Fedex – Solutions that Matter

ABOUT

In the summer of 2011, BBDO NY came to us with the idea of creating a series of four interactive stories for FedEx as part of the “Solutions That Matter” campaign. The concept was to create each episode by capturing people and events frozen in time, and piecing each of the scenes together into an explorable story. And while we were at it, we reckoned it would be interesting to let the storyline run in reverse.

Naturally, this required a pretty technical shoot, directed by our own master mind Johan Perjus. The four films were shot in multiple passes in Stockholm over 5 days using a motion control rig. Each and every scene was shot separately, with each character paused in movement, then stitched together to create the moment-in-time feel. Our dear, dear friends at Magoo then handled all post-production, including the creation and composite of a ton of 3D elements to each episode.

The stories were rolled out one by one over the fall, and features a unique system of navigation that allows the user to easily move forward and backward in time, exploring each and every detail. This type of interactive experience is a first for FedEx and we are happy and proud to have been a part of bringing this idea to life.

www.fedex.com/solutionsthatmatter

Check it out.

http://visualart.se/creativestudios/

84th Academy Awards Nominations

Nominations for the 84th Academy Awards were announced this morning by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California.

The nominees for Best Animated Feature Film are:

• A Cat in Paris

• Chico & Rita

• Kung Fu Panda 2

• Puss in Boots

• Rango

Contending in the Animated Short FIlm category are:

• Dimanche (Sunday)

• The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

• La Luna

• A Morning Stroll

• Wild Life

The Adventures of Tintin is nominated for Original Score, while “Real in Rio” from Rio is nominated for Original Song. (In the latter category, The Muppets is a lock to win for “Man or Muppet”.)

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO: Tim Miller – Creative Director & Co-founder – Blur Studio

Posted by Vincent Frei in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Creative Director

Håkan Blomdahl and Tor-Björn Olsson
for the visual effects in Kronjuvelerna / The Crown Jewels

Big congrats Håkan och Tor-Björn, and this is how happy they are!

To promote Boxer’s new On Demand service, we take part in a historical time travel, from stone age to modern time, where Robert is in search of true home entertainment. Thanks to FLX and Abby Norm for a great collaboration on this film. Enjoy this Director’s cut!

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Invisible effects play a key role in Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, set in the early 1970s. For the film, Framestore completed several subtle enhancements (read about their invisible effects work for the film here), as did The Chimney Pot in Stockholm, whose major shot was the creation of the MI:6 ‘Circus’ archive. Here, spy Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) is tasked with surreptitiously gathering a file from a rack of bookshelves deep inside MI:6. The file then travels by elevator through the MI:6 building.

Initially, the archive scene was conceived as a 2D shot that would stitched together using several pieces captured on the film’s London set. However, the nature of the scene and the existence of only minimal props necessitated a 3D solution. “We still shot a lot of live action reference,” says The Chimney Pot visual effects supervisor Fredrik Nord, responsible for overseeing the work with executive producer Fredrik Zander and VFX producers Anneli Oscarsson Emma Stenborg.

“They knew they needed the actor in the middle stealing the files and some workers on the other levels,” adds Nord. “We shot lots of material of people walking around. We also shot a lot of texture plates of the bookcases and other objects for the 3D and took measurements.”

Back in Stockholm, Nord began building the entire archive set in Softimage, complete with textured bookshelves, stairs, beams and pipes. “The challenge was to work out how many floors there were, how many elevators, where was all this in relation to the archive?,” says Nord.

3D supervisor Ruslan Ogorodnik then took over the scene, lighting and rendering it in high detail using 3ds Max and V-Ray. The CG renders were then composited by Olle Peterson Oskar Larsson, Axel Klostermann and Andreas Karlsson in Nuke with plates of the main actor and extras filmed on greenscreen.

The archive had to match a look established with a live action plate for the shot of the file traveling in an elevator. “When we were in London shooting the elevator,” explains Nord, “we covered it with a greenscreen shot of a lady walking in placing files on a desk. Then we had this still of the front of the elevator which we animated and comp’d into the shot. It’s a 3D background with a small move to match the greensceen shot and then composited. The hardest part was matching lenses to the wide shot. It was tricky to get the live actor in the center to look real even though the lenses were way off from pulling the camera back.”

Ultimately, The Chimney Pot ended up contributing around 100 shots to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, including scenes of tracks changing on a railroad, background trains and landmarks, plus a gruesome post-murder shot of a man with flies hovering about his neck wound. The facility also provided the film’s DI services.

Fido söker Marknads- och Säljansvarig

Fido film är en av Skandinaviens största animations- och vfx-studios och har hela världen som arbetsfält. Vi är sedan ett år tillbaka en del i den expansiva Forestlight-gruppen och tar nu krafttag för att ytterligare växa på den skandinaviska marknaden.

Vi söker dig som brinner för film och vfx, och vill vara med och utveckla vår försäljnings- och marknadsföringsstrategi. Du behöver ha tidigare erfarenhet av liknande arbeten, vara van att driva egna projekt, ha ett stort kontaktnät och god kännedom om den svenska reklam- och produktionsbolagsbranschen.

Kontakta oss på jobs@fido.se så berättar vi mer.