tween

All right, this isn’t pre-processed PR stuff. This is me getting excited, genuinely excited, about motion graphics again.

The culprit? National Television.

They’ve been mentioned before on Tween, but they recently released their Summer 2005 reel and holy smokes, it’s hot. These guys are the masters of clever, mind-bending transitions, taking 2D elements and warping them into entirely new 3D scenarios, taking 3D into 2D, 1D into 4D, double D into big D.

They’re also the masters of beautiful comps. Check out the Nike “Nature” piece under Work. Press the pause button at random and chances are you’ll be staring at a gorgeous, lush composition oozing color and twinkling light.

I’d also like to mention at this point that National Television deserves massif props for adding a download link to their projects. They’re actually encouraging visitors to save, remember and cherish their work. Imagine that!

While we’re on the site, I’ll go ahead and shower them with a little more praise. Check out the copy accompanying their projects and in the Directors area. I don’t know if these guys write their own copy or not, but this shit is sharp. This is copy the way it’s supposed to be: concise, clear, appropriately humorous and occasionally hyperbolic. These guys take themselves seriously, but never too seriously.

Back to their work: it’s incredibly diverse. Start exploring in the Client area and you’ll find straight-up animation (Channel 1 and Fox); subtle touch-ups (DNA, Inc. (good lord, I think Gwen Stefani is hot)); mograph du jour (CMT); whimsical, immersive 3D (Nickelodeon); and paradoxically non-retro retro graphics (Stone Yamashita Partners).

These guys are all over the friggin’ place, but everything is deliciously clean and oh so clever.

Bravo, National. Next round’s on me.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 27th, 2005 at 10:31 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.