MVA Ceremony 13.10.09

Music Video Awards ceremony – 13th October 2009

With the nominations announced this week (see our news section for details) the MVA awards ceremony is just around the corner. Locomotion is all-a-buzz with who’ll be winning what and who’ll be wearing what at the ceremony held at the Odeon West End, in Leicester Square. With an after show party held at Orchid in Piccadilly Circus, the evening promises not only an opportunity to see the best in UK music video talent for 2009 but also a great chance to have a bit of a dance too!

If you’d like to join the party, tickets are still available from the MVA website, click here for details.

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 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 4 Gb 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 facility house with unique skills’.

Credits
The series is written by Howard Read and Chris Chantler.
Peter Davies – Executive Producer BBC Children’s
Vanessa Frances – Series Producer
Dermot Canterbury and Bruce Webb – Directors

Locomotion – Post Production Partner
Dan Coster – Post Production & VFX Supervisor
Lars Holmgren – VFX Supervisor
Jen Reznick – Line Producer
Petria Whelan – Flash Animator
Scott Flyger and Anuree De Silva – Off-line Editors
Lee Bamsey, Miland Suman, Alex Hare and Martin Macdonald – Compositing, Grading and On-line Editing

Cool blades

Robert Welch, UK based designer of, among things, kitchen knives, sought our 3D modelling skills to better demonstrate their precision instruments.

Having developed their range of Signature knives in consultation with professional chefs. The sales team required a high-end animation to demonstrate the range in exquisite detail.  Locomotion’s 3D team used output CAD scene data of the knives, which were imported into Maya. The files were cleaned up, with textures sourced directly from the supplied knives. Maya/Mental-ray cutting-edge shaders and lighting tools allowed the 3D team to finesse the output with great attention to detail and to match the lush studio-lighting quality evident in the presentation brochures provided.

The 3D layers were composited using After Effects. The result is a hyper real animation of the range that can be used for exhibition and point of sale presentations, as well as for promotional images.

Loco creates 3D animation for The Little Mermaid

Locomotion’s 3D team has created a 1 minute 3D animation for an episode of channel Five’s acclaimed human interest series Extraordinary People. Entitled “The Little Mermaid” it will be shown on the 9^th October, at 9pm on Five.

Produced by Firecracker Films, this episode follows the life of 9 year old Shiloh Pepin of Portland, Main, USA who was born with Sirenomelia, or Mermaid Syndrome.

Due to the sensitive nature of Shiloh’s condition, Firecracker Films approached Locomotion to create a medically accurate 3D animation that demonstrates the differences between an ordinary person’s internal structures and that of this extraordinary child’s.

Working from X-rays, the 60 sec sequence was created by our team of modellers, animators and lighting TDs and illustrates the internal physical structures, including skeleton, organs and soft tissue.

The animation is key to understanding the often fatal condition of Mermaid Syndrome, in which the foetus fails to develop normally below the waist, and it explains the differences between ordinary physical structures and those that this extraordinary child lives with.

Claire Mason, Head of Production at Firecracker Films says, “Locomotion was given a sensitive task to portray this child’s condition, and the team rose to the occasion, delivering an animation that explains in detail the severity of the condition. “

Locomotion at the MVAs

For those of you that still don’t know about the very first UK Music Video Awards event, here’s your chance to catch up.

It’s going to be the biggest night of the year in British music video and for once, it’s happening right in the middle of the West End! And as post production partners Locomotion’s talented crew have created a slick intro befitting the event. Not only that, we’re sponsoring the Best New Director category for all you aspiring promo directors out there, so have a look at the shortlist, make your People’s Choice nomination and get tickets to the hottest show in town!

The award is supported by 95.8 Capital FM and you can see the full shortlist on their website here <http://www.capitalradio.co.uk/music-showbiz/music/vote-your-favourite-video/> . Voting continues right up until midday on Monday 13th. 

Oh, and there’s just one week to go until the Awards ceremony, held at the Odeon West End in Leicester Square on October 14th, and tickets are already scarce, so if you still haven’t bought yours, please get in touch with the MVA team! You can download the ticket reservation form from the official website www.ukmva.com  (go to ‘tickets’ on the left hand navigation). 

See you there!

The Hills Are Alive – Extended Cut!

If you were there you’ll know all about it, but for those who missed BUG’s amazing bimonthly music video showcase at BFI Southbank on 31 July, here’s your chance to see our extended intro for the event – a thrilling pastiche on the musical film genre, which we believe inspired music videos. Created by our very own 3D / VFX Director Lars Magnus Holmgren, using the talents of our animation and VFX teams, this minute long film is a real treat. Music was also created and effects were also created in-house by Russ Hughes.

About BUG

BUG continues its mission to uncover the most inventive and inspiring new music promos from across the globe. An essential night out for aspiring film-makers and fans of music video alike, the bimonthly music video festival is held at BFI Southbank and hosted by Alan Buxton. The event includes extraordinary clips previously unseen on the big screen, as well as a revealing interview with hot talent. For more information go to www.bugmovies.co

More Press – Gongs Abound!

Our VFX guru Lars Holmgren is no garden variety VFX supervisor. He has actually weeded out some page space from the big boys at the BBC in the creative review pages of industry magazine, Televisual this month.

His cheeky take on the Hills are Alive from The Sound of Music for the opening  titles of Bug at the BFI is gaining more attention than a triffid at a garden party. Not that he is a shrinking violet, but this modest guy just quietly keeps on planting those seeds of creative genius that keeps Locomotion smelling of roses.

As if that wasn’t enough the work has also made it’s way into 3D Magazine with an excellent article from the chaps over at 3D.

The work being produced in the last months for the likes of Nokia, BT and many others is continuing to cement Locomotions name as the leading specialist 3D house in town!

Younger Days Dancing – Loco Talent Abounds

Locomotion’s Senior Editor and creative genius Lee Bamsey, along with creative partner and Loco regular, Steve Gurr have crafted a new music video, for one of his tracks from the Music/Film/Art project KINORA. It’s been a crazy 8 months in the making and has taken an incredible amount of work, patience and perseverence as we did everything between the two of us, with the exception of the skillfully shot camerawork which was filmed by Mr Nathan A Sheppard.

The track and video were developed alongside one another, the idea being that the final piece is as integrated as can be. The title name of the track is ‘Younger Days Dancing’, interpret the video how you will, and please leave a comment as they are highly valued.

As if all that genius wasn’t enough, the song was produced by our very own Russ Hughes, who brings to Locomotion over 20 years music production experience.

This track and video’s release also coincides with the 20 year anniversary of acid house.

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 Crossroad Production’s 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 in our studio Tony worked closely with Coggins to enhance the colorful crowd scenes by duplicating crowd shots and compositing in After Effects to bring the throng to life and create a sense of hugeness 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… 

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 VFX for the live-action viral film. 

Our Digital and VFX teams team 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!