Buck has created two more spots for Cactus, the agency behind the Own Your C anti-smoking campaign, which has produced some remarkable motion work. “Ravens” and “Dragons” aren’t part of that series, though; they’re targeted to parents who smoke around their children.
The spots are entirely CG, which was as much a budgetary decision as a creative one. But that decision also gave Buck complete control over the lighting and camera work, both of which contribute greatly to a mounting sense of tension in each spot.
For this round the brief was simple; Make two spots that scare the living crap out of anyone who might be considering smoking around their children.
When you smoke, don't allow your kids to secondhand smoke with you. Protect them.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Is this the beginning of the End?
"2012" is an upcoming American science fiction disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich. The film has an ensemble cast, including John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Woody Harrelson. The film will be distributed by Columbia Pictures. Filming began in August 2008 in Vancouver; the film is expected to be released worldwide on November 13, 2009.
Global cataclysm occurs which leads to the end of the world and has survivors struggling for their lives. The film is inspired by several hypotheses that state that the ancient Mayan predicted a doomsday event will occur sometime around the 2012 northern hemisphere winter solstice.
AVATAR - Official Trailer
In the epic action adventure AVATAR, James Cameron, the director of "Titanic", takes us to a spectacular new world beyond our imagination. On the distant moon Pandora, a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization
Set to release December 18 2009 WorldWide
Set to release December 18 2009 WorldWide
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Prime Focus VFX Helps Elevate G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra
Prime Focus contributed roughly 70 visual effects shots for the finale's aerial sequence, which features a plane being eaten away by Nanomites, a U.S. developed bio-weapon usurped by evil forces that disintegrates metal on contact. Said Chris Bond, senior visual effects supervisor and president of Prime Focus VFX, This sequence was particularly challenging because we weren't relying on any aerial photography, which would be nearly impossible to shoot at these speeds, but instead created nearly everything digitally the plane, sky, clouds and the destructive Nanomites that eat away the plane.
In addition to developing a custom toolset to generate 3D cloud and sky environments, Prime Focus built a Nanomite animation pipeline and a hybrid matte painting, environment and 3D animation pipeline. The company also dedicated extensive R&D to improving its in-house scene collaboration system that allowed its LA and Vancouver offices to work seamlessly together.
We created a system whereby no single shot lives as a whole, but rather as a collection of project, sequence or shot assets, explained Chris Harvey, visual effects supervisor for Prime Focus VFX in Vancouver. Assets could range from models, shaders, animations, scripts, light rigs and anything in-between. These assets would then be assembled on the fly based on the specific requirements. This facilitated a number of important aspects to our pipeline - artists would always have the latest approved assets regardless of their global location, and we could make changes en masse and have them propagate through various levels of the show, shot, sequence and even across the entire project.
In addition to providing previz for the aerial sequence, Prime Focus artists, with VFX supervision from Bond and Harvey, built a Nanomite animation pipeline using Prime Focus proprietary volumetric particle renderer Krakatoa, along with Autodesk 3ds Max, to render out the billions upon billions of particles that make up the Nanomite cloud. Functioning as an intelligent swarm, the Nanomites are able to track their movements to avoid retracing their steps, leaving no metal untouched until whatever they're consuming crumbles and collapses. To produce this complex destruction, Prime Focus created a series of particle systems, shader networks, and procedural level set tools that would all talk to and affect each other. This created a true geometric volume with thickness and surface properties that would be eaten, rather than paper-thin transparency texture maps.
Using footage of actor Wayans shot on set in a chair with only the practical cockpit around him, Prime Focus artists digitally built the Night Raven plane, including its inner-workings and engine, which are revealed as the Nanomites eat away the metal. Ken Nakata headed up the digital matte painting department in Los Angeles to create the CG sky and clouds using a combination of fluid dynamics, matte painting, CG simulation and particle simulation. Prime Focus also created missile contrails and built the White House and Potomac River entirely in CG. In addition to the finale, Prime Focus also contributed to the opening sequence in which a tank is destroyed by Nanomites and provided interior shots and set extensions for the Cobra base. Autodesk 3ds Max and Maya were the tools-of-choice; eyeon Fusion was the compositor.
Prime Focus is one of the world's largest Visual Entertainment Services groups, specialising in providing creative and technical services for the film, broadcast, commercials, music, gaming, internet and media industries. With a market capitalisation of $140m USD, it operates nine facilities in India, four in the UK and four in North America, offering clients access to a talent pool of over 600 visual effects artists worldwide.
Over the last 11 years, Prime Focus has played a pioneering role in embracing digital entertainment technologies, and today offers an end-to-end service deploying robust, best-in-class technology platforms to create a delivery pipeline that lets its customers effectively manage the creative process.
Prime Focus is a market leader in its field, ranked number one in India and number four in the highly competitive UK market. Part of its success has been due to the care and attention it pays to clients at a local level (running studios in London, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Goa, Bangalore, Los Angeles, New York, Winnipeg and Vancouver) whilst leveraging the talent, resources and cost advantages of its global infrastructure.
Prime Focus is a public stock company with shares traded in the Mumbai and National Stock exchanges in India (Symbol - PRIMEFOCUS). Prime Focus also owns and operates Prime Focus London plc (Symbol - PFO), which is publicly traded in the LSEs AIM market.
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