where others like him spend their days hiding in fear of a terrifying mechanical beast. 9 emerges as an unlikely leader who convinces his comrades that to survive they must take the offensive and fight.
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| Shane Acker has previously likened the rag-doll characters in his film to the Jawas from Star Wars, almost scavengers of the land that “ take things and sort of keep them inside themselves until there comes a moment which they need them or can use them”. |
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| Acker has explained the philosophy behind the number naming of his main character: “ 9 was about as close as you can get to perfection. You know, let’s say perfection is 10. So I think that we can never achieve that perfection. We’re always flawed – every one of us. And I think 9 represents as close as you can ever possibly get to that perfection.” |
Robot Films’ Syndrome Thinks Outside the Box for T-Pain
January 10, 2009Every so often a music video comes along that breaks new ground with its creativity, and this trilogy of videos for T-Pain helmed by directing collective Syndrome out of Robot Films is a perfect example of just that. Utilizing vibrant color fluctuations, Syndrome was able to launch these videos into a realm all their own. In Can’t Believe It, the plethora of unique ingredients include miniature apparitions of T-Pain and Lil Wayne and a cyber-roller coaster ride among other things. An ongoing galactic backdrop, with simultaneous circus and carnival themes make the video nearly impossible to classify. In Chopped and Screwed, T-Pain and fellow hip hop star, Ludacris are portrayed in an animated wonder world with T-Pain depicted as a lion and transforming scenarios. The bold colors and elaborate camera moves transcend us into an extravagant, surreal world.
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| “These videos have been an amazing experience for us. T-Pain and Jive gave us their full trust and creative freedom to bring our flavor to their already unique aesthetic. We are grateful for the opportunity and realize how rare that is, especially in today’s market. With that said, it was important for us to establish a cohesive look and feel which played off the album’s cover as this series of videos were specifically designed to be an overall branding campaign for T-Pain.” Syndrome comments on T-Pain project. |
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| “Upon shooting Can’t Believe It, it was clear that this was going to be a lot of fun and something special. The vibe and energy clicked very naturally between Pain and ourselves and that energy spilled all over these videos. It’s one thing to have an artist stand in front of a green screen and perform, but when they interact and play off of what the treatment calls for, that interaction takes it to another level by adding the emotion and soul. T-Pain really went hard with his performances and got what we were going for ultimately being the key ingredient to bringing the concepts to fruition.” Syndrome elaborates on T-Pain work. |
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| “When we were first kicking around ideas for Can’t Believe It, it was important to all of us that we find a way to reference all the far flung locations in Pain’s lyrics in a fresh and imaginative way. Chartering a 747 for a week long shoot in Aspen, Wisconsin, Costa Rica and Toronto proved not to be cost effective, so we decided that a post-intensive approach was the way to go. From there, it was a no brainer that Syndrome were right for the job. We were all tremendous fans of their work and had been looking forward to an opportunity to work with them. Little did we know the end result would surpass all expectations and blow our collective minds. The way the guys perfectly captured T-Pain’s charisma, humor and imagination, highlighting those qualities and more with their ground breaking visuals, it was clear that they would do all three of the videos we had slated. What we didn’t know was that they would achieve the near impossible by topping their previous effort each time out. I have never gotten so many enthusiastic calls and emails about a series of videos. I can’t wait to see what the guys come up with next. I just hope it’ll be for one of my projects.” Max Nichols, VP of Video Production at Zomba Label Group. |
Method Builds Monsters for The Ladders
January 10, 2009If you’re a monster, you announce your presence with authority. Such is the story behind “Monsters,” a new spot directed by Dante Ariola of MJZ for high-end job search engine The Ladders. The spot was directed by MJZ’s Dante Ariola in collaboration with Method Studios, ad agency Fallon Minneapolis and Company 3. Seamlessly blending old-school movie monsters with the latest visual effects and computer generated animation, the spot takes a humorous look at what it takes to get a big job done. To augment the authenticity of the classic movie monster motif, “Monsters” features multiple versions of Guilala, the destructive star of the classic 1967 Japanese monster movie The X from Outer Space.
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| “The Ladders is a job search service for people making over 100K per year,” explains Alex Frisch, Method’s VFX Supervisor and Flame Artist on the project. “They are exclusively dedicated to finding people with the ‘monster-size’ talents that will ensure big jobs are completed the right way. The spot was very challenging, but also played to the strengths of our team, particularly when it comes to the seamless integration of CG characters and live action. It was also a lot of fun working with Guilala.” |
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| “The agency selected Guilala from a range of potential creatures,” says Andy Boyd, Lead CG Artist and VFX Supervisor on the project. “What made this commercial really funny and special from our perspective was that we did a studio shoot of an actor in the Guilala suit and took high resolution photographs of the suit itself, all of which turned out to be a fantastic resource for our animations. All the subsequent animated characters in the spot were rotoscoped from the actual rubber suit, so we were able to imbue these very complex contemporary animations with a campy 1960’s feel. We even created a rubber system to make the fingers and toes wobble appropriately.” |
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| “We pulled out our entire bag of tricks for this one,” he says. “From miniatures and puppets to blue screen compositing and 3D animation, this spot used it all. Andy and I also attended the three day shoot in Cape Town, South Africa, and Dante got a fantastic performance from the actor in the rubber suit which helped a great deal. We did the entire job at 2K resolution, and went back and forth with Company 3 to achieve a truly pristine color correct and composite. In the end, we were able to create 3D monsters that are absolutely identical to the practical one.” |
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| “What is most impressive for me was the combination of skill sets on this spot,” says Boyd. “If you look at the final scene with the explosions and the huge monster, for instance, there is a studio shot monster in the background, multiple 3D monsters in the foreground, a CG car, and a bunch of other elements in one seamless scene.” |
