I had some time to laugh seeing an animated short but this made my day!

Oktapodi is an exceptional 3D animated short film  directed by: Julien Bocabeille, François-Xavier Chanioux, Olivier Delabarre, Thierry Marchand, Quentin Marmier, Emud Nokhberi.
The 3D CGI animated short film tells the story of two octopuses which, to escape a cook, run through a sunny Greek little town (it’s Santorini island) only to discover that being together will be hard. I think is a gem of animation and storytelling with fast pace dynamic camera moves you are going to love it!

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KRAMA post production studio is responsible for the new commercial of Atlantis Consulting (a client through Toro adv. – an advertising agency I work with for several years). To be totally honest it was quite tough to complete because of the strict deadline. This tvc is actually  a mixture of two commercials…The first half is a typographic style tv spot and the second half its all 3D animated.

I used a couple of tools  such as After Effects 7, 3ds Max 9 and the most useful MAX2Ae (a plug-in that exports camera, lights, objects for 3ds max to After Effects and back).As  I already mention, I  had to break the spot in two shorter editions  in order to complete it.

Production Diary

One day of the production spent in the audio facility – Studio Genesis -  I was there directing the voice talents. Dimitra and Apostolis were professional to the core. They gave me lots of alternative versions  I had to choose from, according the feeling I wanted to achieve. Sound mixing came later this day using Adobe Audition.

The next day was the pre production. Photoshop and Ilustrator worked together in order to make the counter true. Text formed sentences, they all animated in After Effects. I had to re-import all elements in Audition for syncing and to add some sfx. I encoded the first commercial and send it to the ad agency via email for screening. The tvc passed the review (there were some minor changes though) and I was on the route for number two…

Ok. That’s tough! I had some screenshots to guide me through the creation but I had to invest on much more time than I thought. I started modeling the key elements. Those were a 3D folder, a key and a lock. If I completed those on time I would finish the entire spot quick. Creating the 3D animation took me about 6-7 hours work (not rendering time). Choosing the right materials, making some render tests for the lighting and when all were ready, I setup the scene and took a nap while the rendering was running.

The next day I reviewed the animation sequence and I was excited because It was just as I wanted to be. Then I switched to After Effects but… “Whoh! This is not as easy as I thought it would be… I must think… like After Effects does…”, I talked myself. The problem was that 3ds max’s camera data couldn’t import into afterfx, don’t know why this happened. I took a break.

Switched on the safari, hit the google search trying to find a plugin or something to help me out…and voila…MAX2AE! This was my saviour. Seriously! I wanted to export seamlessly the 3D camera from 3ds Max to the AE. It worked far beyond my expectations! You’ll see what I mean when you watch the commercial below.

TVC: Atlantis Consulting Services  – 3 versions (55sec, 32sec, 25sec)

Client: Atlantis Consulting
Agency: Toro adv
Production: Krama post production studio
Motion Graphics Designer/ 3D artist: Chris Lelidis
Audio Recordings:  Studio Genesis
Voice Talents: Dimitra Karamouza, Apostolis Roussopoulos

Credit: Michael Nadeau

ART & COPY is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Exploding forth from advertising’s “creative revolution” of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation: George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney and others featured in ART & COPY were responsible for “Just Do It,” “I Love NY,” “Where’s the Beef?,” “Got Milk,” “Think Different,” and brilliant campaigns for everything from cars to presidents. They managed to grab the attention of millions and truly move them. Visually interwoven with their stories, TV satellites are launched, billboards are erected, and the social and cultural impact of their ads are brought to light in this dynamic exploration of art, commerce, and human emotion.

Watch the trailer

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Photo Credit: David Gilbert - A gas flare is reflected in an oil waste pit in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador. From the film CRUDE, directed and produced by Joe Berlinger.

Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet. An inside look at the infamous $27 billion “Amazon Chernobyl” case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking as it examines a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.

CRUDE movie trailer

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I was eleven or twelve years old when I first saw TRON.
I was fond of computers and game consoles (I was a proud user of ATARI 2600 and later on I got my first ZX Spectrum 48k).
I still remember how I was felt when I saw the opening titles in the theater (I will never forget it)…What a movie! I LOVED IT (every frame of it).

Can’t wait to watch the remake.

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Awesome! The E3 trailer for the most exciting videogame ever developed;
Assassin’s Creed 2.
This trailer (my personal opinion as a plain viewer -not as a video editor professional – not judging technical stuff) isn’t as thrilling as the trailer for the prequel but again I hold my breath till November 2009 – the official release date of Assassin’s Creed 2.

News Release
Source: Autodesk

Autodesk Announces Lustre 2009 Digital Color Grading System: Provides Unprecedented Creative Freedom, Performance and Workflow Efficiency

Autodesk, Inc. today announced the Autodesk Lustre 2009 digital color grading system and Autodesk Incinerator 2009, the real-time system accelerator for Lustre. The Lustre system has helped shape the look of hundreds of films and TV series, including: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Casualty, Planet Earth and Galapagos. Lustre 2009 will be showcased at Autodesk booth #7-D21 during the International Broadcasters Convention 2008 in Amsterdam’s RAI Convention Center, September 12-16. “We are very excited about the powerful functionality Lustre 2009 has to offer,” said Stig Gruman, Digital Entertainment Group vice president, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “Lustre 2009 makes the grading process much more efficient. And for the first time ever, we are simultaneously releasing new versions of Lustre and Incinerator. Now all Lustre customers can take advantage of the latest developments.” Running on a new high-performance platform, Lustre 2009 offers numerous features that improve the color grading workflow, including: stereoscopic grading; intuitive project management; integrated audio input, output and playback; multi-layer timeline shot prioritization; timeline A/C mode sorting; customizable sensitivity settings for the Autodesk Control Surface; and enhanced interoperability with the Autodesk Flame, Autodesk Inferno, Autodesk Flint and Autodesk Smoke visual effects and finishing systems. “Our colorists can now easily define multiple projects, manage configuration options, and establish user-preferences through the Project Management tool. By streamlining data management and allowing us to focus on grading, Autodesk Lustre has become indispensable,” said Ivar Beer, who beta tested Lustre 2009 and is head of digital post-production at CinePostproduction GmbH.

Highlights of Autodesk Lustre 2009

Automated Stereoscopic Tools

– Lustre 2009 offers advanced tools for color grading stereoscopic content from live-action or computer-generated productions. It is a key component in Autodesk’s holistic stereoscopic film pipeline, which spans 3D modeling and animation, compositing and color grading.

– Lustre 2009 gives colorists automated stereoscopic tools that accelerate the process of grading, previewing and rendering left- and right- eye media. The entire creative toolset in Lustre can now be used to grade stereoscopic material.

Workflow Enhancements

– Project and User Management: Lustre 2009 includes an intuitive interface for managing projects. It enables colorists to quickly define projects, set render paths, manage configuration options and establish user preferences. Colorists can also create templates to instantly apply common project and user parameters to new projects; this is highly beneficial for short-form projects.

– Timeline Sort Mode: This new feature helps colorists rearrange the shots of an assembled edit decision list (EDL), grade the sorted shots in Source order and then return them to their edited EDL order.

– Audio Input / Output (I/O) and Playback: Lustre 2009 provides integrated audio I/O with eight channels of synchronized playback, making it easy for colorists to capture audio directly from a video source and use sound as an element of look design.

– Timeline Shot Prioritization: These new capabilities in Lustre 2009 facilitate rapid brainstorming and testing of ideas in a client-attended session. Colorists can define exactly which shots in a multi-layer stack are displayed during playback, laid out to tape or rendered to disk. They can stack multiple versions in a timeline and then quickly select which version gets used.

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– Customizable Control Panel Sensitivity: Lustre 2009 offers the ability to adjust the response sensitivity of the control panel to suit each colorist’s individual preferences.

Common Platform with Autodesk Visual Effects and Finishing Systems

– The Lustre 2009 system runs on the same platform as the current releases of the Autodesk Smoke finishing system, as well as the Autodesk Flame, Autodesk Inferno and Autodesk Flint visual effects systems. This common platform will allow finishing and visual effects artists to increase their creative potential by more easily adding Lustre to post-production workflows.

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Acceleration

– Lustre 2009 offers extensive GPU capabilities for high-performance grading. Hue, lightness and saturation (HLS) curves in secondary grading and noise reduction are GPU-accelerated, as well as several of the Lustre effects plug-ins.

Highlights of Autodesk Incinerator 2009

Autodesk Incinerator 2009 offers the same creative toolset as Lustre, with enhanced performance that is made possible through state-of-the-art parallel processing technology. Based on the latest server and networking technology, Incinerator 2009 enables real-time color grading for the most demanding digital-intermediate feature film projects.

Availability

Autodesk anticipates that Lustre 2009 will be available in October 2008 for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows XP operating systems and that Incinerator 2009 will be available simultaneously for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For further information, please visit http://www.autodesk.com/lustre

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BOYCOTT CIRCUSES!
Watch the movie and think… Protest… ACT NOW!

Extraordinary easter egg! This is very funny actually!
I’ve created this video to see with your own eyes
how to reveal a sheep in After Effects.

DIY Sheep Sound Baa In After Effects – EASTER EGG

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