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  • Originally published on
  • Friday, May. 19, 2017
Short Takes for May 2017
Reel FX Goes Retro For Sci-Fi Game Prey, AKQA

Dallas/Santa Monica digital studio Reel FX director Barrett Lewis transports gamers through decades of intergalactic mystery in “The History of TranStar” for Bethesda Softworks’ sci-fi action game, Prey, out of AKQA. 

The piece serves as a leaked classified doctrine detailing the discovery of the Typhon alien species and the dark history of the game’s Talos I, a highly advanced space station owned by the TranStar Corporation. Lewis also composed the original music for the short, fusing his lifelong experience as a musician and his decades of expertise in animation to bring a cohesive cinematic animation style to the trailer.

Lewis worked closely with AKQA to bring a retro 2D cartoon animation aesthetic to the piece that both narratively and stylistically evolves as the piece progresses. The Reel FX team crafted the character design for the trailer, leveraging their in-house feature artists to deliver a defined and polished motif to the piece. Lewis then carefully developed an arc that unfolds the story through color, camera angles, design and music, progressing the style from a ‘50s Space Race era to a futuristic cosmic 2035.

Kinsale Issues Call For Entries
The 2017 Kinsale Shark Awards is now open for entries. Film, Music Video, Print and Design can all be entered via the website www.kinsalesharks.com until the deadline on Wednesday, September 6. The Festival runs from September 21-23 in Kinsale, Ireland.

Aisling White, who came on board as Festival director earlier this year, said, “Kinsale is a small, intimate Festival with a personal approach to speaking to, and engaging with, the creative community.  We are a new, management team here at the Kinsale Shark Awards and this year have taken a fresher outlook to running our most successful event ever.”

There are a few category changes this year. The Best New Awards are expanding to include Best New Film Editor and Best New DP which will be determined from a shortlist by the delegates at the Festival.  Media has been withdrawn in order to focus on the creative and craft categories.

People On The Move....
Creative agency Carmichael Lynch has hired Milton Un as design director. Un will oversee design and various creative projects for the Minneapolis-based agency. Un joins Carmichael Lynch from Fallon, where he served as design lead. Before Fallon, he was design director at Target Corporation. Un sports an extensive background spanning design, art direction and illustration, and he has a storied history working with brands such as Nike, Apple, ESPN, Adidas, Pentagram and Red Bull.... Prodigious, the content production arm of Publicis Groupe, has hired industry veteran Steve Parish as sr. character generation supervisor. Based out of the Groupe’s campus in Brooklyn’s Industry City, Parish will be leading the company’s CG/animation team in producing creative content for clients including Citibank, P&G and Comcast. Parish arrives at Prodigious with more than 14 years of experience in commercials and film, including campaigns for GE, Pepsi, HBO and AT&T, as well as the iconic The Beatles: Rock Band commercial. Cinematic credits include Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Elysium and Thor: The Dark World....

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