(Cambridge, Massachusetts--April 8, 2008) Over the past 13 years, Santa Monica-based Moving Pixels has transformed itself from a 3D shop geared toward the gaming industry, to a small and increasingly sought-after 2D visual effects boutique.
These days, with an exclusive focus on photo-realistic advertisement spots, Moving Pixels is being kept busy by a marquee client roster which includes Coors Light, Jeep, Lincoln Mercury, AT&T Cingular, Visa, Toyota, Nissan, and a host of other prestigious brands. VFX Supervisor and Lead Flame artist Andy McKenna joined the 7-person shop in December 2006, when he left Animal Logic in Sydney, Australia - bringing 9 years of Flame experience to the helm. Andy was brought on board to strengthen the core competencies of team, to attract a distinguished clientele, and as he humbly puts it, "to build up the reel."
For the better part of his career, Autodesk's Flame has been Andy's tool of choice for compositing and effects, and every Flame he's ever worked on "...has had Sapphire Plug-ins loaded by default," he quips. GenArts Sapphire Plug-ins are a collection of over 200 high-end, organic visual effects, each with comprehensive and intuitive parameter controls for unlimited, unique results. Version 4 for Autodesk systems was released in 2007, containing over 45 new effects and significant enhancements to existing effects and rendering speed. According to Andy, "Sapphire has always been a stable fixture on the Flame. Many other plug-ins have come and gone, but Sapphire is really the only plug-in package I consistently need - and I've come to rely on it. All the work we do here at Moving Pixels ultimately comes through the Flame, and Sapphire is an integral part of the workflow."
On a recent spot created for McCann Eriksson on behalf of Buick, the challenge put to the Moving Pixels team called for a creative, out-of-the-box actualization in which Andy's seasoned experience with the capabilities of Sapphire Plug-ins was key. Entitled Spotless, the commercial features the Buick Enclave cruising unencumbered down city streets to a soundtrack of ethereal piano chords. As the driver luxuriates amidst leather seats and mahogany trim, objects in the urban world outside begin to waver and disappear - ultimately fading away altogether. The driver is left in the serenity of his motorized sanctuary, with nothing but an empty expanse of road and a pastoral vista as far as the eye can see.
To achieve the desired disappearing effect, the client described their vision by telling Andy and his team what not to do. Despite the fact that the voiceover intones "...the world just melts away", any sort of liquid look and feel was specifically ruled out. Nothing drippy, melting, puddle-evoking, or molten - rather, they requested that the dissipation of objects be more nebulous, gauzy, and non-linear. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - a movie in part about memories being relived and then erased - was discussed as a reference point, but the client cautioned against the frenetic, agitated pace of the movie's disintegrating effect. Objects should dissipate organically, serenely, multi-dimensionally, and beautifully. "This was quite a challenge," explains Andy, "- to create an original disappearing technique that was simultaneously majestic and soothing, but not evoking liquid in any way. I spent about a week just experimenting in Flame, and testing other 3rd party plug-ins in After Effects - trying to develop the look and feel through trial and error. Sapphire sparks were a big part of this testing, and throughout the entire process I knew they would be involved in the final aesthetic."
Ultimately Andy turned to the Sapphire Distort spark, formerly known as the Lens effect in version 3. Distort warps the source input clip using the gradient of the Lens input clip, generating optical glass-like effects as if the source clip were being viewed through an arbitrarily shaped lens. "Distort is a very versatile plug-in, and has historically been a favorite of mine - so I had it in mind from the get go. I knew it would provide a certain textural depth and distortion, as opposed to just a linear fade-away. In the end, the desired disappearing effect was achieved with a combination of custom-built, organic particulate mattes as the input clips, and Sapphire Distort to create the rippling, wavering effect as objects disappeared, and the DistortChroma option to create subtle chromatic aberrations."
According to Andy, all of the elements had to be slipped and adjusted so they disappeared at different rates within a frame, thus creating a cascading dissolve as opposed to a blanket dissolve. Andy notes that the built-in parameters and on-screen UI widget controls within each Sapphire effect allowed for complete creative control. "Objects needed to fade in a subtle, non-directionally-specific fashion - not from left to right but from foreground, to background, to mid-ground. Being able to customize so many parameters within the Distort effect itself allowed me to create this random dissipation."
He continues, "Depending on the size of the object in question - a couple on a scooter versus an entire building - the wide variety of parameters within the Distort spark came in handy to make the effect scale proportionally. For something small and intricate I could not use set-ups appropriate for large objects, so being able to fine-tune the various parameters was critical."
In fact, the client was so taken with the Sapphire Distort look and feel that they allowed the Moving Pixels team to use it in the spot's final transition, where the Buick logo appears over the final frame of the landscape. In the same manner that elements disappear throughout the spot, the Buick logo appears over the final frame, rippling and shimmering at first, and then finally coming into full focus. "Usually companies are a bit funny about you altering their logos in any way," Andy explains, "but the client liked the Distort effect so much that they allowed it to be used in the end logo treatment."
Andy has been using Sapphire Plug-ins for as long as they've been available on Flame, and can't imagine tackling any project without his indispensable tool set. "This spot would have been very difficult to create without Sapphire. It would have required another plug-in source - and nothing comes immediately to mind. I would have wasted a lot of time investigating. Alternatively, I would have had to create something from scratch in Flame with native tools, which would have required a very large set up and would have made the whole post production process a lot longer. Sapphire absolutely saved time, with beautiful, professional results. On any project, I have to have the incredibly wide array of effects that Sapphire provides to achieve the look I'm going for, and to ultimately get the job done to my - and hopefully the client's - satisfaction!"
The full version of Moving Pixels' Spotless spot can be viewed at:
http://www.movingpixels.com
To see before and after footage:
http://www.genarts.com/cust-pics/spotless-before-after.mov
To learn more about Sapphire Plug-ins for Autodesk systems please visit:
http://www.genarts.com/sapphire-sparks.html
About GenArts, Inc.
Founded in 1996 in Cambridge, Mass., GenArts, Inc. is the premier provider of digital visual effects plug-ins for the film, broadcast and video industries. Their product, Sapphire Plug-ins, equips digital artists with a collection of over 200 state-of-the-art image processing and synthesis effects such as: Glows, EdgeRays, LensFlare, Lightning, FilmEffect, Warps and Textures. The effects seamlessly integrate into a number of editing and compositing systems including: Adobe® After Effects®, Premiere® Pro and Premiere® Elements; Apple® Final Cut Pro®, Final Cut Express®, Motion® and Shake®; Avid® AVX Products; Autodesk® Compositing & Editing Systems, and Combustion®; Eyeon® Fusion®; and Quantel® generationQ products.
Sapphire Plug-ins have become the industry standard for high-end visual effects creation by providing unrivaled image quality, a unique organic look, and ease of use. They have been used extensively in an array of television programs, music videos and feature films, including:
Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and
3, Spider-Man 1, 2 and
3, Superman Returns, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings trilogy,
Star Wars - Episode I, II and
III, Sin City, The Matrix trilogy, X-Men 1, 2 and
3, Titanic, Lost and
CSI. Additional GenArts product information can be found at
http://www.genarts.com.
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