Tiny crew, big target

“Although the time constraints were daunting, the team jumped at the chance to create a group of characters that seem to have a life of their own and a world of style and personality,” adds Danny Zobrist, the project’s CG/Animation Supervisor and Character Lead. “There was a lot of love put into each of these characters and that’s what makes the spot shine.”

“From a technical standpoint, we used Cinema 4D and Maya for pre-vis and camera blocking, Maya for all base modeling and animation, ZBrush for final modeling touches, VRay to shade and render, Nuke to sweeten and composite, and good old fashioned paper and pencil to design – with a little help from Photoshop,” continued the Director.  “To keep with the warmth and spirit found in the creative direction we started with an illustration-heavy approach to make sure the relatable humanity and warmth would come through.  Almost every aspect of this job started with a drawing.  These ranged in complexity from doodles on a napkin to labour intensive turntables of how our characters should look from any angle.”

The production approach was incredibly streamlined. “In order to make this doable, we employed a blitzkrieg-like strategy of parallel processes and a teamwide can-do attitude of work smarter, not harder,” Reihl revealed.  “We had multiple teams of artists working simultaneously on related but vastly different aspects of the job.  For the most part, we had already designed and developed the characters, the vehicles, and set pieces during the pitch process.  When the job kicked into full production, we simply took the front loaded designs and began building them out as usable 3D assets.  During this modeling process, intensive camera blocking and character pre-vis was done completed simultaneously so that we would know which items needed what level of detail and technical ability to be animated.”

Despite the punishing production schedule, it seems that Motion Theory had a pretty smooth ride on the spot- and not just because of tight planning. “We were fortunate enough to have a client that was so trusting and supportive of our process and ideas, that ultimately we were unhindered by any potential creative roadblocks,” said Riehl. “That, coupled with a strong technical team and world class output capabilities, meant the project was one of the most fun and rewarding experiences I have had the pleasure of being a part of.”

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CREDITS

Title: Target “A Better Bullseye”

Client: Target

POST PRODUCTION

Production/VFX Company: Motion Theory

Director: Chris Riehl

Creative Director: Kaan Atilla

Art Director: Chris Riehl

Executive Producer: Javier Jimenez

Managing Producer: Patrick Nugent

Producer: Peter Nelson

CG Supervisors: Charles Paek, Danny Zobrist

Animation Supervisor/Character Lead: Danny Zobrist

Pre-Visualization: Simon Dunsdon, Trevor Tuttle

Designers: Leanne Dare, Paul B. Kim, Ken Gunn Lee, James Levy, Satomi Nagata

Character Designers: Brendan Wiuff, Nate Wragg

Character Animators: Daniel Edwards, Thom Judd, James Parris, Harry Porudominsky, Lauren Wells

Character Riggers: Brian Escribano, Andrea Gausmann, Amy Gohal

Vehicle Rigging/Animation: Scott Cullen

3D Generalist: Ian Mankowski

Lead Character Modeler: Emmanuel Fragelus

Character Modelers/Texture Artists: Bryan Repka, Jean Choi, Sean Kim

Vehicle/Props Modelers: Nick Loizides, Marc Steinberg, Chad Roen

Hair: John Felipe, Martin Furness, Chad Roen

FX Artists: John Cherniack, Matt Johnson

Lighting Supervisor: Charles Paek

V-Ray TD: Justin Lloyd

Lighters: Matt Bell, David Chan, Justin Lloyd

Lead Compositor: Rachel Dunn, Ryan Trippensee

Compositors: Krista Benson, Michael Dobbs, Aaron Frebowitz, Rachel Keyte, Daniel Raschko

Finishing: Matt Motal

Production Manager/HR Director: Tina Van Delden

Production Coordinator: Paul Pianezza

Production Assistant: Sarah Smith

Concept/Writer: David Fowler

Storyboard Artist: Yori Mochizuki

EDITORIAL

Editorial Company: String

Editor: Doron Dor

Assistant Editors: Jeff Aquino, Jeff Johnston

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