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.

New Venture for Locomotion and Dirty Looks

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 here.

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.

 

Locomotion Sponsors Best New Director at UK MVA 2010

Locomotions Christian Williamson takes 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.

Animated Building Projection for V&A Museum – Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes

Credits:
Animator/ Editor: Miland Suman
Development: Alex Hare
Executive Producer: Chris McKeeman
Projection: Des O’Leary & Angus Dunwoody Dun
Music: Stravinsky’s The Firebird

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.

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 13^th 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.

Wincent Wespa: “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.

Credits:
Director/ Editor/ Compositor: Lee Bamsey
Director/Editor/ Compositor/ 3D Modeler: Steve Gurr

Video Focus – Final Cut Pro Magazine, interview May 2010.

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.

Bug UNKLE Special Intro

Locomotion’s Miland Suman animated this introduction to the UNKLE Special at Bug hosted by Adam Buxton.