Loco & MEF Honour the World’s Best in Mobile Content and Commerce
Loco was selected as the post-production partner for the 2011 Meffys Awards, hosted this year by TV personality and comedienne Ruby Wax. Now in their 8th year, the Meffys honour the achievements within the global community of mobile content and commerce (MEF). The categories recognised innovative apps, the best content created for mobile connected devices including games, video, book adaptations, music, brands and advertising. Also commended were technological developments, business models and m-commerce applications that help mobile technology users achieve more with their devices. And of course, there were awards for best device, with the iPad 2, iPhone 4 and Kindle 3G competing with newcomers Galaxy SII and Asus Eee Pad.
With almost 100 nominees across 16 categories, Loco collated examples and editorial for entrants from across the globe, in some cases creating video content to best illustrate the nominees’ technology. Loco worked with Sparkloop, the branding team for MEF, which had created the look for the awards. Using the brand package, Loco further developed animations to create the category packages and templates projected by Reality Awards at the gala dinner held at London’s Grand Connaught Rooms.
The Meffys Awards is Loco’s most recent project with Ballistic Events, building on their continuing collaboration on annual events including Amnesty International UK Media Awards, BT Digital Music Awards, UK Music Video Awards and BUG, the bimonthly music video show at the BFI.
Louise Stevens of Ballistic Events says, “Once again, the team at Locomotion delivered a fantastic package of video content for the live event, working to tight deadlines and with a vast array of source material to provide the elements of a highly polished video presentation on the night. The finished material provided a brilliant showcase platform for all the nominees, as well as for the client. And above all, it’s an absolute delight to work with the team at Locomotion and I look forward to many more collaborations with them.”
Locomotion puts the Good into Tropicana’s Morning
Locomotion was delighted to pitch for and win the production of the new US TV commercial campaign for PepsiCo drinks brand Tropicana. Working closely with DDB Chicago and DDB London, we created two HD Commercials incorporating animated oranges and packaging interacting in a lush, natural setting. This bold treatment was a step away from Tropicana’s traditional live action-based advertising, and was an integral part of their push to introduce new brand packaging to the US and Canadian markets.
Tropicana’s initial request was for a 30 second animation that would emphasise that there are 16 freshly squeezed oranges in every carton of Tropicana Pure premium. Under the co-direction of Dan Coster, Lee Bamsey and Tony Lee, Locomotion’s character animation team set to work modelling and developing personalities and characteristics for the oranges and packaging.
“The challenge was to give the Photoreal CG models a life and personality, whilst respecting the client’s wishes to remove any caricature from their movements,” recalls Dan Coster.
Our scene begins at dawn with a fast time ramp allowing the sun to rise and illuminate the setting within the first couple of seconds of the ad. As the “Good Morning” lyrics and music track kick in, our hero carton unzips itself, and a stack of 16 oranges wake up then jostle themselves into position, bouncing their way into the packaging.
Locomotion’s creative team had a blast with the research and development for this project. We launched a beauty competition for the perfect orange, scouring markets and shops for a citrusy muse to inspire the colour and texture of our CGI oranges’ skin. The evolution of the creative concept had us exploring settings in pristine country kitchens, green meadows and on picnic blankets. We took forays into macro photography of blades of grass and taking oranges bowling in the park.
“The test commercials used shallow depth of field to focus on the oranges and foreground elements,” says Coster, “but feedback from the Tropicana senior team indicated that the grove setting and a central orange tree should be as important in the final execution as the animation of the oranges and product pack”.
“Our grove had to become a hero in itself,” says Bamsey, “orange groves can be quite dry and dusty with almost bush-like trees to allow for easy picking of the fruit, but we wanted to give this grove a lush, grassy setting with beautiful trees and surroundings to really emphasise the natural goodness of the brand”.
Our CG/VFX team adapted their approach to the grove’s environment from matte painting, to creating a fully CG scene with complex 3D models of the orange trees. To add to the cinematic look, we rendered our CG at full 1080 HD in linear colour space.
“We started with the premise that using global illumination rendering for our scene would create realistic deep silhouettes and shadows within our trees and grass. However, as the render R&D progressed, our client opted for a hyper-real execution, which would exaggerate the overall brightness of our scene and elements. We therefore took the decision to raise the production values from the standard TV workflow of compressed 8bit rendering to linear colour space. This gave us the opportunity to apply the gamma correction later in the process which, in turn, allowed for greater control of our colours and lighting within the scene,” says Coster.
The 30 and 15 second version of the commercials aired across the US and Canada in early January 2011 and, we are very pleased to say that after such a successful response, Locomotion was asked to bring to life, the second stage of the campaign. Drawing upon the feeling and environment of the first commercial, our latest version of the ad depicts the transition of the oranges from the carton into the new bottle. Our new ad will play out in the US and Canada in line with Tropicana’s phase-out the existing carton packaging and introduction of the new, see-through plastic carafes. For Locomotion, the collaboration between the US and London has been a fantastic and rewarding relationship, and we very much hope to play a part in future Pepsico productions.
Credits:
Production: Locomotion, LPP ltd
Direction and Production: Dan Coster, Lee Bamsey, Tony Lee & Christian Williamson
3D Tech, R&D and Animation team: Ian Ward, Tony Lee, Guillaume Glachant, Gillian Best, Bastian Klücker, Dusan Struger, Paul Evans & Serdar Sigma
Composting and VFX: Martin Davison, Jan Tonsmann, Lee Bamsey, Miland Suman, Alex Hare & Ian Ward
Master Grade: Tom Balkwill- Dirty Looks
Special thanks to Uel Horrmann for VFX and Render support, Optimus for providing client viewing facilities in Chicago and of course to Ross Cleal, Will Waldron, Maggie Blundell and Rachel Amess from DDB London for handing us this opportunity and co-ordinating the entire production between London and the US.
Locomotion Creates Peter Andre Arena Tour Visuals
The Robotic Phoenix
Locomotion’s 3D/ VFX team wanted to create a powerful finale to Nick Addison’s opening titles for Peter Andre’s arena tour based on a creative briefing with Dave Palmer of Shameless Talent. The story of the phoenix, rising from the flames, reborn with greater strength was selected to represent the artist’s own rise to great fame and public adoration after coming through his own trials of personal adversity. However, our own trial would be to complete the animation from concept design to final HD delivery in just 10 days.
Taking inspiration from a variety of artistic depictions of the phoenix creature, concept designers George Belcher and Danny Coster also wanted to reflect Peter Andre’s image by incorporating his defined physique into the design. For the bird-like aspects of the design, they researched and took reference from the images and movement of raptors like the owl, eagle and red kite; as well as the shape of a bat’s wings as it wraps around its body.
The client further specified a robotic rather than flame and feathered look for the mythical bird. This vision paid homage to the classic Michael Jackson tour videos which depicted the pop star as a high tech robot so convincing that the audience wondered if they were at first seeing the pop star or a sophisticated machine. The team drew reference from the images of Japanse Gojira monster movies, Robocop, Terminator, as well as metal sculptures of warriors, eagles and even automobile engines to further inspire the development of their design.
The CGI phoenix was created by lead animator Tony Lee based on Locomotion’s concept art, while being mindful of how such a creature could be animated. Once the phoenix was rigged, the 3D team performed tests on the wings and joint systems to get the wings to unfurl, fan out and flap in an organic way. The challenge of a short production time encouraged the VFX team to seek simple solutions using as few controllers as possible to generate the wing movements.
For the audio element of the piece, the clients supplied a track from John William’s Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. The animators were able to use the music to time the action of the phoenix’s movements. The next stage was to rig the rest of the creature, setting up test cycles for the wing and body movements. During this process, the lead animator and VFX supervisor wanted to get a feel of how it would move, often by acting out bird and pterodactyl-like movements much to the amusement of the production office. Also, as our client was working remotely with Peter Andre on other segments of the show, it was important that he was kept abreast of all the work in progress through Locomotion’s online review and approval system. Locomotion embraced the challenge to create a dramatic performance of the animated, mythical creature in line with the soundtrack. We look forward to seeing it wow the arena crowds, increasing their excitement for Peter Andre’s performance.
To view the animation, check out our showcase page or click here.
For more information on Peter Andre’s arena tour, visit his website.
Check out the December issue of Televisual (in print) for more about the tour visuals and our Press page for a glimpse of the article.
Sherlock Holmes II Kicks off New Baselight Venture
Tom Balkwill, formerly of FilmLight, has partnered with Soho creative house Locomotion in an exciting new joint venture. Continuing from his success grading award winning UK indie films Skeletons and Starsuckers, Balkwill has launched new company Dirty Looks, a Baselight colour grading suite within Locomotion’s Soho premises, with facilities for high-end boutique finishing.
This new partnership provides a welcome addition to Locomotion’s facilities, and we are excited to be expanding into the feature film market by strengthening our Digital Intermediate (DI) and 3D Stereoscopic capabilities. Dirty Looks will provide commercials and film grading, 3D stereoscopic post production, cinema mastering and assist new film makers with digital dailies.
He says of this new venture, “I am delighted to have partnered up with Locomotion and am looking forward to expanding my repertoire to include commercials as well as features and TV. I am pleased that the venture has taken off so well. They are a great team to work with.”
Tom Balkwill has worked with many leading colourists, including Mick Vincent and Adam Glassman and has unparalleled understanding of Baselight. Since setting up Dirty Looks, his most recent projects include doing Phantom digital dailies work for the new Sherlock Holmes movie, as well as grading a commercial for Armani, shot and grade attended by Nick Knight, OBE.
Chris McKeeman, Executive Producer at Locomotion adds “Since our MBO earlier this year, Locomotion have gone from strength to strength. The addition of Baselight, combined with Tom’s talent and experience in independent features brings a great new dimension to Locomotion’s creative offering.”
For more information about FilmLight, click .
To view the trailer for Skeletons, click here.
For more information on the Sherlock Holmes Sequel, click here.
To view further credits for Tom Balkwill on his IMDB page, click here.
To view the Dirty Looks website, click here.
Animated Building Projection for the Victoria & Albert Museum
To promote the Victoria and Albert Museum’s exhibition “Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929”, the V&A’s marketing managers Sarah Armond and Cathy Flanagan commissioned Locomotion to create an animated video poster which our colleagues at Exceptional Exhibits projected – guerrilla advertising style – onto buildings in and around London’s Theatreland as well as other significant sites for ballet audiences.
Locomotion’s Miland Suman used After Effects to animate images taken from a handful of contemporary photographs and postcards, reflecting the poster design for the exhibition while introducing movement and depth to engage the attention of a curious public. Diaghilev was revolutionary in his collaboration with composers, artists, designers to create the experience of ‘total theatre’, so it seemed fitting to bring the photos to life through animation and let them out into the world through building projection.
Miland’s skilful presentation of the portrait of Vaslav Nijinsky in costume for the ballet Giselle recreates the dancer’s gravity defying leaps and highlights the thrilling exoticism of the dancer in costume for Sheherazade. His teasing reveal of Waléry’s 1912 photograph of Adolph Bolm and Tamara Karsavina delights in the bewitching scene of the dancers in the ballet Thamar. And, his animation of Bassano’ 1910 photograph excites the passions of the pair in a scene from Stravinsky’s Firebird.
If you didn’t happen to pass by the Royal Opera House on Wednesday the 13th of October, or walk along the Southbank to see the Royal Festival Hall on Thursday 14 October or indeed stroll through Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus on Tuesday 12 October, the night of the UK Music Video Awards and after show party, you can still view the projections here.
The Exhibition runs from 25 September 2010- 9 January 2011 to read more about it, visit the V&A website here.
To book tickets for the exhibition click here.
UK Music Video Awards 2010
Locomotion as post production partners to the UK MVAs were again commissioned to create the intro sequence and montage for the 2010 UK Music Video Awards held at the Odeon West End in Leicester Square. The intro video was created by Locomotion’s Miland Suman together with Richard Thomas and Bastian Klucker using Maya and After Effects. Senior motion graphics designer Lee Bamsey created an attention grabbing montage of music video highlights with a soundtrack provided by the band Gold Future Joy Machine. Excited nominees in the audience whooped and cheered as their clips appeared on the big screen.
This year’s awards were hosted by comedian Rich Fulcher, perhaps best known for his roles in hit series The Mighty Boosh. Taking inspiration from Lady Gaga’s MTV awards show meat dress, Rich Fulcher opened the proceedings in a fish dress (we’re assured that no sea creatures were harmed in the making of his costume). The video of the year award was scooped up by OK Go for “This Too Shall Pass”, the YouTube sensation created by James Frost, Syyn Labs and the band. The Icon Award, presented by Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien went to Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith, aka Hammer and Tongs, the producer and director team famed for their classic videos for Supergrass, “Pumping on your Stereo”, Blur’s “Coffee and TV” and Radiohead’s “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”. Adam Buxton, though not presenting the show this year, was there in spirit as his alter-ego, film nerd, Ken Korda provided a video tribute to Hammer and Tongs.
Locomotion’s Christian Williamson took to the stage to present the Best New Director award to Ben Newman whose videos for Example, Wiley, and Roots Manuva have earned him great acclaim. Celebrations continued at Jewel in Piccadilly for the aftershow party, which happened to be next door to Locomotion’s animated outdoor projection for the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Diagalev exhibition, more news about this to follow!
To view the intro video and montage, click here.
To view the Best New Director Award presentation, click here.
To see the shortlist of videos, please visit the MVA web site.
BT Digital Music Awards at the Roundhouse
Locomotion’s Alex Hare designed, created and animated the motion graphics for an ambitious 8-screen projection at the 2010 BT Digital Music Awards in London’s Roundhouse. Commissioned by Ballistic Events, Alex enhanced the BT DMA’s existing branding and developed visuals to complement Reality Awards’ innovative stage and screen set up.
The BTDMAs are the premier awards, recognising the best in digital music entertainment as well as uses of digital technology in the music industry – from websites and blogs to fan-sites, podcasts and more. The BT DMA website opened up many of the awards for public voting while other category winners were selected by industry judges.
The challenge for the VT content was to create an animation sequence on the first screen which would trigger further animated pixilation effects to move across the other 7 screens while all 8 simultaneously displayed video content. Alex used Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects and Final Cut Pro to produce stunning results. Creating the pixilation effects and simultaneously displaying excerpts of a different nominee’s work on each of the screens created the look and feel of an immersive digital experience for the enthusiastic audience.
Amongst the big screens and bright lights, hosts Caroline Flack and Matt Edmonson presented awards to the likes of JLS, Adam Buxton, Tinie Tempah and Gorillaz. The event also featured live performances by Marina and the Diamonds, Tinie Tempah, Professor Green, Scouting for Girls, Roll Deep Ne-Yo, and McFly. For more details about the nominees and winners, please visit the BTDMA website.
Locomotion Sponsors Branchage International Film Festival
Locomotion proudly sponsored this year’s Branchage International Film Festival. Branchage Jersey International Film Festival is an annual vibrant, boutique film festival, combining exciting, engaging films and live music events. With events taking place in some of the most historic, beautiful and iconic landmarks of Jersey, Channel Islands, Branchage creates unique and atmospheric cinematic treats in strange and wonderful locations dotted across the island.
Locomotion edited the five hour-long short film programmes—Documentary Focus, Experiments, Comedy Shorts, Dramatic Moments and Love Stories. Contributors from UK and around the world, selected by the programmers at Branchage, sent us their films on tapes, DVDs, hard drives and FTP servers, entrusting us to make their work look and sound fantastic on the big screen. We managed an array of standards conversions, balanced out audio levels between films to edit a smooth running order and authored the master DVD compilations for ease of display at the festival.
For those of us stuck here on the mainland missing out on all the excitement in Jersey, Branchage’s Festival and Events Manager, Fiona Fletcher has happily informed us, “the short film screenings were a great success and the facilities were fantastic at the venue so the DVD compilations looked top notch.” The festival as a whole has won rave reviews, and you can find out more by visiting the Branchange Film Festival website.
Locomotion is still in the film festival spirit, and as part of our joint venture with Tom Balkwill’s Dirty Looks, we’ve been helping filmmakers prepare their 35mm prints for Tribeca Doha Film Festival and working on the DI for feature film Lipstikka.
“The Adventures Of Wincent Wespa”
Lee Bamsey from Locomotion & Steve Gurr have just released the music video they directed and created for “The Adventures Of Wincent Wespa”. The animated song-story follows our hero, a cute, 60s-style Mod named Wincent on his scooter journey through a 3D city environment. Lee and Steve designed the buildings which Steve built in Cinema 4D to look like life-sized children’s drawings pasted into a hand-made mini diorama complete with thread-spool fire hydrants and sewn-on button traffic lights. Lee and Steve used After Effects to animate each scene on a shot-by-shot basis taking Wincent through a series of entertaining mishaps including trails of fire, angry dogs, rainstorms and a flat tyre. They even created pesky pigeons, which in their habitual way of adding insult to injury for our adventurer, splat-segue into the psychedelic sing-along section of the video. Happily, Wincent is revived from his trip, undeterred and heads off into the sunset. We hope he’ll be back soon to ride again!
Wincent has his own facebook page if you’d like to be his friend and you can check out the video on our showcase page.
Flybe sponsorship idents
A great example of Locomotion’s new co-creative approach is its recent campaign for Europe’s largest independent regional airline carrier, Flybe.
Working with Souk Communications Creative Director Claus Larsen, Locomotion formed a creative partnership to produce 10 sponsorship idents for The Channel Islands and Meridian weather bulletins. The brief requested the creation of a “fun” treatment of the graphic lozenge shapes featured in the existing Flybe press and digital campaigns. The character animation approach we created encompassed all our core skills of design, direction, animation, 3D and vfx compositing.
Locomotion also teamed up with Felt Music to create sound design, music and a vocal mnemonic for the brand.
Check out the video on our Showcase Page.
Notorious Hi Fi Killers “More Again Now”
Miland Suman directed, edited and animated “More Again Now”, a Monkeys-esque music video for the Notorious Hi Fi Killers. Filmed on a Canon 5D with a crew of 12, most of whom were part of the art department, Miland and his team created a magical undersea world and other trippy environments all within the band’s rehearsal space. He did a second stills shoot to capture images of the band members and their instruments so they could be transformed into puppet-like animations. Back at Locomotion, Miland composited and animated with After Effects and graded using Color Finesse.
Check out the video on our Showcase Page.
Check it out – Locomotion Gets “Waisted”
with Baber Smith and Mama Mio
Locomotion has had a fabulous time with agency Baber Smith and Mama Mio working together on the skincare brand’s first ever commercial. Mark Blanchard and Andy Lennard came to Locomotion with an idea and a demo track for a singing belly button. Joint efforts in creative development transformed their happy tune and quirky idea into a fictional band, Belle and the Buttons and for their first single, we created the pop-promo “Check Me Out” which doubles as a commercial for Get Waisted.
Part of their pioneering through-the-line campaign, the 50s/ 60s retro style video aims to drive sales of “Get Waisted” body shaping serum so that £1 of every bottle sold in Debenhams and on mamamio.com through 2010 can be donated to the cancer support charity Look Good… Feel Better.
Lee Bamsey directed, edited and composited the video with 2D design and animation by Alex Hare, and 3D animation by Carlos Correia. Collaborating with Producer Nick Sutherland-Dodd at ASD Lionheart on the live action shoot, Lee captured the confidence and natural beauty of the model for Belle, the talented belly button. They also selected the best 1950-60s stock footage for the backdrop emphasising holiday destinations and good times.
Working from the HD stills, Locomotion’s Carlos Correia re-created the model’s naval in 3D using Maya. He developed a series of blend shapes that would enable the belly button to sing like a mouth but retain its charm.
Lee was able to get a great key from the HD footage shot against green screen on the Canon 7D and allow Belle to come to life by tracking and compositing the 3D naval into the svelte belly as she walked towards camera showing off her “not flabulous” waist.
Alex Hare’s delightful animated birds, evoke classic cartoons and fit in with the style of Belle’s ukulele tattoo and the cute notes popping along with the instrumental accompaniment to her vocals. He put the retro TV magic sparkle into the intro and end card of the video as well as highlighting the pack-shot’s colour scheme with the palette he selected for the design and animation.
To generate buzz, Belle and the Buttons was launched first as a band and the advert as a pop promo, hosted on YouTube, myspace and with it’s own facebook fan site. It’s debut on YouTube saw 30,000 views in one week and its hit rate is skyrocketing more each day.
Check out the video on our showcase page.
Locomotion Edits Amnesty International UK Media Awards
Locomotion is proud have been chosen to edit the on-screen content for the Amnesty International UK Media Awards. Locomotion’s Alex Hare has been working closely with Louise Stevens, producer and events organiser from Ballistic Events as well as Sarah Ross, awards co-ordinator for Amnesty International Media Awards. Alex created opening title animation and compiled excerpts from the short-listed nominations. The nominated pieces feature international stories as well as those from within the UK and cover a range of media including television, periodicals, radio, and web. The Amnesty International Media Awards were established in 1992 to honour human rights journalists who have made a significant contribution to the UK public’s understanding of human rights issues. The awards ceremony will be held on 1 June at the BFI Southbank.
Locomotion Loves BUG: BUG 19 with guests Shynola and Max Hatler
Plus the BUG UNKLE Special
May was an exciting month for BUG and its post-production partner Locomotion. May 7th saw the release of UNKLE’s new album “Where Did The Night Fall” and to celebrate, BUG held an UNKLE music video special. Working with the BUG team, Locomotion compiled the decade-spanning retrospective and Miland Suman created a wicked intro to set the mood for the night. You can view it on our .
The show premiered “Saviours and Angels” a triptych of short films directed by Paul Andrew Williams (London to Brighton, The Cottage) and scored by James Lavelle. Both were happy to join BUG host, Adam Buxton to chat about the videos and hear the YouTube community’s hilarious commentary on past UNKLE promos.
For the latest regular instalment of BUG, show number 19, Adam Buxton’s official guests for the evening were animation collective, Shynola. BUG 19 highlighted some of their best work and provided rare insight into the making of “E-Pro” for Beck by showing an early animatic and raw rushes to reveal the secrets of how they created the now famous video. They even shared a few glimpses of the ones that got away, screening snippets of pitches that didn’t get commissioned.
Adam’s laptop section of the show featured online clips from animation filmmaker/ media artist, Max Hattler. Max just happened to be in the audience and joined Adam for an impromptu interview and a few jokes about his surname.
Miland Suman worked his magic on Paul Greeno’s poster design to create Synchronised Flies, the latest fantastic intro animation for BUG, which you can view on our .
Can’t wait ‘til the next BUG, well are some links to keep you BUG-ing out until the next show:
BUG goes to Norwich in June and returns to the BFI Southbank in July. If you’ve got a music video or other project that needs some Loco Love, you can catch up with us in the Benugo bar before and after the London shows or get in touch.
Check out our Events page for details on upcoming shows and the BUG Videos website to join the BUG mailing list.
View Miland Suman’s fantastic intros for Bug 15, 18, 19 and the UNKLE special on our Showcase page.
Read our Press page to find out what Jake Bickerton from Televisual thought of BUG 19 – The Director’s Cut.
Locomotion Keeps It Moving
Locomotion’s Miland Suman recently completed the online and colour grade for “Keep Moving” the theme song for Noel Clarke’s upcoming film “4.3.2.1” (out on 2 June). Adam Deacon and Bashy feature Paloma Faith on their track, and the promo captures the drama and glamour of the diamond heist storyline from the film. Maya Jenkins at Universal Pictures commissioned producer Phil Tidy and director Nick Mason to make the promo which received its debut on the News of the World’s web site. Shot on Red Cam with anamorphic lenses at the Sanctum Soho Hotel in London and incorporating scenes from the movie, Miland’s online and grade helped to join the looks of the rushes and the film into a sexy glittering promo for the film’s soundtrack.
Check it out on our Showcase page.
Hot off the press…
Spring has sprung and the sun is in the sky… well today anyway…
After the gloomy cold winter, spring has been much anticipated and heralds the start of new growth and opportunities for the media industry. It therefore seems entirely fitting to officially announce the recent, management buyout of Locomotion London by MD Dan Coster and FD Paul Oxley.
This de-coupling from the Storyboards Harpers Group signals an exciting time for Locomotion, as Dan Coster explains:
“Paul and I are really excited that we have completed the acquisition of Locomotion and that we can now build on its reputation as an independent facility that mixes great creative talent with end to end know-how. Locomotion has always produced great post, but what we’re growing a reputation for is our creative development for all media, regardless of the end platform.
What sets us apart from more traditional post houses is our co-creative approach. Getting involved in the pre-production and pitch stage of projects gives us the opportunity to work with, not for the agency, brand or broadcaster as an extension of their own creative department. Drawing on our team’s talents and experience of 2d, 3d animation, design, editing, vfx direction and also our ability to flex and scale our facility with great talent is the key to our growing success”.
As part of the new vision, Dan Coster will head up the creative team as Creative Director, alongside his existing role as MD.
Welcome to the team…
Further to the announcement of Locomotion’s successful management buyout by Danny Coster and Paul Oxley, Locomotion are extremely pleased to announce that Chris McKeeman has joined the team as Executive Producer. Chris has an excellent understanding of the commercials market and has dealt with major brands on creation and transcreation of their content to the international marketplace. He also has extensive knowledge of digital platforms and delivery solutions which will be of great benefit to our creative design team.
Dan explains “Chris is someone I have had a good business and personal relationship with over the years and I am very pleased he is joining us. He is someone that we have always thought of as a ‘Locomotion person’. Chris will initially head up the sales team and will account manage and post produce for some of our key clients, but with a flair for creativity himself, we are sure he will become an essential part of our creative team”.
Chris continues: “I’m very excited to be involved in this stage of Locomotion’s evolution. The ability to grow creative relationships with clients and nurture ideas from their embryonic stages is something that has set Locomotion apart from other facilities. Our involvement from the outset of projects is all the more valuable to our clients today as we are also able to advise on an increasing number of practical considerations. Making provision during the early phases of an idea’s development can lead to savings and efficiencies further along the line. In addition to supplying commercial, digital and broadcast expertise, Locomotion is providing our clients with guidance on how content can be cost effectively adapted for markets around the world and across the increasing number of media platforms we are creating for”.
Locomotion’s online safety adventure
Working in association with Straker Films, Locomotion has recently completed work on a short animated educational film. Commissioned by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) centre – the UK’s national centre for protecting children – the film is central to CEOP’s response to European Safer Internet Day on 9th February, and lies at the heart of a group of initiatives being launched by the organisation, targeted at children as young as five.
The 8 minute animation introduces Lee and Kim, a brother and sister navigating the online world with the help of their trusted superhero friend SID! With his super powers, SID shows them how to keep themselves safe while having fun online. Based around 4 simple tips for children to remember and a song, the cartoon aims to teach children how to protect themselves and others around them. As well as addressing grooming, the animation also focuses on digital citizenship highlighting the importance of treating each other well and behaving responsibly not only in the playground, but also online. This resource is being delivered to school children across the UK and we’re hoping kids around the world will get the opportunity to enjoy it too.
Locomotion’s brilliant animator, Petria Whelan, designed and created the characters and backgrounds in Flash. With the soundtrack pre-recorded, we were tasked with bringing the voices to life with Manga style animation, which was developed to achieve a more international finish. Particular attention was given to the predatory adult to ensure that he was portrayed as an ordinary rather than villainous character. Like the adult user who pretends to be a child in his online profile, the adult has been drawn to look like a child in the online world but gradually his scale and movement reveal him to be an adult as the sense of danger increases. Fortunately the children have SID to save the day!
Locomotion are very proud to be involved in such an important campaign and hope that our animation will help educate children about online safety.
Watch Lee and Kim’s Adventure now!
Read more on the BBC News site.
Locomotion Brings Winter Olympic Glory to Somerset House
To celebrate the British Winter Olympics team announcement and the launch of the official Adidas kit for the Vancouver 2010 competition, Locomotion teamed up with the Horrod and Harris Partnership and ICON:MEI to turn Somerset House into ice, using 3D projection technology never seen before in the UK.
With deadlines tighter than the athletes’ racing suits and a turnaround time (almost) as fast as a bobsleigh race, Locomotion worked closely with Kim Harris and Stuart Horrod to create a mapped building video projection. Somerset House, the impressive neo-classical building in the heart of London with its popular ice rink was an apt setting to celebrate the announcement of Team GB. The expansive scale of Somerset House required 3 separate video projections which moved seamlessly across the building. The side panel projections also unveiled the Adidas kit in time with the central projection featuring a compilation of winter sports footage which Locomotion onlined in full HD.
Locomotion along with the Horrod and Harris Partnership and ICON:MEI wish the athletes the best of luck as they go to compete in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Watch the full projection here.
Locomotion rocks CBBC’s BAMZOOKi Street Rules
Locomotion has delivered another fantastic CBBC series for the BBC.
Bamzooki Street Rules (13 x 28 min) presented by Barney Harwood and Gemma Hunt features four teams of three contestants competing with their Zooks in tests of speed, strength and agility. What’s a Zook you ask? Zooks are virtual creatures created by the contestants using 3-D primitives designed by Gameware Development. Fans can download the Zook kit from the CBBC website to create their own Zooks, competing to enter the leagues and gallery of most viewed and downloaded Zooks.
Locomotion worked closely with the CBBC team to bring to life this new twist on the hugely popular children’s series which started in 2004 as an in-studio virtual Robot Wars. Now into its fourth series, ‘Bamzooki Street Rules’ pumps up the scale of the Zooks and increases the stakes for the competitors by taking their virtual creatures to outdoor as well as indoor challenges.
During game-play, the contestants shout commands to their Zooks to control their creatures as they battle it out for glory. The competition starts with an outdoor street race that shows off the augmented reality element of this clever kid’s series. Locomotion’s editors created picture-in-picture effects to help viewers keep track of the action and tie-in the identity of each zook with its team. Once the Zooks cross the finish line, the teams enter the secret Bamzooki headquarters to compete in progressive levels of challenges like sumo bouts, capture the flag, obstacle courses, elimination rounds and a final roof top race.
Bamzooki Street Rules was filmed at Pinewood Studios in it’s mixed reality studio which enabled virtual reality game play to be recorded in camera. The show also features dramatic intros, outdoor scenes, CGI fly-throughs, celebrity cameos and interviews with the house Zooks by Zook expert, Dr. Vigo.
Locomotion edited, graded and composited together the many, varied components to enhance the augmented reality experience for viewers.
Bamzooki Street Rules is on CBBC Wednesdays at 17:15 and Saturdays at 9:30 through February 2010 and BBC iPlayer or view our Bamzooki taster here.
Pasta Pronto!
Locomotion was treated to a taste of la dolce vita this November, when work began on sponsorship bumpers for Roma foods. Working with Commercials Unlimited, senior editor Lee Bamsey created four idents for the RTE cookery show ‘Catherine’s Italian Kitchen’.
The beautiful Italian images obviously brought out the old master in Lee as he set about ripening tomatoes, adding light rays, and removing creases and reflections from packaging whilst grading the whole edit to give a lovely warm Mediterranean glow. Whether Leonardo would approve of Lee’s AFX approach is another matter but the Loco team think it’s fantastico!
MVA Titles In All Their Glory!
The Locomotion team recently had a fantastic night out at the 2009 Music Video Awards, hosted by Adam Buxton and held at the Odeon Leicester Square.
Loco were commissioned to create an intro sequence, bumpers and stings for the Music Video Awards 2009. Click here to the view the intro that was created using Maya, After Effects, with original sound score created in Pro Tools 8, all by our in-house team.
Locomotion Get The Producers Vote!
Locomotion climbed to number 24 in the Producers vote for the Televisual Top 50 Post Houses 2009. In a difficult year for the whole industry Locomotion held on to the number 27 position of Post Houses, but gained votes from Producers who gave it the thumbs up as one of the top post house in Soho.
So thank you to everyone who voted for us, we appreciate your support and value each and everyone of you who have contributed to our success.
MVA Awards – Nominations announced!
As proud sponsors of this years UK Music Video Awards, we were waiting with baited breath to read the nominations which were announced this week.
Designed to recognise excellence in music video production by UK individuals and companies, the MVA’s also aim to highlight the cultural significance of music video as an art form.
After viewing the list we’re sure the competition will be a closely run race with many fantastic contributors in each category. With the awards ceremony on 13th October there’s still time to book your ticket, check out our events page for further details.
In the meantime if you would like to view all the videos nominated, click here.
The Early Bird…
Completing our series of three opening title spots for BUG, senior motion graphics artist, Miland Suman, drew on the works of iconic graphic designer, Saul Bass, for inspiration. Working together with BUG’s Phil Tidy, the co-directed piece evolved from Septembers BUG poster to advertise the popular music video event.
Catchily titled ‘Lonesome Bird Gets Eaten By Mutant Worm Thing’ Miland chose to use After Effects to give his bird the 1960’s screen print look whilst bringing it bang up to date with a fully animated treatment. With music composed specifically by Raoul Brand, we’re confident that the finished piece reflects Saul Bass’ mantra that ‘Design is thinking made visual’.
Two Saturday Specials!
June saw the two highlights of senior motion graphics artist Lee Bamsey’s year. In one week he managed to work on a project for the newest girl band on the block: The Saturday’s and get married– how lucky does one guy get?
Working with Global Radio, producer Kwok Manyau commissioned us to create Windows sponsorship bumpers, intros and outros for a Channel 5 programme ‘The Saturday’s at work: the making of a music video’.
Using After Effects, Lee helped to create a series of stylish idents promoting the versatility and creativity of Microsoft Windows software whilst incorporating the five fabulous ‘Saturdays’.
Staring at a screen full of gorgeous girls all week could be distracting to a man but Lee only had eyes for his Saturday at the end of the week, when he married the beautiful Steph. Thoughts of any other faded away as he jetted off to Bali and the single men of the office were left contemplating their favourite Saturday…
Choose yours here…
Baby Love…
Summer saw Locomotion come over all broody when work began for the new SMA Nutrition website. Working with Partners Andrew Aldridge and Bare Films we created a series of landing pages for the site as well as 10 x 3 min ‘know how’ films featuring real parents with their own babies.
The videos are aimed at helping new parents in mastering the art of having a newborn, from breast-feeding and preparing SMA milk substitute for bottle fed babies through to weaning and high chair feeding older babies. Using real parents and babies and not actors created a more natural delivery (excuse the pun) and gave our very own resident super-dad/ senior editor, Miland, a chance to add a warmth that made the videos informative and engaging and indulged heavily in the ‘awwww’ factor.
Loco Sponsor MVA Music Awards!
It’s no secret we love music, we love video; so it should come as no surprise that Locomotion are working again with the Music Video Awards to bring great titles, stings and bumpers to the event. Find out more by clicking below…
How We Gave Buzz Monkey Life… and featured in 3D World!
For most of us in the UK Buzz Monkey is a relatively unknown brand, in Australia it’s an alternative to Red Bull. Working in association with Click-House, Locomotion were given the opportunity of breathing life into the static Buzz Monkey character.
Our resident guru Lars Magnus Holgrem was the brains behind this baby, taking it from concept to completion, with many of the team taking part in bringing him to life. Lars managed not only the creative process, but also managed teams across the world, bringing the best out of our creative team.
Once we had the character moving, it was then a case of using Locomotion genius to colour grade, add foley and music to bring the Buzz Monkey to life.
We were over the moon to learn that our little green friend was to be featured in 3D World and are proud that the 3D Buzz Monkey is our baby- just another example of why people choose Locomotion to make their visions reality.
If you’d like to our monkey in action check it out in our showcase section here.
The 3D version of this character both still and moving are the property of Locomotion London (c) 2009
Cupcakes Featured In 3D World
We’re thrilled that our Cupcakes ident for BUG has been featured in the latest edition of 3D world magazine.
Cupcakes shows just what can be achieved when you push Maya to the edge of its capabilities, you can find out more about Cupcakes here…
Little Howard Gets Big Results
Little Howard was one of the most watched terrestrial children’s programme during April. One show achieved a 23% share of the available audience – no mean feat for any TV show.
As a Children’s TV show, ‘Little Howard’s Big Question’ has shown that children’s TV is setting the standard for makers of all TV to follow. In an industry swamped with derivatives and low budget reality shows, it’s great to know that the courage taken by the BBC team to make such a great idea, using new innovations, has paid off.
It just goes to show that people, even little people, still know a good thing when they see it!
More Award Winning Work By Locomotion
Locomotion are thrilled to hear that uber cool agency Lean Mean Fighting Machine have grabbed an award on a piece of ground breaking work. At last week’s Mouse Awards it was announced that LMFM were awarded a Silver Award for ‘The Exposure of Tom King’.
An ambitious project from the start, the idea of getting people from all over the world to audition and then take a role in a movie, all through the use of their webcams. Mad? Perhaps, but we can’t help it when people suggest the impossible.
It took an enormous amount of rotoscoping and other tricks by our talented team to take all the parts and make a web-based movie as part of an Emirates campaign.
Chris Condron of LMFM comments ‘This was down to an unbelievable effort from the Locomotion team and we would like to take a moment to thank everyone again for what was an exemplary effort in very difficult circumstances.’
Our pleasure Chris…
Locomotion pioneers a new format for CBBC
Now you have a great reason to watch TV on Thursday afternoons!
Little Howard’s Big Question, a new BBC Childrens TV show premieres tonight, 8th January, at 4.30 on BBC1 and brings comedy live act Big Howard and Little Howard to the small screen with a unique blend of animation and live action.
The 13 x 28 minute programmes feature the cheeky 2D character of Little Howard as he interacts with people and places in his quest to find answers to his questions.
Little Howard’s Big Question examines the questions that children most want answered such as ‘could the dinosaurs ever return?’, ‘how will I know when I’ve fallen in love?’ and ‘can I believe my eyes?’. The show takes the form of a road movie in which Big Howard played by Howard Read is accompanied in the real world by his animated side kick, six-year old Little Howard. The production uses Flash to animate Howard’s 2D characters which are then composited into live action sequences filmed on location.
With responsibility for post production, animation and visual effects, Locomotion worked closely with comedian and animator Howard Read and the CBBC Production team to create the 2D character of Little Howard in Flash and bring him to life.
Locomotion beat numerous other post production houses to the ambitious project and won on the strength of the team’s technical expertise, capabilites, workflow and enthusiasm for the project.
Post Production Producer and MD, Danny Coster, and Editors Anuree De Silva and Scott Flyger, worked with Read to develop the character and each programme features 20-25 minutes of animation. Under supervision Locomotion’s VFX Director Lars Magnus Holmgren, the team of animators and compositors developed the 2D animations in Flash, After Effects, Shake and Boujou.
Shot in DVCam, Locomotion ingested all footage using their 4Gb SAN network at broadcast resolution, enabling the compositors and editors to work in tandem at online quality throughout the project.
Says Peter Davies, Executive Producer at the CBBC, ‘Producing Little Howard for CBBC has meant breaking new ground from inception to delivery. We’ve had to write the manual from scratch for how to make a live action factual comedy featuring a six year old animated boy. We couldn’t have done this without a post production facility house with unique skills’.
Locomotion creates ‘Cupcakes’ to promote BUG, London’s essential music video event
Locomotion premieres the second in a series of three identity opening title spots for BUG, the bi-monthly music video festival held at BFI Southbank.
Entitled ‘Cupcakes’, the 2 minute spot follows the same alien ‘bug’ theme that was introduced in Locomotion’s first title spot ‘Hills Are Alive’, a pastiche on the musical film genre.
This time around, concept creator and Director Lars Magnus Holmgren takes a tongue-in-cheek look at our caffeine fuelled and sleep deprived culture through a weird and wonderful ‘Happy Days’ pastiche that follows one young man’s madness after one too many cappuccinos… you’ll never look at a cup cake in quite the same way again.
Stop motion stills camera work was sought for the live-action to add a twitchy ‘bugged-out’ quality that mirrors the nerves-on-edge adrenalin rush of strong coffee.
The cupcake bugs and character animation were seamlessly integrated with the stop motion footage to achieve a natural twitchy high-energy feel.
Turning It Up for The Feeling
Now that The Feeling’s promo for their latest single ‘Turn It Up’ is on MTV, we’re free to shout about the magic…
With a vision to create a decadent ‘carnival of life’ that parades past as the band plays, complete with revelers, balloons and streamers, Director Caswell Coggins needed to enhance the party scenes and Crossroads Productions turned to our VFX team for help.
Senior 3D Artist Tony Lee and senior editor Lee Bamsey advised during pre-planning and supervised the setting of VFX shots on location.
Once back at Locomotion Tony worked closely with Coggins to enhance the colourful crowd scenes by duplicating crowd shots and compositing in After Effects to bring the throng to life and create an enormous sense of space to the end hero shots.
Tony also built additional balloons in 3D using Lightwave particle system to recreate the dynamics of falling balloons, adding texture and lighting to match the real ones from the shoot, and interaction when they landed near people. Further layers of 3D confetti and streamers were also generated using the same software. Finally, all elements were composited into the shots and graded to achieve the final effect the Director was looking for.
The video was edited at Marshall Street Editing and then conformed here at Locomotion by our Senior Editor Lee Bamsey in Final Cut Pro.
Check it out here…
The Hills Are Alive…
BUG has commissioned Locomotion to create 3 intro spots that will reflect the spirit of the music video festival’s theme ‘The Evolution of Music Video’.
The first spot, entitled ‘The Hills Are Alive’ is a tongue-in-cheek take on the film, The Sound Of Music starring Julie Andrews and it plays with audience expectations by suffusing the ordinary with the extraordinary.
Opening with a sequence reminiscent of the iconic scene that sees Maria dancing on the mountain, there follows an encounter with a surreal creature that is a hybrid of a rose and various insect elements that achieves a shock horror effect, the look and movement references various creepy creatures from films including Alien and Men In Black II.
3D / VFX Director Lars Magnus Holmgren has created a visual treat that pays homage to the Musical film genre as the precursory seed for music videos.
Do Something Different with Loco
When Bare Creative came up with this little gem of a concept for Mabox’s client Do Something Different.com, we stepped in to advise on the post production and VFX for the live-action viral film.
Our Digital and VFX teams advised on how to achieve certain visual effects and our MD Danny recommended shooting the film in HD, on a Panasonic HVX 200 HD, because of the efficiency and flexibility it affords for workflow and creative treatments.
The film was shot on location in London by Bare Creative. Capturing straight to a P2 card eliminated the need for tape, allowing for high speed transfer of the rushes to Locomotion’s 4GB XSAN server. Also, working directly at HD resolution ensured high end quality of post treatments, such as tracking, keying and the visual effects we used, including time lapse, primary and secondary colour grading and the lightning strike. Lee Bamsey, Senior Editor at Locomotion handled the entire project, from editing, compositing, visual effects and screen graphics to sound design, making the workflow extremely efficient.
“Working at HD resolution also means that output variations for cross platform delivery maintains quality and integrity despite image size and formats, and everything at Locomotion was done at broadcast quality to future proof the campaign assets” adds Danny.
All in all, everyone was delighted with the results. See it for yourself here and remember to Do Something Different – before it’s too late!
Loco motion soho: 3D Animation VFX Motion Graphics 
