Animation Can Be Powerful!

In the new Android commercial, the animation gives off a powerful message for anti-bullying. Through the years, animation has progressed so that it can evoke emotion even from the simplest of things. Oddly enough, it is simple to relate to these characters in the commercial, and it makes you attracted to the product as well. Here's the video to watch yourself and see how animation can provide messages just as well as real life actors.

A Journey through Culture

From the "Copa Sequence" in Goodfellas to Russian Ark, there is something truly beautiful and captivating about a well done single shot sequence. Recently, the Sunday Times of London released a brilliant commercial for their culture section that consists of one actors transitioning through several iconic scenes in one continuous shot. Obviously, due to the nature of such shots, extensive planning is necessary. Like a well-oiled machine, the actors, stage hands, camera man, etc, all work together to create the illusion of a seamless transition through times and space.

What I especially appreciated about this commercial is variety of media and art that was portrayed. From  Rodin's "Le Pensuer" to Madmen to Daft Punk, the commercial did a nice job of highlighting the diversity of subjects covered in the culture section of the paper. Interestingly, all of the scenes that were emulated were lit vary differently. As a result, lights had to be moved and turned on and off as the camera moved. It was also fascinating to see how the lead actor, much like a chameleon, was able to adopt the looks of several different characters while staying on camera the entire time.

Let's all do the Hamster Dance

I usually like to take a quasi serious approach towards these posts. Despite my greatest attempts, I almost always fall flat on my face. Now I bet I know what you're thinking. Is this going to be the turning point? Is he finally going to write something that I can learn from? Will I finally be putting my time to good use? Nope! Sorry, dude. There may, at some point, be a change in the tone of my posts, but this is not that post. The fact that the post is titled "Let's all do the Hamster Dance" should have been a strong indicator. I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you, but as long as you're here you might as well keep reading!

Let's get down to business. And no, I'm not referencing the forever-adored song from Disney's Mulan. I mean I should probably tell you why you're here. But good luck getting that out of your head now. Have you seen the commercial for the "totally transformed" 2014 Kia Soul? Of course you have! Because, like all the Kia Soul commercials, it features our favorite fuzzy hamsters. Well, if you haven't seen it yet, here it is:

2014 Kia Soul Hamster Commercial from Asad Baig on Vimeo.

I'd really like to just take some time to discuss this advertisement. Mostly because there are hamsters. Actually, entirely because there are hamsters. From watching a VFX breakdown video, I learned that the Kia hamsters are actually actors wearing suits that were later CGI'ed into the furry creatures we've grown to love. Up to this point, I was positive the hamsters were entirely computer-generated. I honestly had no idea, whatsoever, that the hamsters' heads were usually the only parts completely created in post-production. Here's the video I'm referring to (yes, I see that it's titled "2013 kia," but they're mistaken):

2013 kia making of from Andy Boyd on Vimeo.

What I simply cannot figure out is why the animators would always seem to add the hamsters' upper torsos only to take them away. Why wouldn't they just add the head and neck? The only explanation I can really think of is that it would help more accurately map out the hamsters' movements. I could be completely wrong, and probably am, but I'm all out of ideas.

The most fascinating part of the entire commercials for me can be found in the video preview image above. When the hamster (or actor) jumps into the pool, clearly one would expect to see a cloud of bubbles following behind it. Well, the makers of the commercial hit it spot on. Most of the bubbles were originally created from the actor physically jumping into the pool and swimming, but much of the cloud had to be added in after shooting since the hamster is larger and shaped differently than the actor. I know there are plug-ins and whatnot that can be used with ease to create such effects, but I'm just assuming some of the final product is the result of the animators' talent.

Like I said, this was not meant to be a well-articulated post, nor was it meant to teach you much of anything. I'm not the one who wasted your time. You did that to yourself. I just needed an excuse to type out "hamster" thirteen times (including this time...and the title).

Retro 8 bit video game title screens

Came across this video and I think it would be pretty simple to recreate some of these ideas.
From what I've learned thus far I can see that TheStrangermedia on YouTube uses 3D texts shadows/reflections. The moving sky with clouds at 0:22 seconds could've been done with loops. The final game title shown looks like it was a still image first and with some masking it was manipulated to move in a simple fashion.




This is another cool video with some finger tracking/tracing done in after effects. I have an idea of how this can be done but I'm not 100% confident that I can recreate this. All the different shapes, particles and beams would probably need their own layer, thus making this a huge file with a long list of layers. This commercial is very smooth and visually appealing. The cool thing is that with the raw footage of the finger movements, so many different effects can be thrown on to this.

"Devour" Commercial

The M&M's commercials are always some of my favorites.  They take inanimate candies and give them life, and the commercials are always funny and enjoyable to watch.  There is an art to their commercials too.  They really use precise and detailed animations to create the M&M characters.  They have very specific personalities through the details they are given.  

But the animators do something great.  They insert these characters into real life footage.  I'm sure that the process is difficult.  My guess on how they do something like this is that they take a similar approach to what we have been learning in class with the "inserting ourselves into a movie" project.  There must be a way to simply take the animation and place it into the footage.  I doubt a green screen is used, but maybe it is for some parts.

Here is a commercial that I'm talking about...

How far we've come

So I saw this commercial the other day and it made me think how far we've come this semester in Motion Graphics. Before this semester I wouldn't have had the slightest idea about the ins and outs of producing a commercial with graphics like this, but now I can saw with confidence that with time and effort I can probably do everything in this advert. Other than maybe the squirrels talking and the witches at the end, everything in this ad can be recreated in AE. There is definitely a lot of particle use and they for sure used green screens and keying. I think it's pretty sweet how I can see ads on TV now and say I can do that.

Old Spice | Questions

A series of commercials that I feel is very underrated in the sense of animation, are the old spice commercials.  Throughout the entire series of these commercials, there is a man who is constantly changing the scene which he is in and what he is doing.  When you think about it, these commercials and the animation that must go into them are quite impressive.  When analyzing it closer I can only imagine that there must be a lot of chroma keying on either green screens or blue screens.  The most intriguing aspect for me though is the water.  At times it is very hard to distinguish between animated water and real water (if they are even using either of the two).  The reason tat I find this soo amazing is because of my experiences with animated water before, most of which you can tell is fake.  Over all, these commercials really are fantastic and deserve recognition for what they are doing here.  

Superbowl Commercials

Everybody loves Superbowl commercials. They have become so popular that the commercials are almost bigger than the game itself. Whether this has something to do with America's incessant commercialism is an issue to tackle on a different blog. What I couldn't help but notice this year was the massive use of motion graphics. You'd be hard pressed to find just one commercial that didn't employ some use of computer graphics or animation. Here are three commercials from this year that used 3D animation and particle systems for sure:

Commercial - Toyota Prius "People Person" Campaign

Toyota and Saatchi and Saatchi teamed up to advertise the Toyota Prius, which has expanded its line to four vehicles. The Advertisement features a man going about his daily routine in the morning who just so happens to be made up of 18 different people. As the commercial goes on, the individual people “peel off” and rush to their respective cars and into the horizon while the voiceovers chimes in the background: "There's the original one, the bigger one, the smaller one, and the one that plugs in. They're all a little different. Just like us." The goal of the commercial is to show us, the consumer, that the Prius is still the same car, only now suits different people and their needs. Unfortunately, although very different, this ad is borderline creepy. It makes me feel like I’m watching the short film sequel to the human centipede. The last thing this makes me want to do is buy the Prius, and I think I speak for more than just myself. I’m not specifically sure what makes this ad so weird; it might be the lady who cheerfully doubles as a hand, or perhaps the butt who just so happens to be the nose? What the heck were Toyota and Saatchi and Saatchi thinking when they aired this commercial?

Stimulate Your Senses

So I have been bouncing around through all kinds of cool animated videos on YouTube and various sites for a solid half hour this evening. I came across some super awesome fluid simulation clips for awhile. Much of what I saw seemed to be created with a program called Blender, but there were some others as well. I haven't given much thought to animating liquids before, but the outcomes are mesmerizing. The videos demonstrate all types of things like morphing what appears to be water into shapes like teapots and humans to making liquids "dance" to the beats of music. Some of what I saw reminded me of the clip we watched in class during the first week designed through Processing (where it looked like grains of sand flowing into and out of body shapes). Then all of a sudden I thought of the 5 Gum commercials because many of them have elements that remind me of this type of animation. Specifically the commercials for the React and Rain gums channel the fluid simulation videos I started off watching. The React commercial (which I've included) morphs a black blob into different shapes and the Rain commercial has a giant pool of metallic marbles that pulsate. 5 Gum does a great job marketing in my opinion because those advertisements stick in your mind and make you curious to try their product. But that is beside the point. So I'm left wondering now if After Effects can do any animation that resembles this? Or would Processing be better? I'm not sure, but it'll be something fun to look into!

T-Shirt Wars

I was trying to figure out what to blog about, so I went on to YouTube and find a video that had something to do with this class. I found ones called T-Shirt war, a series of stop-motion music videos that I thought were very clever as well as interesting. I really enjoyed the behind-the scenes that were posted because I was able to see how much time went into every individual shot that completed the shoot. It was amazing to see how many people it took to put the whole film together, giving the illusion that the T’s had come to life. I also thought that they sound effects that they made were nice to listen to and kept me engaged in what I was watching which really isn't that the point of a video to get a lot of people to watch it. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did.

T-Shirt War

Behind-the-Scenes

T-Shirt Wars 2

Behind-the-Scenes

An Out of the Ordinary Car Commercial

As I was searching for unique animation styles I somehow stumbled upon a car commercial made by Kia for their new Picanto car. The car’s tagline is “All in smALL, ALL New Picanto” and apparently the advertisers where trying to channel that tagline when they came up with the commercial idea. This impressive commercial uses nail art to create and animate its message and I’m guessing it is probably the first commercial to employ this technique.

I was shocked to see a car commercial that wasn’t all about being big, tough, or manly and one that did not have half dressed women in it or talk about off-roading or driving fast. Oh and no loud obnoxious music either! It was weird…I actually enjoyed watching a car commercial for once! I was impressed that the advertisers for this car took a different and creative approach to advertising a car and I think the style really seemed to fit with the product…and they must have done something right because since its posting in July earlier this year the video has accumulated over 5 million views!

So how did they make it? This commercial took 25 full days to make and used up 1200 bottles of nail polish!—Phew imagine smelling nail polish all day everyday for 25 days straight! 900 fake fingernails were used as well each taking about 2 hours to paint. Some of the nails are pretty detailed and I imagine it is somewhat difficult to draw on something as small as a fake finger nail! I highly suggest watching the video below-aside from showing the animation there are also a few shots that show them working on it.