GORGEOUS ENTERPRISES - London based company

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Thursday, April 30, 2009

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I have just recently refreshed my memory of the Sony Bravia 'Play Doh' advert with the multi coloured rabbits hopping around the streets of New York.
When this ad first came out, I was in awe of it, I absolutely loved the style of it and I remember thinking to myself that it looked like so much fun creating an ad like that, to be part of a team that produces something as creative as that definately fueled my passion to explore more with moving image. This is why I am including this post, as it is one of the pieces that has inspired me to move foreward with a course in moving image.

This is a still I have taken from the Production Companies website www.gorgeous.co.uk Their whole website has a Kitten based theme! It's quite bizarre, different cats represent the different designers within the company - It's very humorous, they have deep manly voices introducing themselves when you roll over the cat with your curser.

Frank Budgen is the director of the Sony play doh commercial - The only criticism I would have about the website is that there is no information whatsoever about the pieces of work they produce, or any information about themselves for that matter. They have a video of the piece of work you're looking at which I think is a good touch, but I find it a bit confusing that I can't find any information anywhere.

This is a video I have found which explains some of the information which I think should be included on the site. It is a making of... video and it shows some of the team, directors, animators, sculptors, cameramen etc etc and what they went through to produce the ad. I absolutely love it and I feel drawn to things like that, a team effort to produce a different but successful piece of moving image.
Some of the questions I wanted to ask were answered for me in the video, I'm not sure whether to go with the bog standard how many people and how long it took questions?
I will definitely send them an email, and hopefully recieve a reply as this is one of the pieces of work I admire so much.

JIGSAW VIDEO PRODUCTIONS VISIT!

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Saturday, April 25, 2009

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On Wednesday morning I went to visit a filming production studio, I have posted older posts about my progress of getting in touch with Justin and accidentally bumping into him on the street.
At first I didn't know what I was really expecting, whether there would be lots of different rooms containing sound equipment or camera equipment etc. But when I got there, it was just one room that had all the equipment in, it was very messy with wires absolutely everywhere!
When I first got there Justin was working on a personal project, and this is when I learnt that he does projects for both the public and for big companies. He charges two different prices, the higher quote being for the companies. He was converting a wedding video to DVD and vamping it up with effects working in Premiere pro.
He has done a few projects for the council, he works for himself so whenever he needs camera man or sound people he has to hire them so that there's a team of them working on this one project. He also hires sound and camera equipment from a company called 'Hammerhead'. All the companies he hires from and works with are all local also.
The council video took two months, working with 'Images For Life' which help with the Cine conversions - Justin used to do the Cine conversions but he now can get other people to do it for him!
Justin does get out of the studio a lot for the street locations when filming for the council and other companies.
The only commercial work that Justin has done is marketing, promoting a service for a particular company. No TV Ads, nothing we would recognise. To help get background information on the companies, he interviews people who use their service, he has currently just finish some interviews with some people who use a learning difficulty service from ages 18-65.

Justin also helped me out with some names of post production companies which are local such as 'KROFI DUEIBA' (That may be spelt wrong!) 'THE TV DEPARTMENT' Both of those companies are in Wilmslow, and also 'SUMNERS' which works with post production in Graphics and is in Manchester.

I spent a good few hours there watching what he was doing, I also showed him some of my own work like my rhythm piece and 3D Channel Ident which he said he was extremely impressed with!
As I was leaving, Justin offered me a job to work for him part time. It isn't a proper job, just helping out to earn some extra cash here and there. I would be doing things like helping to organise everything with the interior of the studio, learn how to convert video to DVD, phone around his clients, and help to edit some pieces.
Im very VERY happy and I am now just waiting for him to get in touch.

MONKEYPUZZLE CONTACT REPLY

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Wednesday, April 15, 2009

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I sent an Email to this London company, asking if the animatics I had seen on their site were tests for their clients, adverts etc - I have written an earlier post about this company.
Here's the email I sent:
On 11 Apr 2009, at 16:36, Jenny Huddart wrote:

Hello,
My name is Jenny Huddart and Im in my 2nd year Multimedia degree course.
I've just been looking at your site, and was extremely impressed! Especially the BMW Animatic.
I was just wondering if the animations for the adverts were tests for the companies to turn them into live footage?
And how long does it take to produce the animations?
Thank you for your time
Jenny Huddart 2nd year (BA)Hons Multimedia, Stockport College, Manchester

REPLY:

Hi Jenny,
yes, the animatics are tests which are shown to the client and more importantly shown to a target audience of the public to make sure they understand what is going on, these are called research groups.

once we have a script from the advertising agency, each film takes a week to ten days to produce.

if you have any further questions I'll help out where I can,

simon


I am very pleased that these companies are finding the time to send me the answers I am looking for.

THE MILL - CONTACT REPLY!!!

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Tuesday, April 14, 2009

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I'm extremely happy!
In one of my earlier posts I talked about a London based company called 'The Mill' who are very well known and produce high standard quality pieces of works.
I sent them an email, asking about a piece they had done involving a Jellyfish, explaining that I had just finished a piece involving a Jellyfish I had made in 3D.

Below is the email I sent to them:

Hello,

My name is Jenny Huddart and I am a Multimedia Student. I have just been looking at your 'Hutchinson 3' campaign which involves the jellyfish you did in 2004.

I am extremely impressed with the modeling of the creature, and is very similar to the jellyfish I have just created for a brief in Maya.

We had 4 weeks to work on a 10 second 3D channel ident by ourselves, and the question i wanted to ask is how long it took your guys to answer the Hutchinson brief? And how many designers worked on it altogether?

Thank you for your time.

Jenny Huddart: BA(Hons) Multimedia at Stockport College, Manchester.


And here is their reply:

Hi Jenny,

I’d love to say ours was all 3d but it was in fact mostly a live action model made by Stan Winston’s. What we did create though were extra 3d tentacles that animate out in one or two of the interior shots. I think from memory we had a team of four animators working on the project and one Flame guy doing the compositing. Most of the far backgrounds were replaced. I think the cityscapes were added in through the interior windows as well.

Why not send us a link to some of your work, it would be good to see?

Thanks,

Stephen

stephen venning

3d executive producer

the mill

stephenv@the-mill.com

mproducers@the-mill.com

www.the-mill.com

t: +44 (0)207 287 4041

f: +44 (0)207 743 8315


I am very VERY excited that they would like to see some of my work! I think the best thing i should do though, is wait until I have my flash website up and running showing the majority of all my work - The deadline for the brief of creating this website is the 8th May, so I think I should wait until I can send them the link to that.

ICENI CONTACT REPLY

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Tuesday, April 14, 2009

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I researched into this production studio:
iceni Productions Ltd the studio long lane, fradley, lichfield WS13 8NX UK
I found a piece of work they had produced for Transpennine Express that I really liked and so decided to ask the common questions of how long it took to produce, and how many people worked on it? ... And i got a reply!

FRIDAY 10th APRIL 2009 19:22


Contact for Iceni Productions


'It's Well Good' QUESTION


Hello,

My name is Jenny Huddart and im a 2nd year Multimedia student.

I have just recently seen 'IT"S WELL GOOD' for the Transpennine Express Franchise. I was extremely impressed with the motion graphics and high standard of quality to the style of footage.

I would just like to know how long it took to produce? And how many people worked on it?

Thank you for your time


Jenny Huddart 2nd year BA(Hons) Stockport College, Manchester


REPLY:


Hi Jenny,

Thanks for your comments.

The TransPennine Express clip was created using live action footage of the trains, filmed on DigiBeta for a documentary film.

The project took 3 weeks to produce. One senior motion graphics designer worked on the clip. There was also some audio design an online edit and a grade for transmission in cinema in that time.

I hope this answers your questions.

Regards,

Andi Jepson
iceni®
01283 792 990

MONKEYPUZZLE - LONDON COMPANY

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2009

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I was researching storyboards to help bulk up my research for 'A New Way Of Looking' brief we had a while ago, my outcome for the brief was to produce a storyboard representing my ideas.
So I came across this London company called Monkey Puzzle who specialise in animatics, storyboards and press ads.
Below are some of the examples of style they work with.


All of these animatics, I have seen as adverts on the television, but have used live footage rather than the actual animation.
I plan to get in touch with the company and ask them if these are just test animations that they send off to their clients, then they process the idea of the animation into live footage. I will also ask how long it normally takes to produce these animations.
There is also a section on their website that offers anyone to work for them. Well not just anyone, you can download at least 1 out of 2 briefs to complete and send off to them, and they will get in touch if they like what they see! - I like how open they are to see other peoples work.

SUMCREATIVE

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Friday, April 10, 2009

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Sumcreative is the new name for 'Sumners' expanded graphics department located in Manchester.
The team led by Creative Director Paul Peppiate, specialises in visual effects, animation, design and compositing for both the broadcast and commercial markets.
They work on pre-production planning, design, storyboards and animatics right through to the most demanding and complex of HD Effects.
IMAGES: Top - Bottom: Sumners Logo/ Most Haunted Titles/ The Paranormal Channel Ident/ Dragon's Den Titles/ 3D Architecture Design/ The Big Town Plan Titles.
I have included all of these as I wanted to show a range of the designs that create nice atmospheres that they have produced in the past. I have contacted Paul Peppiate, explaining that I am a multimedia student and would like to know  how long it takes to produce a title for the different programs and how many of his team works on them at a time. I am now waiting for a reply to hopefully include him in my contacts.

PAUL MORRISON

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Friday, April 10, 2009

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On the 26th of March, me and my mum visited Manchester Art Gallery just down the road from piccadilly gardens.
All I was doing was just casually looking around and taking things in, I didn't go for a specific purpose, but one artist that I stumbled across was Paul Morrison who was born in Liverpool in 1966. I had never heard of him before, but all we did was walk into a section of the art gallery and a massive piece of his work covering the whole wall just hits you in the face, it was a fantastic feeling. Many of the paintings were in black and white and he uses really bold shapes to make up the flowery gardens etc. They depict quite an eerie feel to the paintings due to the sheer size of the flowers - this is especially evident in the 25 metre-long wall painting 'Parthenocarp' created exclusively for Manchester Art Gallery in 2009. It is the major feature of the galleries current exhibition of work by the contemporary British artist.
These two pictures represent 'Parthenocarp', I couldn't find a full version of the actual painting, and I got these images off the Manchester art gallery website. It really is absolutely massive, and I think that is what I like about it along with it's style also. I feel that the style of his paintings really draw me in, they make me want to go closer and look at the detail. They are very striking.
His influences for this style of painting comes from a range of mediums. Cartoons to paradigms from art history/of landscape predecessors, from durer via Monet to Lichtenstein, to create abstracted and enlarged visions of landscape.
He alters his images on the computer and projects them onto a surface, he then outlines each element in pencil and applies black paint....
He makes it seem so easy, and I think one day I would love to produce something similar, this work has inspired me.
The below picture shows the style that I think represents my own personal taste and style.
Also, in the Manchester Art Gallery shop I found a Lichtenstein book, I love his pieces of work, they all have such character and atmosphere. My passion for him started when I visited The Louvre gallery when I went traveling and saw a few of the originals there.

MimeArtist - Interaction Design

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Friday, April 10, 2009

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When I was looking at 'The Mill' website, I came across who had created it, a company called MimeArtist who specialise in interaction design, not just websites but other imaginative projects also.
The company was set up in November 07 - James Stone has over 10 years experience in digital design for web, creating sites for Channel 4, Lucky Voice, Soho House, DAVE, VW, Escape Studios - just to name a few! He has also recieved a yellow pencil from D&AD and also a BAFTA for a film he helped work on called Bodysong. The BAFTA was actually for the interaction design of the film.
He created an online version of Simon Pummell's film - It is a film representing mans life which is made up from stock footage - The site allows you to travel through each clip and find the story behind each one.
Below shows the trailer for the film.


I think this is the only one I was attracted to because of the film aspect to it, the majority of the rest of the projects involved website company design. Some of the websites I have looked at however were very well laid out and attractive, I liked FinalCut the most, which represents around 25 designers and editors, sometimes more who have worked on commercials and promos, and I did enjoy looking at them through the design of the website.
www.finalcut-edit.com

JIGSAW MEDIA

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Wednesday, April 08, 2009

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I have begun the process of getting in touch with a media company based in Cheadle Hulme.

The first time I came in contact with Justin, the man in charge, I was serving him a pint in the pub I used to work at! We got talking about what I was doing, I told him I was a multimedia student, and he seemed really enthusiastic and pleased he had met me which is when I discovered he worked in the filming industry. He offered me an invite to visit them and to either help and get involved with some of the projects they were working on, or to just sit back and take notes if I needed to.

I accidentally lost the telephone number i had gotten off him as it was on a small piece of paper, but as luck would have it i bumped into Justin again just by walking past him on the street, and so got the number and stored it in my phone.

I have the companies telephone number, and plan to ring them so I can go in to record some interviews and to just gather some more information about the actual company and just some background information about what they do as they don't have an up and running website at the moment.

Over the Easter break I plan to gather the information needed to understand more about Jigsaw Media as a company.

THE MILL

Posted by Jenn | Posted in | Posted on Wednesday, April 08, 2009

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A company that I have decided to research more into, is a company called 'The Mill'. It is a visual effects company and are based in 3 locations around the world. LA, New York and London. They have done a lot of commercial work including Honda, Sony, and a lot of television work including the special effects for Doctor Who.
The Mill has worked with well known directors such as Chris Cunningham, Michel Gondry (Two of my favourite directors) and Ridley Scott. Two examples of films worked on by the Mill are Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. Basically in just this introduction of my report on this company, it is clear that they are highly respected and very well known for their high quality works in lots of different scenarios.
One of the most recent works i have seen on the television, is the campaign for T4 on the beach 2009 festival. They worked with the creative team at channel 4, they provided The Mill with original footage, and original cut, they spruced it up using bright and warm colours and odd little generics such as pixilating the artists etc. Their brief was to drive T4 viewers to their website to buy the tickets on sale for T4 on the beach 2009.

Another recent project done by 'The Mill' is the new ad for Guinness for a new 'Bring It To Life' campaign, they collaborated with AMV and Park Village to create the teaser. I am really drawn to this advert due to the texture of exploding waves of the ocean in the Guinness glass, playing on the fact of the swirling Guinness whenever it is poured - It is helped along by flicking between images of the spraying, exploding Guinness along with crashing noises etc.


This is a caption I have taken from the Mill's website:
'The film was put together using footage from a number of different sources including 35mm shot at 25fps and phantom footage shot at high speed. The Mill added some graphic ele
ments and some flashes so that the commercial was in keeping with the electric end line 'Bring It To Life'. The various types of footage were then graded in context in Baselight to look and feel like surging waves of Guiness.' - I'm thinking of getting in touch with them and asking how long it took, and how many people worked on this one project.








I found these images when I was looking at a showreel of The Mill's works, The only reason I was drawn to them is because I have just completed my own making of a jellyfish for a TV channel ident made in 3D. As soon as I saw this, I was extremely impressed by the model of the jellyfish - I may ask them about this instead of the Guinness add so that I could mention my own experience of building the same creature.

Overall I have seen quite a few of the showreels situated on their website www.the-mill.com showing the range of skills they provide for their clients, I am extremely impressed with the quality of work I have seen - their website was easy to follow. I also found who had created the Mill's website, and found out it was by a company called MimeArtist, by James Stone who is based in interaction design - i will research into his designs, and post my findings after this blog.
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