tween

Well, school has definitely begun. It’s my first week, and already I’m snowed under. I won’t let that keep me from making a quick post here, though.

Charlie Company: Court TV "RED"
Great camera moves and strong compositions make Charlie Company’s spots for Court TV’s RED campaign excellent viewing. They really did a great job adding a new dimension to the "ready-made" sound design of the featured shows.

On the Charlie Company site, go to Recent Developments > RED to see the spots.

Brian Sensebe
Brian Sensebe’s reel has a lot of nice work in it. I especially like the animated, marker-drawn sequences near the beginning.

I noticed some Mun2 work in there. I wonder if he worked with Chris Palazzo on that stuff…

Play Airways: MTV
Play Airways has concocted a bevy of IDs for MTV’s new Canadian station.

I’ll admit the graphic techniques used in these are a little familiar, but I like the element of the unexpected in each spot. You never know exactly which piece of the image is going to disassemble itself and spray forth its life force. I also like how the ambient sound design gets incorporated into the rhythmic second half of each piece, unifying the still image with the branded graphics.

National Television updates with 3 new pieces

As you all know, we really dig Nationals’ work. They’ve update with 3 new spots, which is surprising – I thought they would have still been partying after winning best showreel, & 3rd in best spot in the Tween Awards (That was poor sarcasm, I apologize).

Arnold NYC – Take 5 “Taste and believe”
National has completed a more tradition commercial spot this time around, but it has that warped sense of National humour pervading it. Its fast & funny, and the voiceover really makes it work. I dig Nationals’ over-the-top end super too.

Nike Mecurial Vapour “Naja”
I was’nt a fan of this spot until the drop of venom hangs from the fang of the cobra – that was beautiful. Even still, it feels a little drawn out to me. The write-up on the national site does a better job of explaining the rationale behind the cobra than I will, so check out what they have to say (Actually, that goes for the other spots too).

Nike Holiday “Heritage”
This is the pick of the lot as far as this update goes in my opinion. As mentioned in their own synopsis, it looks like it must be fun to go to town with a brand history as rich as Nikes. I really hope there is, or will be, a series of these, it’s so retro it hurts. The character animation and visual style reminds me a little of Shynolas’ flat-shaded 3d work, or maybe its just the inanimate objects with legs that makes me think that way.

Visit National to view all

Once again, we like to hear what you think – leave your comments below. Oh, and stay tuned, I think Justin has another monster post coming up.

I seem to have a thing for posting in pairs lately. Weird.

Jake Portman & Bill Sneed: The Forest in Winter
There might be something wrong with Jake Portman’s mind. This is good news, of course. As long as keeps making movies like his latest creation, “The Forest in Winter,” I wholeheartedly encourage the further deterioration of his sanity.

You might remember Mr. Portman’s excellent “Rainy Day Fun for Children Ages 6 and Up,” which was nominated for a 2005 Tween Award “The Forest in Winter,” a collaborative project with Bill Sneed, makes “Rainy Day” look pedestrian by comparison.

I won’t spoil the fun by trying to disassemble the piece. Just watch it. You’ll see.

David Holm
David Holm, a Senior Designer for FAD NYC, has some nice moments in his reel. I like the grungy aesthetic; it’s a nice change of pace and it fits well with the music. I only wish the soundtrack was a little more dynamic; it’s repetitive nature draws attention to its own monotone character.

Speaking of FAD, congratulations to Eric Edwards, a recent SCAD graduate who’s been hired at FAD’s Seattle office.

I predict that FAD is on its way up, and I’m going to keep them blinking on my radar. If I’m wrong, please publicly ridicule me. I love that.

Another lovely sound driven 3d vector animation by Tokyoplastic. This one has to be my favorite, I’d buy a vinyl toy of this little fella real quick! Tokyoplastic is also looking to expand, if you got skills and are interested in being a part of the team in London, click here.

Shadowplay: Thank Your for Smoking
Check out Shadowplay’s opening titles for the upcoming film Thank You for Smoking.

Excellent typography, great palletes, a strong command of tabacco packaging vernacular (no, seriously!) and spot-on pacing all combine to make this a really solid piece of work. (And I love the music.)

Incidentally, Shadowplay also created a promotional video for Otis College of Art and Design that I remember being impressed by when I was shopping around for schools a while back.

Darren Booth: Opportunity for Collaboration
Check out the work of Canadian-based illustrator Darren Booth. His layered compositions and visible brushtrokes have a nice energy to them, and his compositions remind me a little of Hopper. (Just a tiny bit, mainly in the way Darren renders humans.) I also really like the three-dimensional aspect of his lettering work.

Here’s where you come in. Darren’s looking for a way to break into motion, preferably via a collaborative project. If you’ve got a project that could use his skills or if you can think of project that might be mutually beneficial, drop him a line and see what happens.

EDIT: I had to take down the previously posted Buck item because the link was pointing to their internal servers. Oops.

Logan Updates. A lot.

Logan has updated with a huge amount of new stuff, the highlights of which (in my opinion), are the first two featured jobs for Apple ‘1000 songs’ and Citroen ‘l’echappe’.

1000 songs rubs me the right way, its a clever visual solution for a specific message, as opposed to the more broad awareness spots for earlier apple products (actually, there is another new ipod spot in this update as well). Although the ipod at the end looked a bit dogey to me… vaguely 2d -but that might be because ipods are ridiculously slim now, and I just can’t make it out from the size of the quicktime. Then again, who am I to complain?

The second spot I’m going to talk about is ‘l’echappe’. I’m not completely sold on this spot, I like it – but there is something which bothers me and I’m not sure what. The compositing & tracking is top notch, as is the animation. Hmm. As always, we’d like to know what you think about it, leave a comment below.

Renascent: New Work
Joost has posted new work in the motion area of Renascent.

EDIT: Because it wasn’t quite ready for release, I had to remove a link to one of Renascent’s projects. Go to the Motion area of his site for Joost’s latest work.

Adam Swaab: New Site
Adam Swaab has launched a new web presence gleaming with goth goodness. Can’t wait to see the new montage and work promised on the homepage.

I’ve been busy of late with Uni and the horrible things I have to do to put food on the table, but in my downtime I’ve been checking out some old haunts. There has been some interesting stuff turning up over at xplsv and mograph, but these caught my eye in particular:

Allow me to apologize in advance as I don’t have time to give you a proper rundown at the usual tween standard, I have briefs due tomorrow!

Matt Smithson – Spring 2006 Show Reel

His site seems to be a whole bunch of jpegs (we won’t hold that against him), but Matt Smithson sure does have a nice reel. Matt has a fairly unmistakable ’scrapbook’ aesthetic that spreads across a lot of what he does, but then in the next cut its super clean and corprate. I like to see individuals that aren’t limited to a style of process that has worked for them in the past.

View Spring 2006 Show Reel

Racecar – Shopaholic

Ah, Verk from Norway! Its a little slow in points, but on the whole its just a nice little piece – nice visuals, nice concept, a little comedy…

Watch it, and tell me I’m wrong.
Oh, they have more work on thier site, too.

The work of Ruff Mercy

Diligent reader Xavier Oon sent in this link. I’m not sure, but some of this work seems somewhat familiar – I thought it may have been posted before, but I can’t find any reference to it. Anyhow – I really dig Russ’ work (oh, his name is Russ Murphy), in particular the MTV pop-inc sequence & super-short Nickelodeon idents.

Visit Ruff Mercy

Karni + Saul: Beneath the Rose
Karni + Saul’s latest music video for Micah P Hinson’s "Beneath the Rose" is simply beautiful.

I’m almost certain the bugs are CG, since that’s Saul’s specialty, but I suppose it’s possible they used highly trained snails. Either way, they’re shot with that wonderful Sunday-morning light that tinges everything with a strange mix of loneliness and peace.

Now that I think of it, that’s basically what a snail represents, isn’t it—a being that is always at home and yet always on the move, looking for something and therefore a little lonely?

To see more work from Karni + Saul check out their page at Flynn Productions.

Thanks to Christopher Roeleveld

UnitedVisualArtists
Tween author and collaborator extraordinaire Babe Baker passed me a link to UnitedVisualArtists recently.

As their name suggests, they are artists. Which is to say they make art, whatever that is. Since they mainly create installation work, I’m sure their stuff is best seen in person, but the videos give a glimpse of several innovative projects that have piqued my curiosity.

I’m not crazy about their "To the Music" promo for Colder, but there is something fresh and noteworthy about it. It looks like they mapped video textures onto simple geometry, creating a weird blend of real/not-real that’s underscored by the first-person-shooter-esque camera moves.

LED Throwies
Strap a battery and a magnet to a LED, toss it onto a building and you’ve got an interesting new form of graffiti. Looks like fun.

Thanks to Tanja Zoellner