Shilo Burns Some Rubber

Posted by Justin Cone


[720×540 version]

Shilo’s latest effort is an action-packed all-CG spot for Hankook Tires and agency Cheil Communications in Seoul, South Korea. This is classic Shilo: narrative fueled by high-impact visuals polished to a brilliant shine. My favorite detail: the close-up of the tires deforming as they grab the road.

The camera work and editing in this spot are top drawer. The challenge with this project was to make sure that the tires—not the cars—are the stars of the spot. Shilo balanced the players well, subtly shifting the focus without ever disorienting the viewer.

Full credits for “The Chase”

Other Goodies

Shilo’s also posted a couple new experimental shorts on their site: Timeless (created for IdN magazine) and Our Puppet Show. The fact that Shilo takes time to create projects like these in the midst of big-budget commercial work is one of the things that sets them apart from the herd.

About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.
More by Justin >

17 Comments

chriskelley

I really really like this for some reason. Nice cameras, nice style. Couple little things that look like “client artifacts” to me, but overall I’m really feeling this.
Good job to everyone involved.

sergio

nice job, love the camera work.

positron

Yup. An exercise in amazing technical execution. Very pro.

Motion graphics=visual f/x. This could have been done by almost anyone with enough staff & a render farm. A car chase that looks like a videogame. Cars that do the T2 morph for no reason. Realistic reflections & Neo-Tokyo cityscape. Check, check, check. Ok.

It seems that technical flourish has eclipsed the imagemaking and storytelling innovation in our field. The fun thing about mographx was always *not* having to move to Hollywood and become a CGI monkey. Has this become the aspiration now?

bobotunes

very much in agreement with positron

furthermore to the point of the technical execution, the tires that are supposed to be the highlight look dangerously plastic and fake, and the crashes & car flips look like they take place in a world with different properties of gravity.

its very disheartening that great motion graphics artists get their work overlooked for big name studios doing less than interesting work. i can only hope that the judicious contributors at motionographer will continue to showcase meritorious work rather than sub-par contributions like this.

SNDK.NO

I’m a big Shilo fan and love to stop by their site. But the browser resize is a bit annoying. Any chance a well driven programmer maybe have made a add-on to fix this :-)
I sure like one!!

About the spot. It look to be a bit rush project and a few corners might have been cut. Like the T2 transformation mentioned, I believe the time could have been better used in another way.

Writing this…again I have no idea what happened inside Shilo, what the client said, speed to marked, budget + +

#postrion ask a valid question that should make for a discussion.

justin

“#postrion ask a valid question that should make for a discussion.”

For reference, positron’s question was:
“It seems that technical flourish has eclipsed the imagemaking and storytelling innovation in our field. The fun thing about mographx was always *not* having to move to Hollywood and become a CGI monkey. Has this become the aspiration now?”

This is a huge field, and it’s getting larger every day. There’s room for Shilos and Psyops and there’s even more room for people like Johnny Kelly, Jonny Kofoed, Alex Trochut and the countless other independently-minded animators/designers featured here and elsewhere.

My approach to this site has always been inclusive. I post the big guys and the little guys. I post motion graphics, animation, vfx and design, because quite honestly I think the divisions between them are superficial and silly. You stand a far greater chance of being inspired and awestruck when you tear down the artificial walls between disciplines.

As for “technical flourishes eclipsing imagemaking and storytelling innovation,” I can only say that this is a highly subjective take on things. I think that Shilo is among the most innovative studios when it comes to imagemaking and storytelling. They made a :30 narrative about good and evil around the concept of tires, for god’s sakes. That’s going above and beyond what most studios would do when given a similar brief.

I think the main problem you guys are having is a lack of perspective. You see a string of all-CG posts on Motionographer and you think the sky is falling. You don’t bother skimming the Quickies or going back a few posts in time to get a sense of the amazing breadth of work posted here on Motionographer. I suspect that you’re probably a little burned out in your personal/professional lives, and this seems like a good forum for projecting your burnout onto the world at large.

I don’t appreciate that. I understand it, but I don’t appreciate it. If you’re going to criticize Shilo, fine. That’s your prerogative. But if you’re going to criticize Motionographer, which I have labored over for four years with nearly no financial gain, I ask you to look at the complete picture, the entire sprawling mess that stretches across a canvas so wide it cannot be contained in one glance.

bobotunes

While I understand your perspective, and completely appreciate what you and your fellow colleagues at motionographer have given to the community as a whole, in terms of your tireless efforts to compile and present (usually) objective overviews of interesting projects in one place, I think it is unfair and, frankly, pompous to make claims like the one above (“i suspect you’re a little burned out…”).

The aforementioned criticisms of the postings here merely flesh out a concept that is inherent to blogging. If you did not intend for motionographer to be a place where the community can enter into an in depth discussion of the merit of individual works of motion graphics and opinions of such, then it might be best to disable any comment posting ability. If you and your colleagues are going to make strong claims about the state of motion graphics, you need to accept the consequences of publicly airing your opinion to a very opinionated industry.

Marc B.

I agree bobotunes. We all appreciate your work here Justin and those of the other contributors. However i don’t think you need to feel so responsible for the comments up here nor take them to heart as much.

Criticism is normal too it can’t always be teh praise.

justin

“If you and your colleagues are going to make strong claims about the state of motion graphics, you need to accept the consequences of publicly airing your opinion to a very opinionated industry.”

I completely agree, as long as by “accepting” you don’t mean “bending over and taking it.” :-) I welcome broad criticism of Motionographer as long as it’s substantiated by a broad look at the site.

bobotunes

Duly noted – naturally we’re all in this together, I would never suggest compromising in that way whatsoever. Thanks for your prompt response and lively discussion, Justin.

justin

Your comments, by the way, are among the best-written I’ve read on this site. I look forward to hearing more from you. Thanks for keeping me on my toes.

Joe Clay

At this point, Justin, I must mention how much all of us appreciate this site. I know that even the complainers appreciate it. Without this site, I would probably be a lot worse at my profession. Looking up to the posts here has made all the difference in my work.

I know how hard of a job it is to keep a site going, especially with usually multiple daily posts. This is my motion graphics oasis. I frequent this site multiple times throughout my day, and so does the other animator in our office. Before I found this site, I didn’t know where to turn to find all of this content. Thanks for bringing it to us for so long!

positron

Hey. For the record I never criticized Motionographer. I wrote in the spirit of promoting discussion and critical thought. IMHO Shilo makes very pretty but boring work for the most part. That’s not to say I am a CGI-phobe, I think 1st ave. machine does VFX quality work that is really wonderful. It’s true, I don’t have what you would call a panoramic view of the entire industry, but it’s how I’ve made my living for many years now, and I do sense an encroaching ‘Hollywood-ization’ of the motion graphic field. It’s not enough to just say “it’s a client driven industry, give them what they want” because I think that the boutiques and the agencies are engaged in a feedback loop of visual style and communication. We all look at the same stuff now, the same media channels. Is this increasing our visual literacy or homogenizing it?
A lot of hype and work does go to the studios that are employing high-end VFX: Shilo, Tronic, 1st. Ave, Psyop etc. That’s fine, love it, love the work! They continue to strive for that brass ring because they are at the point where they have to protect and disseminate their own brand.
How it affects the rest of the industry, though, is that it tends to affect the expectation of clients who don’t understand the $$, time and staff behind the slick VFX driven jobs and it puts the screws to the smaller shops to stay competitive. So kids coming into the industry will gravitate towards a certain skill set and seek employment at the bigger companies until the field is dominated by large Hollywood-style studios. It’s a potentially dangerous ripple effect.

defasten

i concur with what positron is saying. i’ve become so jaded with his industry that i’m not even interested in any critical thought about it. at least some people still care. heh.

but i would extend positron’s argument by saying that in this industry, there are too many Michael Bays and Steven Spielbergs cropping up, as opposed to Ingmar Bergmans or Werner Herzogs. Of course, because of the economic nature of this industry, it would be a taboo to wish for otherwise. it’s like asking for Warp Records to take over the world over Sony/EMI. Or your local souvlaki over mcdonalds. never gonna happen. Popular taste is what drives the wallet.

Solution? Change perspective, broaden it, accept facts, and make things happen.

feedbag_Jenkinz

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feedbag_Jenkinz

oh wait wrong msgboard sorry

dannyyount

“How it affects the rest of the industry, though, is that it tends to affect the expectation of clients who don’t understand the $$, time and staff behind the slick VFX driven jobs and it puts the screws to the smaller shops to stay competitive. So kids coming into the industry will gravitate towards a certain skill set and seek employment at the bigger companies until the field is dominated by large Hollywood-style studios. It’s a potentially dangerous ripple effect.”

– This claim is unfounded. There is nothing to fear if you are doing good work. And clients are smart enough to know what your studio is capable of. If they are coming to you in the first place it is probably because they want the best of what you are capable of. If you have marketed your capabilites well then that should be apparent.

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