Using Adobe Kuler to Enhance Your Photoshop Color Workflow
March 21, 2009
Introduction
How does Adobe Kuler work? What do I need? The only requirements, for using Kuler, are a Web browser with an enabled Flash Player 9 or higher, since it is Flash based. Additionally, you can access the Kuler extension from any Creative Suite 4 product or use the Desktop Air Kuler application.Flash Player required
Kuler Website (go there)
Desktop Air Widget
Kuler Extension
Kuler - Creating, Sharing, and Using Color Themes!
Whether you are a design professional or a beginner, there will always be a situation, where it’s hard to find the right color theme for a project. This is where Kuler comes in. Kuler not only provides a huge number of color themes, it’s also build on an active community, which creates and publishes the color palettes we are talking about. Let's learn how to set up an Adobe ID, to log in to the Adobe Kuler website, to browse, save, create and publish your own color variations.
Setting up an Adobe ID account for access to Kuler
Well, you can use Kuler to experiment with colors and copy & paste the color values, but after signing in, you'll get access to download the Adobe Swatch Exchange files, which contain the color themes. It's always stressful setting up all these different accounts on different websites and keeping everything in mind, but Adobe did a good job on this one. If you already have an Adobe ID, then you can easily login, using the Sign In button located at the top-right corner. You can also click on Register. Adobe will redirect you to their website and guide you through the registering process. After creating an account, come back to continue and login to Adobe Kuler.Login
Go to the top-right-corner. Click on Sign In and insert your AdobeID and password, then click Go.
Register
Go to the top-right corner and click on Register. You'll be redirected to the Adobe.com website. Click on Create an Adobe account. Fill out the required information and come back to Kuler to Sign In the way described above.
Different Menus and Sections on kuler.adobe.com
Adobe Kuler is split into different sections. These sections allow you to add or retrieve certain information. Below you can see the single sections with short descriptions, accompanied by images.Explore
- Menu Explore color themes by either browsing or searching the Kuler database. You can sort listed themes by Newest, Most Popular, Highest Rated or other random options. By setting a time frame for your results, Kuler will only list themes, uploaded in that time span.
- Search You can narrow down your search results by using the Search bar. You can search by tags, titles, creators or colors. To make it easier for everybody to find the themes you create, you should always choose proper tags.
Community
- Details Color themes, found on Kuler, are submitted by the Community. By creating, saving and publishing your themes on Kuler you make them accessible to everybody. In this section other users can retrieve information about the creator, title, different tags and more.
- Comments To give or get some feedback for your themes, add comments. Like on many other websites, you can read comments, but posting comments is only available after Log-In.
MyKuler
- MyKuler The MyKuler section in this image is empty, that's because I've set up a new account, but after creating the first themes, you'll be able store, view, and retrieve all your saved and favorite themes here. You can save themes as favorites, while you are browsing through the database by clicking on the proper button in the details section. You can later import your saved themes to Photoshop.
Extras
- News and Features This section lists information about the current products using or featuring Kuler.
Kuler - Features
Download a color theme as an Adobe Swatch Exchange file
After signing in, you can download the themes you like by clicking on the download Adobe Swatch Exchange file in the details section.
.ASE Files
This is how the downloaded files will look like. All Creative Suite 4 products support the exchange of colors via ASE files. For example, you can easily exchange single colors or themes you've created in Illustrator to a Photoshop project. In our case we want to import the files we've downloaded from Kuler.
Load Swatches
Go to your Swatches Panel, click on the little triangle in the top-right corner. Next Choose Load Swatches, then Select the proper File type and import it. That's it!
Post Comments
As mentioned above, being a member of the community not only gives you access to the color themes, but also provides commenting and rating which will later help Adobe organize the themes. To leave a comment, go to Add comment. Type in your text, then click submit.
Rate Themes
The five-star rating system shows you what the community thinks about the theme. High ranked themes will be listed and ordered when choosing Sort by Highest rated/Most Popular and will be featured on the home page.
Edit/Create Themes
So far, we've learned how to browse and download themes, but now we want to create our own color theme. Either click on the button you can see below to edit the current theme or click on Create in the menu to create a theme from scratch. Both will redirect you to the Create page. You can then choose between creating a theme from colors or an image.
Create theme from a Color
Create theme from an Image
Creating Your Own Theme
Kuler provides very efficient tools to quickly create new color themes. You can choose different harmony rules, use the interactive color wheel and different sliders for brightness and angle, extract colors from an image or simply input color values.
Base Color and Related Colors
Like the name says, you can choose a Base color and build the color theme around it. After setting the Base color, four other colors are available to choose. Harmony rules will apply to the base color and affect the colors around it. By dragging and dropping on the color wheel, you can adjust the base color. The other colors will then move simultaneously.
Color Rules
The color rules are based on color theory. If you are interested in the theory behind Kuler, check out the links provided below. After selecting the base color, select one of the following rules to quickly create harmonious themes. I think the best way to understand what any single rules does is to experiment with each of them. By selecting Custom, Kuler gives you the freedom to select colors individually.
Color Wheel
Move the markers on the interactive color wheel to choose the colors in your theme. Do this by either using a color rule or individually selecting colors. Below the color wheel is another Slider, which adjusts the brightness of the colors.
Color Values
If the color wheel is imprecise, you can additionally adjust the colors in your theme by inputting numeric values for the HSB, RGB, CMYK, LAB, or HEX color models. If you only want to change a single color, make sure Custom is selected, since entering a new value will adjust all the other colors in the theme. If you want to experiment with the theme, use the color sliders under each color swatch. For those of you who are not logged in, you can easily create themes and copy & paste the values to Photoshop or any other Software.
Color from an Image
A very neat feature of Kuler is the extraction tool which generates themes from an image. You can upload images from your desktop or use images from Flickr. Just as the harmony rules, Kuler provides different Moods: Colorful, Bright, Muted, Deep, Dark, and Custom. The moods you can choose from, will automatically generate appropriate colors. By moving the markers around, Kuler picks the color of the current position and displays it, below the image, in the color theme preview. Kuler supports TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP image formats.
Saving and Publishing
Before saving your themes, you should always give it a proper title and tags to make it easier for other users to find. You can choose to save your themes in private mode to your MyKuler section or share them with other members, who can rate them and add comments. Tags and comments are displayed in the details section. Popular tags are displayed in a certain text size. The larger the size, the more popular the tag word. Creator's can set an avatar or personal color swatch as their default picture. Other members can click on avatars to view all the themes created by that member.
Using the Kuler Extension in Photoshop
Downloaded Adobe Swatch Exchange files can be used as color swatches in all Adobe CS4, CS3 and CS2 products. We'll take a look at Photoshop CS4.Find and Open the Kuler Extension
With the new CS4 version, Adobe integrated Kuler right into Photoshop. You can find it by going to Window > Extensions > Kuler. The Kuler Panel will appear. In case you still don't know what Kuler is or how it works you can read the information, by clicking on the About tab. You can additionally read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy if you are interested. This extension provides access to Kuler via RSS feed's. The extension loads the themes directly from the online database. You can also log in to your Adobe account by clicking Window > Extensions > Connections, which will create a connection to Adobe services, while you are using Photoshop or any other Creative Suite 4 product.
Features: Browse and Create
Browse
The Browse tab reveals a list of currently uploaded and available color themes. To use this feature an Internet connection is required, since the extension uses a RSS Feed to read and list the color themes in Photoshop. You can browse, search and sort themes the way we did on the Kuler website. At the bottom of this section, you can see the arrows pointing up and down. These help you to view the previous or next sets of themes.
Create
The create tab reveals a smaller version of the Create Page on kuler.adobe.com. As you can see, these are the same functions like choosing a harmony rule, adjusting the single colors or brightness, setting the base and related colors and retrieving the values. At the bottom of this section there are additional buttons, which let you upload your theme directly to your account or download/save the current theme.
Swatch Panel
This is how the standard Swatch Panel looks like in Photoshop. You can open it via Window > Swatches. In a previous step we've learned how to import ASE files to our Swatch Panel. The extension makes it a lot easier for us. We can easily browse and directly add themes to our Swatch Panel though without downloading and importing ASE files from the Kuler website.
Directly Add Themes to Swatches
The button on the bottom-right-corner, adds the theme directly into your Swatches Panel. You can now select single colors as your Foreground or Background color and apply them to your project. You can reset or delete the colors by clicking on the little triangle in the top-left corner.
Using the Adobe Air Kuler Application
Download and Installation
So far, we've used the website and extension in Photoshop CS4, but as I mentioned before, there's a cool Air application which runs on your desktop. The only requirements for using it is having Adobe Air installed on your computer.
Features
You can now browse, search, and save themes directly from your desktop. You can drag individual themes to your desktop, where you can scale them to any size you want, copy swatch values directly from the application or visit the selected theme at kuler.adobe.com to retrieve additional information or comments. I recommend playing with it to get to know the application. It's a really helpful tool to have on your desktop when working with any Adobe Product.
Additional information
Kuler Links
Other websites which provide color themes and palettes
source: tutplus author: kajikContinue readingDigital Domain Brings Inventive VFX to Lexus
March 19, 2009A new ad campaign from Team One imagines how the innovative engineering of the new 2010 Lexus RX has reinvented the driving experience. Carl Erik Rinsch directed the :30 spots “City,” “Assembled” and “Intersection,” which feature fantastical visual metaphors brought to life by digital production studio Digital Domain. Visual Effects Supervisor Jonah Hall oversaw a 30-person team at Digital Domain. The company leveraged its extensive knowledge in creating photo-real digital cars, as well as its expertise in modeling and animating highly detailed mechanical imagery. The project also brought some longtime collaborators together again, including Rinsch and cinematographer Claudio Miranda.
“We have a very close relationship with Carl and RSA, who in turn often brings Claudio on board as his DP, so we’ve all developed a sort of shorthand when we work together,” said Digital Domain Visual Effects Supervisor Jonah Hall. “There’s a lot of trust on-set and conversely, they let us do our thing back at Digital Domain so we can come up with the best solutions for the creative and technical problems at hand.”“City”opens on the RX sitting in traffic. But the vehicle has a secret weapon—XM real-time traffic monitoring that reveals driving conditions on the road ahead. Suddenly, massive cranes descend from the sky, picking up the offending traffic and lifting buildings from their foundations so the driver can travel unimpeded to his final destination.
“This spot posed an interesting challenge, because so much of the story lies in the conveyer belt we had to digitally create and insert into the scene,” explained Hall. “When we showed Lexus the rough edit, they saw a series of empty rooms, the camera moving past an empty street and the in-camera RX at the end. We had to help them visualize the intricate choreography of the spot by doing a lot of animation tests and inserting them faster than usual. In the end, we were able to effectively communicate the agency’s vision to its client, and Lexus was very pleased with the results.”In “Intersection,” a man in an RX drives along a darkened road and just as he’s about to collide with an oncoming truck, time stops still, his car kicking up a swirl of tiny CG ficus leaves that suspend and sparkle in the air. Men and women dressed in black serve as the metaphor for the RX’s innovative features that help the driver to see better at night.
The people silently approach the time-frozen RX and gently push the oncoming vehicle away before guiding the driver safely along his way. Miranda shot the near-collision using a Phantom camera—the tool-of-choice for capturing HD footage at high frame rates—and Digital Domain seamlessly integrated the high-speed photography with the regular-speed photography of the actors, meshing the shots together so that they appeared to exist in the same take. The production team behind the Lexus campaign has had a long history. Rinsch and Digital Domain recently collaborated on a commercial for LG, while Miranda and Digital Domain helped bring to the screen “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which earned an Oscar® nomination for Miranda and a Visual Effects Oscar® for Digital Domain. In addition, the Lexus production team included production designer Donald Graham Burt, also recognized with an Academy Award® for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
“The advertising industry is built on relationships and we’ve been fortunate to have developed many over the years that have led us to partnering across mediums,” explained Ed Ulbrich, Digital Domain’s President, Commercials Division and Executive VP of Production. “It’s been exciting to participate in the crossover of storytelling techniques honed in the commercials arena with our work in features, and vice-versa.”About Digital Domain Digital Domain is an Academy Award-winning digital production studio with a reputation for innovation and artistry. The studio has created visual effects for 65+ movies that have collectively generated more than $12 billion in worldwide box-office sales, including most recently, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for which it won the Academy Award for Visual Effects. A creative giant in advertising, Digital Domain works with a stellar group of A-list directors including David Fincher, Mark Romanek, Joseph Kosinski, Carl Erik Rinsch and more.
Crossroads Gets Fantastical With Gnarls Barkley’s Mystery Man
March 17, 2009Crossroads’ directorial duo Walter Robot’s dynamic and inventive visual style is the driving force behind a trio of uniquely inspired music videos for Grammy award-winning recording artists Gnarls Barkley, French-born DJ Vitalic, and Death Cab For Cutie.
The Creds:
Artist: Gnarls Barkley
Spot Title: “Mystery Man”
Air Date: January 2009
Prod Company: Merge @ Crossroads
Director: Walter Robot
Animation: Walter Robot
Original Artwork: Bill Barminski
EP: Joe Uliano
Producer: Walter Robot
RELATED LINKS:
www.crossroadsfilms.comSyndrome & New Balance Are Sweet On Candy
March 17, 2009Los Angeles-based directing collective Syndrome has concocted an irresistible new batch of confectionary goodness in the latest :30 spot for New Balance via Ryan Partnership. Chosen to help launch the Candy Collection, New Balance’s colorfully cool new brand of footwear for tweens, Syndrome have taken inspiration from old school pinball machines, childhood board games and the tasty sweets we all remember as kids to deliver a surreal sugarcoated ride through an elaborate gumball machine.
About Syndrome: LA-based design and directing collective Syndrome are united by a deep-seated, shared love for art and innovation where creativity is the core of their existence. Syndrome has been directing commercials, music videos, and instillations for nearly a decade, and have worked with some of the biggest artists in the industry including: P. Diddy, Kanye West, T-Pain, Erykah Badu, John Legend, 50-Cent, Black Eyed Peas, Ludacris, Lil Wayne, and Chris Brown to name a few. Syndrome has worked with heavyweights such as TBWA/Chiat/Day, Warner Bros, NBC and CBS directing campaigns and creating motion graphics for brands such as Converse featuring Mos Def, Bud Select, NASCAR on Fox and the main title sequence for the feature film ATL. They have been nominated for awards such as MTV VMA’s, UK Music Video Awards, and Music Choice VOD Awards. www.syndromestudio.com
The Credits: Client: New Balance Spot Title: Candy Air Date: March 2009
Agency: Ryan Partnership AD: Sheryl Seigel Agency Producer: Ryan Conover
Prod Company: Syndrome Director: Syndrome DP: Syndrome EP: Monica Blackburn
Post/Effects: Syndrome EP: Monica Blackburn
Editorial: Syndrome
Sound Designer/Composer: Michael Genato
Who Created The Watchmen? MPC Contribute VFX
March 16, 2009Zack Snyder has directed ‘Watchmen’ the DC Comics graphic novel inspired release for Warner Bros Studios. With VFX Supervised by John ‘DJ’ Desjardins, MPC completed 250 shots on key sequences in their Vancouver studio. The work includes the full range of digital VFX including 3D environments and cityscapes, CG Owl Ship, digital doubles and a variety of complex fx work. A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, “Watchmen” is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the Doomsday Clock (which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union) moves closer to midnight.
“People always said Watchmen was the unfilmable graphic novel,” says Zack Snyder. “The story itself is a pretty straightforward mystery, but inside of that, there’s this huge plot that has international intrigue and a super-villain and everything you want from a superhero story. It doesn’t owe anything to any specific genre; it’s just its own, true to itself and all of its characters.”
Watchmen first appeared as a 12-issue limited comic book series. It was originally published by DC Comics from 1986 to 1987, then republished as the now legendary graphic novel.
The blood-stained “smiley face” on the cover, the image of a clock face advancing one minute closer to midnight, and the twelve-chapter structure are all emblematic of the richly complex work that has long been credited with elevating the graphic novel to a new art form: Watchmen is the only graphic novel to win the prestigious Hugo Award or to appear on Time magazine’s 2005 list of ‘the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present’.
Working from Yale town, Vancouver, MPC’s VFX Supervisor Jess Norman oversaw a team of 35 VFX artists. Key members, including CG supervisor Max Wood were brought over from London to join the team. MPC Vancouver utilises the same pipeline and tools as MPC London, which allowed the team to successfully achieve the full gamut of visual effects challenges. Autodesk Maya is complemented with a suite of proprietary tools written in-house by the MPC R&D department. Shots were rendered in RenderMan and MentalRay, and composited using Shake.
“The visual effects are a partner in the movie. Whether it was extending practical sets or inserting floating blimps in the skyline, or rendering Rorschach’s mask or Dr. Manhattan’s body—those are all things that have to go into the pipeline”. Zack Snyder.
MPC’s invisible effects work appears in many scenes, and starts with the high impact opening sequence ‘Blake’s Demise;’ a fast-paced, hand-to-hand combat scene taking place in a high-rise condo. To add to the adrenalin fuelled atmosphere, the team created the completely digital cityscape seen outside the smashing window. Blake aka The Comedian gets thrown out of the window. As well as adding crashing glass and doing a digital double takeover MPC added a CG version of the iconic smiley pin following Blake down to his dead on the street.
Cast Malin Akerman - Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II Billy Crudup - Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan Matthew Goode - Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias Carla Gugino - Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre Jackie Earle Haley - Walter Kovacs/Rorschach Jeffrey Dean Morgan - Edward Blake/The Comedian Patrick Wilson - Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II
Credits: Director - Jack Snyder Producers - Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Deborah Snyder Screen Writer - David Hayter & Alex Tse Graphic Novel Creator - Dave Gibbons Executive Producer - Herbert W. Gains & Thomas Tull Director of Photography - Larry Fong Production Designer - Alex Dowell Editor - William Hoy Composer - Tyler Bates Costume Designer - Michael Wilkinson Visual Effects Supervisor - John ‘DJ’ Desjardin Sources: watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com
AVSO & Offspring Introduce 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid
March 16, 2009Following their exciting campaign introducing Ford’s new F-150 last fall, New York-based A Very Small Office (AVSO) in collaboration with design and animation studio Offspring has launched a series of three graphically exciting :30s introducing the new Ford Fusion and Fusion Hybrid. The We Speak Car campaign features vibrant landscapes, oversized typography, and bold voiceovers that highlight the features of the dynamic new vehicle that sets it apart from Ford’s established existing lines.
I-4 highlights the Fusion as the most fuel-efficient midsize sedan in North America, as the car whips past - and avoids - a collection of graphical gas stations. Van Gastel comments, “I-4 is about the duality of the car’s personality. Our hero silver car speaks to the model’s fuel efficiency which is impressive for a traditional engine, and the red car delves into the model’s performance power, which is unique for a 4-cylinder…you might not expect it to be fun to drive, but it is!”
In Sync, three individual Ford models painted three different colors, all with distinctive features move from one to the next with seamless elegance. The spot showcases the vehicle’s voice-activated Sync system, through which a driver can place a phone call, activate the sound system, or request directions from a GPS without taking their hands off the wheel. A sequence of arrows and stylized words appear over, inside, and between the speaking Fusion cars to reinforce the power of spoken language to guide the vehicle’s operation.
Rather than following the traditional vendor model, in which the studio works with the advertising agency from a distance, AVSO teamed up with JWT/Team Detroit to collaborate on the spots from concept to final execution, creating a true partnership.
“One of the things that AVSO has prided itself on since inception - and we share this trait with our colleagues at Offspring - is our willingness to innovate not just in our product, but in our process as well,” stated AVSO Executive Producer Saffron Case. “This collaboration with JWT/Team Detroit is just one example of our team pulling together to do things differently without compromising the quality of the final product.”
About AVSO:
Co-Founder/CD/Director Mikon van Gastel and Co-Founder/Executive Producer Saffron Case opened A Very Small Office (AVSO) in the spring of 2005. Home to design based commercial directors, AVSO has the ability to design and deliver projects from concept to completion. AVSO offers expertise in graphic design, film, emerging media, integrated content, and architecture with an openness to embracing new forms of collaboration and emerging technologies.
The Credits: Client: Ford Spot Title: “Sync”, “Hybrid”, “I-4″ Air Date: 3/3/09
Agency: JWT/Team Detroit ECD: Toby Barlow AD: Curtis Melville Copywriter: Steve Silver Agency Producer: Bob Rashid
Prod Company: AVSO Director: Mikon van Gastel DP: Stefan von Borbely EP: Saffron Case Line Producer: Nina Huang
Post-Production: Offspring CD: Mikon van Gastel Editor(s): Nathan Caswell & Cass Vanini EP: Joanna Fillie Producer: Suzanne Potashnick
Telecine: Nice Shoes Colorist: Chris Ryan
Inferno: Guava Artist(s): Aron Baxter, Rich Schreck, Jason Farber
Audio Post: Sound Lounge Mixer: Rob Sayers
Shoot Location: San Bernardino Airport
DUCK & White Rhino Score Tellys For Avid
March 16, 2009Director/Animator Richard Borge of LA-based production studio DUCK helms an award winning new project for the iconic editorial brand Avid via Boston’s White Rhino agency in advance of its revolutionary series of new products.
Sony Ericsson & HUSH Create Integrated User Experience
March 11, 2009New York-based content creation studio HUSH has once again teamed up with mobile phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson for their recently announced, most advanced WalkmanTM phone, the W995. HUSH was at the center of every aspect of the project, from writing the concept and story, to establishing the visual tone, and executing the spot airing on every Walkman W995 phone. Additional mobile content like video ring tones, sounds, wallpaper graphics and screensavers were carefully interwoven by HUSH’s expert team of designers and developers to create a sense of cohesiveness within the overall branding campaign.
A final component of the W995 launch will be an online feature, which HUSH will be instrumental in executing and seeding in collaboration with Sony Ericsson.
“This project was an incredible opportunity for us to showcase our exciting roster of talent in one integrated project,” said HUSH Executive Producer Casey Steele. “As we establish the studio as a one-stop go-to shop capable of handling complex, multifaceted branding campaigns, it’s important that we continue to work with respected brands such as Sony Ericsson.”
About HUSH: HUSH is a New York-based content creation studio led by Co-Founders/Creative Directors Erik Karasyk, David Schwarz and Executive Producer Casey Steele. HUSH develops powerful brand-driven stories, award-winning design, animation, and interactive content for TV commercials, music videos, broadcast, and integrated campaigns. With over a decade of ideation and execution experience, HUSH pushes creative limits to build brand awareness and audience loyalty.
The Creds: Design/Production Company: HUSH Creative Director(s): David Schwarz, Erik Karasyk Executive Producer: Casey Steele Art Director: Laura Alejo Design: Laura Alejo, Jerry Liu Producer: Mei-Ling Wong Production Assistant: Melissa Chow 3D Animation: Joey Parks, Scott Denton, Steve Talkowski 2D Animation: Salih Abdul-Karim, Jay Cohen Editor: Amilcar Gomes
Sound Design / Score: Antfood Composers: Wilson Brown, Polly Hall Executive Producer: Sean McGovern
Motion Capture Studio: Perspective Studios (NY)
Superfad Directs Protege Launch For Kmart
March 11, 2009KMART recently premiered a commercial that launches its exclusive arrangement with Protege, a brand new shoe brand created with NBA star Al Harrington. The spot was directed by Justin Leibow of Superfad for Agency Draftfcb and features Harrington presenting the philosophical ingredients that make up his new, high performance basketball line at an accessible price point. To view: www.superfad.com.
‘Terminator Salvation’
March 11, 2009‘Terminator Salvation’, the fourth in the Terminator film series, is being touted as a science fiction post-aolcalypitc war film, and is the creation of American director McG. ‘The Terminator’, released in 1984 and directed by James Cameron, was followed by two film sequels and a TV series: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Now with talk of two further instalments in the pipeline and Christian Bale signing up for a total of three Terminator films; things look promising for a second Terminator trilogy.
Visual Effects for the movie were undertaken by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), with Asylum fx and Rising Sun Pictures bringing their skills to various sequences.
Speculation has been rife on the subject of Arnold Schwarzenneger, the original terminator, making a cameo appearance in the film. Recent comments from director McG indicate that he is working hard with ILM to bring Arnie back in digital form only.
“The T800s as we know them look like Arnold [Schwarzenneger]. The T800 plays a big role in this movie.. I can’t quite tell you how we express that …. what we’re trying to do is create visual effects and write code that’s never been written before to address this very question … we’re working very diligently on going up to ILM in San Francisco, because soon, to address this very nature …. I don’t want today’s Arnold Schwarzenneger. Cheers [to him], but I just want idealized Griffith park, Bill Paxton, tire-track on a face on-the-face archetype, and we’ll see what we can do about that.” (MCG - excerpts from interview with The Playlist)
Wishing to avoid comparisons with the Transformers franchise, McG has stated “Transformers is an excellent movie, but our film is not about big robots. I wanted it to have lots of hardware and velocity, but I didn’t want to hang the whole movie on it.”
And in addition to the brilliant CG work generated for ‘Terminator Salvation’, McG contracted Stan Winston studios to create real life models of some of the terminator characters that the human cast could interact with.
Stan Winston, the special effects pioneer who designed the original Terminator endoskeleton, worked on Terminator Salvation prior to his death in June this year. McG intends to dedicate the moive to Winston’s memory.
Terminator Salvation will be released in the US on 22 May and in the UK on 5 June 2009.It will compete for box office success with the forthcoming Star Trek, also due for release in May 2009.
About Industrial Light & Magic Since 1975, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) has been providing post-production visual effects services to the entertainment industry. Motion pictures, commercials, trailers, music videos and special venue projects have utilized ILM’s unequalled artistry in techniques such as model making, matte painting, computer-generated imagery, digital animation and a variety of related processes required in the production of visual effects.
Groundbreaking software required for digital image production has been developed and shared with the industry at large and adopted by other companies and software manufacturers. ILM regularly consults with some of the industry’s most highly regarded filmmakers on proof of concept tests. ILM has been associated with fourteen movies which have earned the Oscar for Best Visual Effects and has been awarded seventeen technical achievement awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Cast Christian Bale - John Connor Anton Yelchin - Kyle Reese Sam Worthington - Marucs WRight Bryce Dallas Howard - Kate Connor Moon Bloodgood - Blair Williams Common - Barnes Jadagrace - Star Helena Bonham Carter - Serena Roland Kickinger - T-800 Chris Ashworth - Richter Chris Browning - Morrison Jane Alexander - Virginia Michael Ironside - General Ashdown Linda Hamilton - voice Michael Papajohn - Carnaham Beth Bailey - Lisa Anjul Nigam - Rahul Babak Tafti - Malik
CREDITS Director - McG Producers - Derek Anderson, Victor Kubicek, Jeffrey Silver & Moritz Borman Original Music - Danny Elfman Cinematography - Shane Hurlbut Production Design - Martin Lain Distribution North America - Warner Bros Distribution International - Sony Pictures Entertainment
RELATED LINKS http://terminatorsalvation.warnerbros.com http://www.ilm.com/ http://www.rsp.com.au http://www.asylumfx.com
SOURCES: Terminator Salvation official website The Playlist Comingsoon.net
New Deal Create Minature Effects For Watchmen
March 10, 2009The much-anticipated release of Watchmen features high-tech mechanical and pyrotechnic effects created by New Deal Studios (NDS). The award-winning effects team at New Deal engineered a water tower to collapse onto a burning miniature tenement rooftop, spilling water onto the fire and allowing a split second window for the superheroes to save the day. A team of 60 artists from design, fabrication, effects photography, and digital combined their artistry to orchestrate the thrilling fire effects and bring the whole sequence to life. According to Ian Hunter, NDS Co-Founder/Visual Effects Supervisor, this sequence required exact precision of the burning flames to match principal photography. “Our flame effects needed to be controlled and choreographed to the production’s pre-vizualization,” he explains. “A rooftop and a partial wall with windows was built and plumbed with propane lines for the fire effects. One shot required that the camera move around the entire miniature building and pass over the roof through the fire, so the flames had to be very controllable. The balance of the building below the rooftop was extended digitally.”
Superfad Help More People Go With Visa
March 10, 2009Superfad recently contributed visual effects, design and editing to the ‘More People Go With Visa’ campaign, Visa’s first global advertising effort. The campaign celebrates that every day, people everywhere are on the go - whether satisfying basic needs or fulfilling lifelong dreams. When people are ready to go, Visa wants to them to go with a better way to pay - a way for them to go in control - confidently, securely and conveniently with Visa.
About Superfad Superfad is a brand-driven design and live action production company. A collective of designers, directors, animators, and artists, their mission is to see brands in unexpected ways and to express a brand’s voice in an undeniably original fashion.
Superfad was founded in 2001 and has produced award-winning work for many of the most respected brands worldwide. Honda, Sony, Target, Adidas, and AT&T are just a few of the companies who have turned to Superfad for inspired branding.
Credits Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day TBWA\Global Director Media Arts - Lee Clow Executive Creative Director - Rob Schwartz Creative Director - Patrick O’Neill Associate Creative Director - Gage Clegg Associate Creative Director - Becca Morton Associate Creative Director - Jason Busa Executive Agency Producer - Guia Iacomin Associate Producer - Chris Spencer
Production Company: Paydirt Director - Iain Mackenzie Executive Producer - Jonathon Kerr
VFX/Design/Edit Company: Superfad Executive Producer - Kevin Batten Creative Director - Justin Leibow Senior Art Director - Kevin Lau Head of Production - Angela De Oliveira Producer - Camille Labouchere Editor - Charles Jensen VFX Supervisor/Flame Artist - John Shirley
Audio House: PLAY Sound Mixer - John Bolen
Music and Sound Design: Stimmung Sound Designer - Gus Koven Song by New Order
Brand New School Expands & Folds Away For Toyota
March 6, 2009Brand New School recently completed work on a whimsical and eclectic spot via Saatchi & Saatchi for the Toyota Rav4 sport utility vehicle. Co-directed by Brand New School’s Jonathan Notaro and Eric Adolfson, the 30-second spot uses vibrant locations, an attractive cast, and some (literally) mind-bending visual effects to transform the urban landscape with elegant efficiency.
Opening with a bright red Rav4 driving down a typical-looking street, we see the vehicle approaching a gas station. As the car rolls past, the accordion-style canopy hovering over the pumps literally folds into itself, dropping it and the rest of the gas station into the earth. Just as quickly as the station sank into the earth, a multi-tiered fountain springs up. The reference to the Rav4’s admirable fuel efficiency is quickly and elegantly achieved.
To highlight the car’s interior room, a group of young people emerge from an urban café, unfolding like paper dolls as they do so. As they approach the Rav4, the airbags included in the vehicles Star safety system fold into themselves like delicate pieces of origami-style paper.
As the car prepares to drive away, the street itself folds in on itself, swallowing a long line of competing SUVs. Finally, the urban architecture collapses together, accordion-style, revealing a verdant landscape bathed in golden-hour sunshine.
“We were determined to use realistic folding techniques in the spot, to give it that elegant, honest and inventive feel,” says Adolfson. “The scene with the airbags gave us a great opportunity to employ this radial, origami-style folding in a clever way. In order to get a sense of how these structures would, or should, fold in on themselves, we actually took to folding little maquettes out of drawings and location photos, just to see what would look best. We tried to be very true to actual folding patterns, and even scouted out locations on architecture that seemed like it could be folded. It was a lot of fun in the end.”
