Doug Hogan » Inspiration

An Impossible Short

Doug Hogan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:12:08 +0000

For those of you who couldn’t make it to this years Siggraph Computer Animation Festival, I’ve got some good news for you. Lucas Martell’s animated film, “Pigeon: Impossible”, has finally been released for all to see on YouTube!

It’s a really charming short, expertly done, and is honestly just as good as anything Pixar has to offer. Big words I know, but watch the video below and I think you’ll agree. Especially when you get to the credits and realize only a handful of artists we responsible for creating it! Also, if you haven’t already, check out his video podcast series he did awhile back too. He takes you step by step from story development, to animation, to rendering, to final edit. I’ve featured it on this blog before, but I’ve relinked it below the featured video just in case you all want to check it out again! Just like “Pigeon: Impossible”, it’s a really high quality series and I think we can all learn a lot from it.

Great work Lucas! I really loved it.

LINK: Pigeon: Impossible

The Short

Click here to view the embedded video.

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The Vlog

Click here to view the embedded video.

Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

tree of life

Doug Hogan — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:20:45 +0000

Check out this amazing animation done for the BBC called ‘Tree of Life’. It aired during the ‘Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life’ special in Feburary and it has a really awesome ‘Jurassic Park’ vibe to it. Mostly because the narrator sounds spot on to John Hammond.

But besides the awesome narration, the concept they came up with for taking you through each branch of the evolutionary tree was really nicely thought out. They kept the elements simple, with the lines branching over and over. But just like a great musical score they evolved those elements in unexpected and really interesting ways. I especially loved the transition from water to land. Very beautiful stuff.

Check out the video and link below!

Click here to view the embedded video.

LINK: Tree of Life

The Tree of Life video was shown as part of ‘Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life’, which was broadcast on BBC1 on Sunday 1 February 2009. Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, the programme was part of the BBC’s Darwin season. You can buy a DVD of the programme at the BBC Shop.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

‘avatar’ teaser released!

Doug Hogan — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:03:57 +0000

Alright everyone, drop what you’re doing and check out the new and REAL trailer for James Cameron’s “Avatar”! Fans have crashed the Apple Movies site for the 1080i HD trailer, but traileraddict.com is up and running. So check it out below and let me know what you think in the comments below! Looks like we’re in for something special come December…

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

neill bloomkamp…student

Doug Hogan — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:39:03 +0000

Check out “District 9” Director Neil Bloomkamp‘s 1998 VFS student reel. It has a big time Michael Bay, a’la “Armageddon” vibe to it. But you can really see this Director’s love and, more importantly, understanding of a strong visual language and cinematography.

I really can’t help but wonder what student reels from my graduating class at SCAD will be dusted off in 10 years.

Click here to view the embedded video.

My favorite thing about this reel though has to be the “special thanks” to the now defunct Silicon Graphics Computer Systems. SGI will always hold a special place in not only my heart, but also every VFX artist past and present.

I vividly remember watching a special behind the scenes video tour of the server room at ILM during “Jurassic Park”. And that room was just packed to the gills with those beasts. And it wasn’t just at ILM! Any self respecting VFX studio back then had at least one system from SGI. Those machines were Cadillacs to visual effects artists back then, and I really miss that.

“Oh memories…out the corner of my mindddddd…such precious memories……of the way…we werrrreeeee…”

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

moray’s praxinoscopes

Doug Hogan — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:37:16 +0000

Check out this amazing music video using old school Praxinoscopes that production company Blinkink did for musician Moray McLaren. 2D Animation done by director David Wilson.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Using both praxinoscopes and the technique of matching up the frame rate of the spinning record to that of the camera, no computer super-imposing was used; what you see is what rolled off the camera. The transitions between each section of animation was created by simply cutting or wiping between the bits of footage.

Praxinoscopes were the forerunner of the more well known Zoetropes. Both of which are the proud parents of modern animation.

LINK: Blinkink

LINK: Moray McLaren

Moray McLaren is a Scottish singer-songwriter, born and raised in Edinburgh. When a disk of Moray’s rough recordings fell into the hands of producer Jonathan Shakhovskoy (U2, Patrick Wolf), he suggested they make an album together. The pair are currently in the studio recording. Moray’s debut album will be released on Lash Records this summer.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

nuformer

Doug Hogan — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:48:16 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

The stunning 3D building projects you just sawwere made by a company called NuFormer in the Netherlands. The process of how they create such amazing animations isn’t widely known for obvious reasons. But if I had to guess they start out by talking a series of photogrammetric images, allowing them to them model a fairly exact copy of the building facade inside the computer. They then can test real world projection camera placement, and refine the animation in this digital sandbox. Now I could be totally wrong and they could just be using magic or something, but that’s at least how I would do it.

You might have actually caught a still from one of their projections in last weeks Photo Dump #4. Which honestly was a totally unintentional. It was just an image that I came across and I thought had some clever photoshopping done to it. I had no idea that it was a still from a real art installation! But once Jess sent me this video I just had to write a quick post about it! Because I’ve honestly never seen anything like the work that NuFormer is doing. Sans the goofy pop music of course, ha.

What do you all think of it? Anyone in the Netherlands actually seen this in real life? Let me know in the comments section below!

LINK: NuFormer

xperienced, innovative (always busy with the newest technological developments which are directly being applied in our projects) and especially creative.

Out-of-the-box thinkers with a good eye for customer orientation. Each time again the empathic capacity is being used to provide a tailor-made job. And of course the creativity is housed in a professional organisation for the businesslike sides of the projects.

Our teams’ motto is quality to be primary to professionalism, creation to be distinctive and always in balance with technique and objective.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

makoto yabuki

Doug Hogan — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:29:51 +0000

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few days folks. Been pretty busy. But I have a few minutes free so I’m spending them with you. And to tell you, I like these videos from Japanese artist Makoto Yabuki…

Click here to view the embedded video.

LINK: Makoto Yabuki

Makoto Yabuki works as a director/ art director at Tokyo ,Japan.
He started his career as a visual designer in 1997 ,and joined TANGRAM.co.ltd at its establishment in 2003 as director. His artistic range is expansive; among his recent works are “scope” ,”MANAKAI”,and “CONFINE(S)”. His works have been presented in film festivals such as SIGGRAPH, onedotzero, artfutura, ARS Electronica.

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I’ll be posting like a machine very soon. Stay tuned!

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

stardust vfx

Doug Hogan — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:08:40 +0000

I came across these really beautiful car commercials today that the New York based VFX studio Stardust turned out for Shell. I really love the organic feel of these spots, and also the simplicity. But you really have to marvel at the technical skill that went into this too, because ink blot effects are surprisingly hard to achieve well.

Anyways, check them out below and then give their 2009 showreel a gander. Some really great work, from a really great studio.

Performance:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fuel Economy:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stardust’s 2009 Showreel:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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LINK: Stardust.tv

Stardust experimented with 2D and 3D CG solutions, particles, CGI cloth, the goal of keeping the feeling real and organic led them to shoot real footage on location and combine it with footage of ink spreading across paper. Artists in Stardust’s NYC studio then tracked the selected live-action footage in 3D software, and rotoscoped out each element. From there, a master camera was created for blocking in After Effects, and each shot was composited with the ink elements acting both as texture and as mattes to reveal the footage.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

marco’s civilzation

Doug Hogan — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:48:47 +0000

This gave my Thursday a reason to exist. It’s a looping video mural called ‘Civilzation’ and was created by artist Marco Brambilla for the new Standard hotel in New York.

The coolest thing about this piece? It was made with 400 pieces of found footage.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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LINK: Marco Brambilla

Brambilla’s work has been exhibited internationally at such institutions as the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Kunsthalle Bern, as well as in the Sundance and Cannes film festivals. His work belongs to the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, San Francisco Museum of Art and the ARCO Foundation in Madrid, amongst others. He has been awarded both the Tiffany Comfort Foundation and Colbert foundation awards for his video installations.

Brambilla’s video installations have garnered international acclaim from publications such as Artforum, frieze, Art in America, Arena, Empire, GQ and Premiere magazine. The New Yorker praised his work as: “absorbing and delicate enough to restore one’s faith in the medium.”

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

pigeon impossible

Doug Hogan — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:00:33 +0000

This week I’ve been watching a great podcast from a very talented 3D artist/Compositor named Lucas Martell. In it he takes you through the entire 5 year process, from concept to final dvd, of creating his animated CG short film, ‘Pigeon: Impossible’.

Now that alone would be really cool, but the short he did also looks really freaking good! I really wanted to share this with you guys, so I compiled all of his episodes to date in a nice little YouTube playlist for everyone to watch and learn from. Myself included!

What I love the most is that Lucas didn’t start off the film as an animator. This film was a total learning process for him! Which is also why the film took almost 5 years to complete, ha. But we get to reap the benefits because this lack of experience really gives him a special raw insight into the whole process. And he then shares it with all of us. Really cool.

Anyways, if you want to know more about the film itself check out the link below as well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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LINK: Lucas Martell

LINK: ‘Pigeon – Impossible’

‘Pigeon: Impossible’ is the tale of Walter, a rookie secret agent faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase.

The film took nearly 5 years to complete and is the first attempt at animation by writer/director Lucas Martell: “When the project started, it was mostly an excuse to learn 3D animation, but by the end of the project I had spent so much time reworking and polishing the story that I just wanted people to laugh.”

The end-result is a hilarious 6-minute romp through the streets of Washington D.C. as our hero fights to save himself, and the world from the chaos reigned down by a hungry pigeon. Breathtaking visuals and a sweeping soundtrack showcase the work of nearly one-hundred talented artists and musicians, and the film stands as a testament to what can be accomplished by a team of dedicated volunteers working for the love of their craft.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.