Mike Seymour at FXGuide discusses noitulovE, this amazing commerical for guiness. It starts off simple enough... three guys sipping some stouts. The men walk out the door of the pub backwards and then reverse evolve from homo sapiens to neanderthals to flying squirrel-like animals, to dolphins and dinosuars, all the way back to some cute sluggy-looking fish-like creature with bulging eyes.

Pretty much all of the commerial is CG. Mike Seymour explains it nicely in his article and also showcases many large stills so you can take a closer look at this clever spot.

Don't miss the video iPod version of the "Making of" (24mb).

Labels: 3D, Commercial, Experimental

Directed by Michel Gondry, The White Stripes The Denial Twist is a totally warped video which features one of my favorites, Conan O'brien.

The effects team, The Mill, did this shot in one continuous take and the team built an "anamorphically-adjusted set where the props, furniture and backgrounds were all half or double their height." A flame artist distorted the set and characters. From an article on The Mills site (unlinkable Flash), "Their work involved extensive tracking, 3D reconstruction and match moving shots - a result of the fact that the video was shot on steadycam - so no repeatable movements were possible."

Labels: Music Video

"Ode to Summer" starts with a traditional Chinese painting and moves into gorgeous 3D flowers and koi. The music and animation flow so beautifully.

At the end of the clip, they show some of the 3D wireframes used in the film, which dissolve into the the final shots.

This one was posted to the AE Mail-list, a great source of inspiration.

Labels: 3D, Music Video

Dream Video by Seth Hay, another of my independent study students, came up with this amazing dream montage.

He spent literally 300 hours or more on this project and did everything himself, including the music. He took multiple shots of his friend, Alex, cut them out in Photoshop and put a tv on his head, with young little Seth featured in the video. He used some tutorials from the web and invented some new techniques, too.

Needless to say, he got an A.

Labels: 2D, Student Work

Body Distortion was done by one of my students, Dru Nget. This is a ficticious movie title sequence that he did for an independent study in Adobe After Effects.

He shot ink dripping and splashing onto a glass that was level above the camera. He color corrected the footage and used it with the effect CC Blobbylize. He used Trapcode 3D Stroke on the arteries. Dru composed the music himself with Apple Soundtrack Pro.

I was really impressed by the beautiful flow and style of his project. If you like his work and have a position for an After Effects or Flash animator or web or print design, contact me.

Labels: 3D, Experimental, Student Work