Storyboard: Best of the month in animation, graphics and vfx

In this month’s Storyboard, Blinkink takes a tea break, A+C takes an ad break and Trunk takes a break from adulthood

A+C Studios
Brick Bowl
A+C Studios recreated nine of the best commercials shown during last month’s Superbowl in stop frame Lego in just 36 hours. The Superbowl ads are top secret until the big game airs so the team had to react in real time – storyboarding, set building and model making and creating stop frame and digital animation against the clock.

Blinkink
Twinings commercial
Blinkink directing duo Parabella (Mikey Please and Dan Ojari) used 100,000 tea tags and 50 different paper folding styles to create this handcrafted and complex spot for Twinings. The ad was inspired by “the Golden Era of musicals, a dash of theatre and its unrestrained sense of goodwill was mixed with a pinch of pointillism and a nod to David Hockney, creating the feel-good world of Twinings in animation.” Parabella shot 3D models on layered planes, creating a sense of depth and perspective. The pair also took pixilation to another level, using the technique to animate the female character frame by frame, all in-camera.

Twinings – Drink It All In from Blink on Vimeo.

Axis
Guild Wars 2 trailer
Axis and director Stephen Donnelly created the trailer for the next installment of the video game franchise Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Donnelly worked with the creative team at ArenaNet to explore how to bring the concept art to life in a way that felt like the audience was moving through a three dimensional world filled with bold brush strokes. Executive producer is Debbie Ross.

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns from axisanimation on Vimeo.

Trunk
We Were Young
Trunk director Junior delivered this promo for Sasha Kloeber’s remix of SRTW’s We Were Young. It was ordered by Hanan Cher at Universal. The video “compares the drudgery and monotony of adult life against those fragmentary and misremembered moments of a younger carefree self.” Animation was by Layla Atkinson, William Smith, Lesley Dart and Juan Buscarons.

SRTW | We Were Young from Trunk Animation on Vimeo.

Partizan
Unum Films
Partizan director James Curran made these two films for income protection company Unum through agency Albion.

The World of 2030: Episode I – The Rise of The Ageless Workforce from James Curran on Vimeo.

Colonel Blimp
Out of the Black
Colonel Blimp’s David Wilson and animator Christy Karacas made this violent cartoon/live-action promo for Royal Blood’s Out of the Black. Finish Flame Artists Judy Roberts and Andy Copping with colourist Julien Biard helped integrate the animated scenes with the live-action in what proved to be a highly complex post job which made heavy use of remote grading workflows.