Commercials will be well represented at the Computer Animation Festival, one of the featured attractions at the annual SIGGRAPH confab which gets underway next month (8/7-11) in Vancouver. Prominent in the spot mix will be work out of such studios as Psyop (often in concert with Smuggler), Framestore, The Mill, The Moving Picture Company and LAIKA/house.
The Psyop/Smuggler tandem will have five ads in the Festival: AT&T’s “A Whole New World” helmed by Eben Mears for BBDO New York; Fage yogurt’s “Plain” for Boston agency Mullen; Fanta’s “Bounce” out of Ogilvy New York; LG Electronics’ “Something’s Lurking” via Y&R New York; and Xbox Fable III’s “Revolution” out of agencytwofifteen, San Francisco. The Psyop collective directed the Fage, Fanta, LG and Xbox spots.
Additionally Psyop has a solo entry slated for Fest screening: Schweppes Spring Valley’s “Spring Fever” directed by Psyop for George Patterson Y&R, Melbourne, Australia.
Meanwhile Framestore has a trio of spots being showcased: Andrex Puppyworld’s “It’s The Little Things” for JWT London; Coca-Cola’s “Siege” directed by FX & Mat of London animation studio Nexus for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.; and Kia Soul’s “This or That” directed by Antoine Bardou Jacquet of Partizan for David & Goliath, Los Angeles. Framestore’s work will go beyond the ad arena at the Festival. For example, Framestore will have its work on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 showcased.
A pair of spots in the Planters campaign–“Holiday Party” and “Tree-athlon”–featuring a contemporary Mr. Peanut from LAIKA/house each made the Computer Animation Festival grade. The stop motion fare had directors Mark Gustafson of LAIKA/house collaborating with director Ringan Ledwidge of Smuggler for New York agency BEING.
The Moving Picture Company also scored a couple of Festival slots–for Cadbury’s “Spots V Stripes” directed by Nick Gordon via Academy Films for Fallon, London; and Sky Movies’ “360” campaign out of Sky Creative.
The Mill had two commercials in the Electronic Theater portion of the Festival: AT&T’s “No Spring Offer” out of The Mill New York, directed by Josh and Jonathan Baker (a.k.a. TWiN) of Rabbit for BBDO New York; and Volkswagen’s “Black Beetle” from The Mill London, directed by Dante Ariola of MJZ for Deutsch LA.
Another Festival spot, Bridgestone’s “Carma,” comes from Method Studios; it was directed by Kinka Usher of House of Usher for The Richards Group, Dallas.
Radium/Reel FX scored a pair of entries for music videos: Transfer’s “Take Your Medicine” and Katy Perry’s “Firework.”
And Charlex will see its “Shapeshifter” gain Festival exposure; the project is set to a musical composition and prose performed by Gabriel Byrne.
3D Reel
The SIGGRAPH 3D Reel at the Computer Animation Festival includes the feature film Green Lantern with Sony Pictures Imageworks serving as the VFX house, and the shorts Flamingo Pride and Paths of Hate.
The latter two projects have earned Computer Animation Festival honors. Paths of Hate, an animation short directed by Damian Nenow of Polish animation studio Platige Image, has taken the Jury Award. The film centers on two pilots, driven by blind hate, who chase each other in their airplanes and thereby write cryptic messages of madness into the firmament. On their way into the abyss they transform into inhuman and distorted creatures that finally become part of the history of hate.
Flamingo Pride, directed by Tomer Eshed of The Konrad Wolf Potsdam-Babelsburg Film and Television University, won the Best Student Project Prize. The protagonist is the only heterosexual flamingo in a gay flock. He falls in love with a lady stork who doesn’t take him seriously, leading to his going through an identity crisis and a decision to make a bold move.
Best In Show
Named recipient of the Best In Show Award going into the Festival was The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, and produced by Moonbot Studios.
Part of the Festival’s Long Shorts Reel, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous piece on the curative powers of story. The film deploys a variety of techniques–miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation–in presenting a hybrid style of animation that hearkens back to silent films and Technicolor musicals.
Feature menu
In the Visual Effects for Live Action portion of the Festival showcase, feature films are prevalent, including: Arthur Christmas (Sony Pictures Imageworks), Battle: Los Angeles (Columbia Pictures–VFX by Cinesite), Clash of the Titans (Warner Bros.–VFX by Cinesite), Inception (Double Negative Visual Effects), Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (Animal Logic), Paul (Double Negative Visual Effects), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Industrial Light+Magic), Rango (Industrial Light+Magic), Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Double Negative Visual Effects), The Smurfs (Sony Pictures Imageworks), Super 8 (Industrial Light+Magic), Transformers 3 (Industrial Light+Magic) and Zookeeper (Sony Pictures Imageworks).
Visual Effects for Live Action also features a 2011 Spotlight on Digital Domain.
