Edit: Oops, Onur and I got carried away and did a double post. So we merged them.
Umeric, one of my favorite Australian studios, have put up a new site with previous work (awesome), and some new stuff (even awesomer). I dig the site, and the best part is a lot of sections have ‘Making of’ Quicktimes/jpegs. I’ve always had huge amounts of respect for studios that go the extra mile to share their process.
I want to specifically make a feature of some recent work. Ash & the crew have been working on some great stuff for MTV Australia in the last few months, culminating in the entire motion package for the MTV Australia Video Music Awards 2006. These blew me away when the promos started popping up before the event, and actually led me to watch the broadcast.
From the site:
In November 2005 MTV asked Umeric to create the packaging, voting spots and logo/font for the MTV’s Australia Video Music Awards held on April 12th 2006.
Using the concept of ‘Audio creatures’, Umeric directed and animated the events’ opener and 13 award category sequences.
Combining ‘live action’, shot in and around Sydney, Australia with 3D animated creatures pulsating in time to surreal percussion and electronic audio design.
The basis of the clips is to compel the MTV audience to view their everyday environment from a different visual and audio perspective.
It’s an unusually classy and unique result for MTV, but I think that’s common to a lot of work Umeric produce. In my opinion, and I have no allusions to you agreeing with me, this is a great example of how these packages should work. They broke up the show perfectly, the mundane locations with the audio design and movements of the surreal ‘sound creatures’ contrasted well against the lead-ins and subsequent snippets of music video. And the type treatment is great – everyone I saw watching the promo packages was surprised when the titles sprouted fur.
Don’t forget to check out the ‘making of’ too. There isn’t a quicktime up yet, but the jpegs give you a nice idea of the process.
Onur also had this to say:
I didn’t watch the awards as I get annoyed at the fact that the artists themselves collect the award and the director’s name slips through unnoticed in their thank you speech (not even a mention of them on the winners pages either). Now there is a clear description of the project on the site itself so I won’t describe it too much.
aksoy says:
As a result, Umeric has created a brilliant set of videos that perfectly combine live action/3d/music in ingenious ways. It’s interesting to see which sounds connect with which part of the ‘Audio creatures’ as they call it. Very awesome!
Watch each one & tell us what you think.
Check out Umeric.com
Watch the VMA spots
Click through the ‘making of’