Moo2u.com - Free Tutorials & the latest VFX news. » click 3x

Click 3X Creates Animated Circus for ‘See You Sunday’ on MTV

Moo2u — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:29:32 +0000

Embarking on a new creative partnership, Click 3X recently collaborated with MTV to create a show open, packaging, and promos for See You Sunday. Promoting four new shows in their latest block of Sunday programming, the clips incorporate live action footage of high-profile stars with unique hand-drawn animation, explosions, and VFX.

To support the shows, Click animated several promos, a :30 opening and cut-down, six bumpers with integrated animation, and two live action bumpers, each playing off traditional images of circus life with high-intensity, parodied versions of classic stunts. The vibrant animation interacting with the live action created by Click 3X adds depth to the storylines, while supporting the style and humor of the shows.

Targeting the young male demographic with a weekly high energy, must-see event, See You Sunday includes Nitro Circus, a daring stunt show starring Travis Pastrana and Johnny Knoxville, Fantasy Factory, showcasing Rob Dyrdek’s wild skate-based schemes, College Humor, based on the wildly popular website, and How’s Your News, a product of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, which follows five reporters with mental and physical disabilities.

The colorful animation helps to build the mood of each piece with outlandish antics such as animated knife-throwing, bananas brandishing chainsaws, and the carnival’s tall man upstaging all with his powerful rainbow pee-stream.

The :60 promo, Anticipation, features the shows’ stars about to perform in a sideshow complete with human cannonball, tightrope skateboarding, daredevil motorcycle jumps, and face-offs with ferocious lions. The additional animated content created by Click 3X artists follow the same themes, showcasing the bizarre but enthralling, reality-suspending sideshow worlds of the carnival grounds with effects and characters that build on the intrigue surrounding the shows.

“Harold, Evan, Thomas, Kris, and the rest of the MTV team were an absolute joy to work with on this project. I know this is a cliché, but this wasn’t work, this was fun. Tom, Erica, and I were in our creative comfort zone for this job creating seamless visual vfx, creative editorial and subversive, psychedelic graphics. In fact, many of the pieces were actually a result of some organic, on-set brainstorming between our teams.” Creative Director/VFX Artist Mark Szumski.

The entire Click team worked extensively with the MTV staff and directors from pre-vis through post, coming up with creative solutions and providing effects expertise on-set and throughout the filming and editorial process. Creative Director/VFX Artist Mark Szumski and VFX Artist/Animator Tom Matheu each spent significant time on set, contributing their expertise.

Shot with both Red and Phantom cameras in an enormous area complete with boxcars and a 30 foot ramp, the team was able to effectively capture the action-packed narrative and set the stage for Click’s animators to go to work. To enhance and heighten the strange, engaging effects on top of the live action, Click artists also added sky replacements, lighting and fire effects, explosion embellishments, and smoke to the range of shots, using Flame to cleanup and composite the layers of each piece and increase the impact of the shots and animated effects.

The See You Sunday block debuted to excellent ratings, helping to secure the crucial target male audience for MTV. EP Connor Swegle notes, “MTV came to us with an amazing concept seeking a creative partner with the ability to collaborate on-set and through editorial, design, and animation. With our involvement so early in the process, we were able to add to the creative flow-this helped create a final product that was successful for the MTV team, the program block, and the network.” Given the success of this project, Click 3X has already signed on to three new ventures for MTV, further expanding a vast body of recent work which includes projects across broadcast, feature films, and interactive.

“I was really impressed by the level of dedication that Click 3X showed in helping bring our twisted vision of psychedelic circus train mayhem to life. There was a great sense of collaboration throughout the project, and their enthusiasm and hard work was second to none.” MTV Design Director, Thomas Berger.

About Click 3X:
New York-based Click 3X produces cutting-edge visual solutions for commercials, feature films, television, music videos, and broadcast clients around the globe. Founded in 1993, Click 3X has become one of the preeminent providers of innovative media content, housed in an environment led by artists, yet supported by one of the most technologically advanced digital studios in the industry.

With award-winning design, powerful visual effects, and a visionary animation team, Click 3X has worked on array of diverse highly-recognizable projects, including a series of films from academy-award winning directors like Jonathan Demme and Davis Guggenheim, a recent multimedia package for eight HD Time Warner spots, My Home 2.0, a five episode reality TV series for Verizon Fios, and a long line of recent commercials for major brands such as Sharp, Ford, and Goodyear.

The Creds:
Post/Effects: Click 3X
Creative Director/VFX Artist: Mark Szumski
VFX Artist/Animator: Tom Matheu
Designer/Animator: Erica Gorochow
Managing Director: Jason Mayo
Executive Producer: Connor Swegle
Producer: Christine DoRego

http://www.mtv.com/ontv/see_you_sunday/

http://www.click3x.com/

Click 3X Builds Interactive CG World For Go Army

Moo2u — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:36:27 +0000

In collaboration with MRM and Smuggler for the U.S. Army, Click 3X and ClickFire Media designed and animated interactive elements for A World Like No Other, a CG military base complete with marching squadrons, tank battalions, and screen-shaking Apache helicopter flyovers.

The Click team provided the 3D animation to help transport visitors through and across the base in an immersive, full motion journey, combining life-like graphics with MRM’s interactive hotspots linked to live action webisodes enhancing the realism and depth of the online experience.

Each hotspot identifies the on-base location of key members of the Army team, from Special Forces and field artillery to military police and astronauts, while the corresponding live action pieces provide the back story and support explaining their crucial roles in the Army. These transitions through the animated base and into the webisode locations are the key components to the site’s cutting-edge multi-sensory action and showcase the future of integrated online experiences.

Click’s team of designers and animators collaborated to enhance and enliven the interactive footage for seamless integration provided by MRM into the multimedia site. The dirt-ridden, rough look and feel of the visuals helps fully capture the exhilarating base experience, inspired by actual military locations in Kentucky and Colorado.

“This project is an excellent example of how tight integration with several contributors to a large site like goarmy.com can really be effective. Working on different ends of the creative process, we were all really challenged to develop distinct animated elements that complement each other and build a strong, exciting mood, but that also flow flawlessly into one cohesive, immersive experience. ” Creative Director Steve Tozzi.

In addition to Click 3X’s commercial and film expertise, their interactive design studio, ClickFire Media, specializes in multi-platform, media-rich interactive campaigns. CFM partners with agencies and entertainment industry clients in the conceptualization, design, and development of immersive branded experiences.

CREDITS
Client: U.S. Army
Agency: MRM/McCann Erickson Worldwide

Prod Company: Smuggler

Post/Effects: Click 3X
Creative Director: Steve Tozzi
Head of CG/Technical Director: Anthony Filipakis
CG Animator(s): Tom Hurlburt, Kristen Pederson, Susan Taffe,
Jongmoon Woo
CG Modeler(s): Jack Lai, Kevin Shen
CG Lighter(s): Sung Kim, Grace Hwang
Matte Painter: Paul Liaw
Flame Compositor(s): John Budion, Aaron Vasquez
Executive Producer: Jason Mayo
Producer: Jared Yeater

RELATED LINKS
www.goarmy.com

www.click3x.com

Click 3X Produce Unique Film Titles

Moo2u — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:21:33 +0000

SNew York-based design and VFX studio Click 3X recently produced title sequences for two feature films from Academy Award-winning directors, Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, and Davis Guggenheim’s It Might Get Loud. Both projects involved heavy stylistic experimentation and hands-on collaboration with the directors to develop sequences that embody and introduce the subject, complement the film openings, and add to the overall storylines. The projects demonstrate the range of scope and design depth of the Click 3X team, who continue to release visual solutions for commercials, films, television, music videos, and integrated media.

Rachel Getting Married, released in late 2008, was shot documentary-style to convey the tension and uncomfortable nature of complex interpersonal relationships, heightened by the abnormal interactions that only a wedding weekend can provide. Both the film and Anne Hathaway’s role have received great critical acclaim. For the project, Click collaborated once again with director Jonathan Demme, expanding on the working relationship first established with Demme’s unconventional feature documentary on Jimmy Carter titled, Man From Plains. In developing the titles, the design team carefully infused Demme’s directorial vision to capture and subtly convey the palpable friction of a flawed family, as well unveiling the raw feelings and conflict that weddings can incite.

Quote:

Creative Director Steve Tozzi adds, “Using the input from Jonathan and some really elaborate and unique styling, we tried to integrate emotive hints at the plot into every detail of the titling. Each aspect of the opening sequence, from the typography and screen placement, to the range to type sequences and titles and names all echo the mood of the film. Even the placement of text on the screen reiterates the disorganization and awkwardness of the relationships and emotions that stem from the weekend wedding.”

It Might Get Loud is a rousing documentary on the electric guitar told from the point of view of three highly-influential rock musicians: Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White. The titling sequence, a series of slow, sensual beauty shots of a collection of guitars, has a practical look that complements the rich history of the electric guitar. Titles gradually appear near the neck and body of the instruments, until finally revealing the names of the three iconic players, branded on the guitars like logos, each with a look that parallels the guitars they used.

Quote:

Tozzi explains, “For this project it was really important to develop symbolic typography-something that would really embody each icons’ style, era, and of course, music. For Jimmy Page the look is classic, Gibsonian, while The Edge has an electric, techy feel, and Jack White is about retro simplicity-he really could pick up any guitar and play.”

With this distinct typography, the Click designers help position each guitarists’ legacy as an evocative, widely-recognized brand, complete with millions of loyal fans and a dynamic rock history-all epitomized in lines, angles, colors and shadows of their personal logo. The company worked closely with Director Davis Guggenheim of Inconvenient Truth, using his creative insight and the film’s historical footage, interviews, and theme as inspiration. In addition to the title sequence, Click 3X designed the film poster and developed the look and feel of the materials that launched the film at Toronto Film Fest.

About Click 3X:
New York-based Click 3X produces cutting-edge visual solutions for commercials, feature films, television, music videos and broadcast clients around the globe. Founded in 1993, Click 3X has become the preeminent digital studio led by artists, yet supported by one of the most technologically advanced studios in the industry. With award-winning design, powerful visual effects, and a visionary animation team, Click 3X has worked on such diverse projects as Jonathan Demme’s unconventional feature documentary on Jimmy Carter entitled, Man From Plains; Animal Collective’s Peacebone video directed by Tim Saccenti; and Time Warner’s video instillation, Home Of The Future which was showcased on the Time Warner building in NYC.

(article by CGnews)