Umbrella

Posted on by by Logan.Bradley
Category: Film / Multimedia

Watch this. You won’t be disappointed. Umbrella is the new work that’s just been released by one of my favourite directing duos Tell No One. Tell No One, as they like to be known, consists of Luke White and Remi Weekes, writers/ directors from London, and these two guys are seriously talented. Their short clips are titled Experiments, as they explore a subject matter from a different point of view, sometimes mythical, sometimes purely from a creative direction. But with all of their work, beautiful aesthetics, sound, and post production fit together seamlessly and exquisitely.

In terms of tone, Umbrella is a slightly different work I guess, however again, the combination of simple but clever creative idea mixed with perfectly executed visuals means that it’s a winner. There’s nothing to it… from a conceptual point of view anyway, it’s purely a work that is playful, light… and just a little cute. What I also like is how they’ve taken this everyday object and created something so brilliant out of it. As an object, the umbrella is definitely iconic and I can’t help but think of Rene Magritte with this work. He used umbrellas in a lot of his work, maybe this is the type of thing that he would have created if he was living in todays world.

Make sure you check out our previous writings on Tell No One here and here. They are definitely people you should know about.

Logan Bradley

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Media Design School

Media Design School

Premium Design Academy in Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.mediadesignschool.com/

Relevant Courses:

Bachelor of Art and Design (3D Animation and Visual Effects)

Get in touch now:

 
Santa Fe University of Art and Design

Santa Fe University of Art and Design

Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://www.santafeuniversity.edu/

Relevant Courses:

Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Moving Image Arts (Film/ Video)

Get in touch now:

 

8-BIT competition winners announcement!

Posted on by by Frontier
Category: Design, Film / Multimedia

Well, time has come to announce the winners of the 8-BIT competition.
This was a tough one. We know.

The brief was to create a video in the visual language of old-school 8-bit video games. But this is about not just replicating that particular style. It should creatively embrace the aesthetic while creating a unique experience for the viewer. This is what we were looking for.

8-BIT has been one of our harder challenges and the low number of entries show how much work went in to every single submission. Considering all this we have brought you two very special experts to choose the winners.

Terry Borst has worked as a professional screenwriter for more than 20 years. His screen credits include Midnight Runaround (a sequel to Midnight Run, which starred Robert De Niro); the independent film A Private War; many episodes of the popular internationally syndicated television series Bugs; and Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV (two of the most popular video games of the late ‘90s). Borst has been commissioned to write feature-film screenplays for studios and a TV series pilot for the BBC and collaborated on the scripting and development of other AAA-level video games.

He also co-authored two books about combining classical Hollywood storytelling techniques with game development processes. Borst has taught screenwriting at UCLA, USC, and other universities before joining the Film School at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

Dae In Chung is an animator/designer. He studied Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts. His short animation has been shown around the world including Melbourne International Animation Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, etc. He has also worked on various commercial projects such as Yogi Bear 3D title sequence and Toyota showroom video. Currently, he is the chair of the Digital Arts Department at Santa Fe University of Art and Design in Santa Fe, NM.

But now on to the Winner, DUMROLL please!!
The winner of the Grand Prize is Gustavo Collazos fom Cali, Colombia with his entry titled ‘Tension’. 

We think this entry had all the bonus factors we were looking for. Storytelling, tension (obviously), rhythm and shocking resolution. We loved how the tension was built up with good editing, switching between minuscule or significant tensions of ‘every day’ life and explosive, cataclysmic events. At the end non of these matter as the world as we know it will stop existing. He referenced David O’Reilly young Irish film maker as his inspiration which is awesome! We also loved the colour schemes and the overall design of the scenes. Well done Gustavo! You get a pocket projector and we look forward to fly you to Santa Fe to attend the ArtFest!

Runner-ups are Tyrone Urquhart from New Zealand with the entry ‘Super Slope-style Challenge’ and Haley Grant from the US with ‘The Joust’! They will receive a pocket projector each.

All winners and shortlisted entries will be shown at the Outdoor Vision Fest in Santa Fe.
Congratulations to the winners and everyone who entered!

Frontier

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Santa Fe University of Art and Design

Santa Fe University of Art and Design

Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://www.santafeuniversity.edu/

Relevant Courses:

Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Moving Image Arts (Film/ Video)
Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Digital Arts

Get in touch now:

 
Media Design School

Media Design School

Premium Design Academy in Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.mediadesignschool.com/

Relevant Courses:

Bachelor of Art and Design (3D Animation and Visual Effects)
Bachelor of Media Design (Graphic Design, Interactive, Motion Graphics)

Get in touch now:

 

Retrograde

Posted on by by Logan.Bradley
Category: Film / Multimedia, Music, Performing Arts

I remember the first time I heard a James Blake track. It was memorable because apart from the fact that it was a fantastic song, Blake was something that sounded totally different to anything that I had heard before.

And that, I guess, is partly what has made him stand out. Graduating from Goldsmiths in London, Blake’s electronic soundscape and eerie vocals have a difference to them, a combination that is both beautiful and unusual, formal and experimental, all at the same time.

Retrograde is from his soon to be released album in April, and arguably, it’s more accessible than his previous work. The song is melancholic as usual, but the building synths that surround his vocals give a fuller sound than that found on his self titled debut. And the video… it’s just perfect in my mind. Dark, slow, still, but intriguing and open ended. A perfect mix, and produced by A+ who have created many a brilliant video clip.

If you haven’t heard Retrograde yet, then hit it now… turn it up.. and let the HD load. It’s worth the wait.

Logan Bradley

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Study options
Santa Fe University of Art and Design

Santa Fe University of Art and Design

Santa Fe, New Mexico
http://www.santafeuniversity.edu/

Relevant Courses:

Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Moving Image Arts (Film/ Video)
Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Contemporary Music

Get in touch now:

 
Media Design School

Media Design School

Premium Design Academy in Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.mediadesignschool.com/

Relevant Courses:

Bachelor of Art and Design (3D Animation and Visual Effects)

Get in touch now:

 

8-Bit vs New York

Posted on by by Frontier
Category: Animation, Design, Film / Multimedia

In case you’re not aware, Frontier’s latest creative challenge is up and running. This time we’re hitting you with 8-Bit, a video challenge that’s all about the famous video style of the 80′s. We’ve got some amazing prizes up for grabs including a trip around the world! So if you like video and like 8-bit, then hurry up and get in there now.

In the meantime, we thought we’d bring you a bit of 8-bit video inspiration. This fantastic short film from 2010 is by Patrick Jean of One More Production, a VFX production studio in the heart of Paris. ‘Pixels’ is a fun piece where the iconic characters from all those video games come in and destroy one of the worlds most famous cities. Shot on location and in an almost handycam style, this 3D animation film hit’s it just right when it comes to this genre. So that was then, and this is now… ‘Pixels’ is on course to be made into a full motion picture by Sony, directed by Jean and due for release in 2014! AND… while doing a bit of research into One More Production we were excited to see that these were the guys behind Woodkid’s ‘Run Boy Run’. If you haven’t seen that… then follow the link and get in there now!

So feel inspired? Well then check out all the details for 8-Bit here.

Frontier

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Study options
Media Design School

Media Design School

Premium Design Academy in Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.mediadesignschool.com/

Relevant Courses:

Bachelor of Art and Design (3D Animation and Visual Effects)
Bachelor Software Engineering (Game Programming)
Bachelor of Creative Technologies (Game Art)

Get in touch now:

 

Shelved: Q&A with Jake Tuck

Posted on by by Frontier
Category: Animation, Film / Multimedia

Holy crap! This is student work?

Shelved is the latest 3D production out of Media Design School’s 3D Animation Department, and man… do they just keep hitting it right? In this deadpan comedy, we’re in a time when robots and human’s co-exist and the ultimate insult is to be ‘shelved’ and replaced by a human!  Our two main characters fumble through their day until one comes to an ‘untimely’ end.

It’s pretty impressive stuff so we thought we’d hit up Jacob Tuck, a Media Design School graduate who worked on Shelved to get a bit of an insight into the process:

Who are you and where are you from? Jacob Tuck and I’m from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in the United States.

What was your main role on the film and what does that role do? Aside from participating in the necessary preproduction of the odd character and animation of the odd shot, my main role in Shelved was rigging the main character Beano and simulating the cloth of the vest he wore for every shot.

What was your biggest challenge working on Shelved? The biggest challenge had to be the cloth, it was a task that I was jumping from my seat to undertake and took many trials and far more errors to perfect, but it still never went over the deadline.

If you could time travel back to the beginning of the project, what would you tell yourself to do differently? Something I would have done differently in the production would be minor technical things on Beano’s rig, to have a bit more time in building Beano’s muscles so the script used to make them would be my own.

Whats was one skill you felt you improved on during production? The one skill I felt I improved on throughout the production was stress management. For there was far too many things I learned within the production to pick, it was definitely keeping a cool head throughout them all that I’m most grateful to have learned.

What’s next? I spent the last three months after my student visa back home with the family and have just flown back to New Zealand about a week and half ago. I’m hoping to stick around for a good while and getting my 3D career off the ground.

Thanks Jake! That’s some Impressive stuff. Our ‘Shelved’ favourties: the hag robot behind the desk and the casio keyboard soundtrack!

Make sure you check it out and more from the department here… and if you’re interested in 3D, Media Design School is enroling now.

Frontier

Leave a comment
Study options
Media Design School

Media Design School

Premium Design Academy in Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.mediadesignschool.com/

Relevant Courses:

Bachelor of Art and Design (3D Animation and Visual Effects)

Get in touch now: