Australian visual effects and animation studio Animal Logic collected another two industry awards for its creative mastery this month.
Work on ‘Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole’ received the inaugural Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Award for Best Visual Effects on Sunday, while the sleekly-animated Hyandai Electra TV commercial “Shell” garnered an International Mobius Award in Los Angeles this week.
Animal Logic ArtDirector Grant Freckelton says the AACTA award acknowledges the amazing work of the whole crew of the 2010 Warner Bros. animated fantasy feature, directed by Zack Snyder.
“It’s such an honour to get this award for Guardians, celebrating one more time the efforts of those 500 or so local and international artists who created this wonderful film,” Grant says.
“Every single shot in the film was a huge technical triumph, from the creation of each owl character, the creation of our proprietary feather system from the ground up to produce these deep, dense feathers, and then developing our fluid systems to simulate natural effects like fire and rain,” Grant says.
“We took all that technology and applied it creatively to an imaginative fantasy world in stereoscopic 3D, with almost everything you see generated within the shot, and then we put together some really good looking, impressive sequences,” he says.
Animal Logic producer Morgan MacCuish says she was really excited that the International Mobius Award for Television Visual Effects went to the Hyundai ‘Shell’ TV commercial.
The commercial, which also received a 2011 London International Award, was shot in one room on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour and depicts eighteen robotic arms unfolding from the ceiling, removing the car’s exterior to show a smaller car inside.
“It was great to work with director, Brent Bonacorso from Prodigy and with the Innocean agency,” she says. “The project took about two months and around twenty artists, from design and concept, modellers, lighters, riggers, surfacing, animators, and compositors, so this award reflects the really seamless work they all did.”
Animal Logic has produced award-winning design, animation and visual effects for the film, television and advertising industries internationally since starting out in Australia in 1991.
About Animal Logic
One of the world’s most highly respected digital production studios, Animal Logic produces award-winning design, animation and visual effects for the film, television and advertising industries. Credits include 3D Animated feature “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole”, Happy Feet, Lego Star Wars: Padawan Menace, 300, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Moulin Rouge and The Matrix. Animal Logic has studios in Sydney and Los Angeles. Information about Animal Logic is available at www.animallogic.com.
