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A striking new campaign for Breast Cancer Care

22 February 2012

UK charity Breast Cancer Care have launched their new campaign, 'The Woman Behind the Cancer', and we are proud to have worked alongside them, M&C Saatchi and director Julia Fullerton-Battern to help create a striking online video to illustrate that behind every breast cancer diagnosis is a real woman with emotional and practical support needs.

The video makes its debut on Breast Cancer Care's website and Facebook page today and will air on television later this year.  The campaign is also supported with a series of posters across England.

Learn more about Breast Cancer Care's great work here: www.breastcancercare.org.uk/thewoman

And find out how we helped bring the video to life here.

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An evaluation of Nikon's new D800 by our Neil Evely

20 February 2012

 

I'm a big fan of my D700 and it has travelled everywhere with me over the last 3.5 years and it has never failed me. The performance in low light is amazing, but every so often i found my myself wanting for the ability to record video and often looked enviously at my Canon 5D holding friends.

Nikon fans have been waiting a while for their 5D II counter part, and thankfully that wait is now over with the release of the D800 (as well as the D4). Obviously the major selling point of this unit is the video capture - covering practically all the frame rates you might want at HD resolutions of 1920 and 1280 HD. Its still making H264 (I had hoped for image seq's) so when it comes to post etc you will need to stripe TC onto it. However, a bonus is the audio input and outputs for Linear PCM recording and monitoring, which might mean no more horrible syncing of audio tracks recorded on a separate digital recorder. It also provides a full HDMI port (8 bit, 4:2:2) output which can be used for external monitoring or the signal sent straight to a separate recording/capture device.

The D800 records video up to 29mins 59secs and lays claim to being able to reduce the 'rolling shutter' effect which is so prominent in many DSLR videos, due to the way its intelligent sensor reads out movie data so quickly from the (quite frankly bonkers) 36.3MP CMOS sensor (that's a stills resolution of 7360 x 4912 by the way). All of this combined with the same range of ISO from the D700 (100-6400) makes it a very tempting piece of the kit for the hi-end pro-sumer, or second body for the full pro who likely have their eye on the equally impressive D4 which is nearly twice the price.

At the end of the day though, Nikon will hope it has entered the DSLR video market with a bang rather than a whimper and with footage like the below I expect there will be many people keen to give it a whirl (me included), but with the Canon having just released the EOS C300 and the 5D Mark III surely around the corner, will Nikon find themselves back chasing the pack? Only time will tell.

 

 

For a full breakdown of the D800 v the D4 check out this link.

And the full D800 Nikon PDF is here.

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Cousins Follow Up Spec Hit Viral for Skittles with Reese’s ‘Love Child’

15 February 2012

Giving birth has never been so sweet. Directing team Jordan Sharon and Keith Hamm, A.K.A. "Cousins," follow up their infamous Skittles "Newlyweds" viral with Reese's "Love Child." The new viral features an unexpected twist in the delivery room, or rather, several unexpected twists. Reese's "Love Child" may well leave you thinking, "Oh no they di-dn't!"

Oh yes, they did.

Reeses LoveChild Body2

And they had some help from The Mill L.A., lead by Adam Carroll in 3D and Nick Tayler in 2D, along with 3D Assists Kyle Moore and Matt Vogan, and 2D Artists Steve Cokonis, Remedy Huynh, Margolit Steiner and Patrick Munoz. Matt Longwell animated and Gregory Reese graded "Love Child." And lest we forget Cousins' line producer Kali Erin Niemann, DP Eric Robbins and editor Ryan Delk.

Reeses LoveChild Body3

While over 14 million views between Vimeo and YouTube for Skittles "Newlyweds" may sound a little mind boggling, directors Sharon and Hamm weren't entirely surprised. "We think Skittles is a smash because it's so unexpected," they say. "It's the kind of thing someone might joke about, but you'd never ever expect to actually see it. It's got the OMG factor. We hope Reese's will, too."

Take a look!   Reese's "Love Child"

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2012: A year of extraordinary sport

10 February 2012

When we re-created Rome for Gladiator the pinnacle of our work was undoubtedly The Colosseum.  From the painstaking detail within the architecture to populating it with ancient Romans, we very much started a trend for large scale recreations of venues that required populating with thousands of people.

We applied the same thinking and creativity to last year's multi award winning 'Write the Future' (in fact it was last year's most awarded commercial).  Our technical prowess is unparalleled as is our library, which includes a large range of international and domestic stadiums.

With over 11 years experience The Mill team can populate our stadiums with fully realistic crowds including artificial intelligence, meaning they can behave and celebrate as any creative idea dictates.

Our most recent addition of course is the London 2012 Olympic Stadium, ready and waiting to be filled with an expectant crowd.

Here's a taste of our work...
/work/the-mill-stadiums-reel.aspx

For more information, please contact:
 Rahel Makonnen rahelm@themill.com

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Nice weather for life drawing…

09 February 2012

Believe it or not, we do have a life away from our monitors and vfx suites.  Every Thursday a bunch of us sit round a room looking at naked people all in the name of art.  Here are some of the early sketches, whilst no Da Vinci, it's looking pretty impressive.

RobByrne_02_400

NatRocks_02_400

Jimmy_Kiddell_012_400

Jimmy_Kiddell_7121_400

JamesM_03

AGL_03

TK_02_400

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Free Spirits & Fashions That Inspire Them In Short For Geren Ford

08 February 2012

Costume Designer Casey Storm takes a seat in the director's chair to helm this celebratory short film for lifestyle fashion brand Geren Ford. Storm, whose credits include Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Where the Wild Things Are, teams up with designer Geren Lockhart to direct a series of short films inspired by her Spring 2012 collection. Our Mill L.A. team, creative directed by Phil Crowe and led by 2D Artist Steve Cokonis with Margolit Steiner assisting, handled numerous FX the 150-shot short film. Final Cut's Matt Murphy edited.

Cokonis explains the job encompassed adding practically shot fireworks and smoke for the 4th of July party and setting a flaming typographic treatment for the end frame logo type. "Perhaps our most notable efforts are the design and implementation of a camera flash and still frame photograph effect that was used to highlight the clothes throughout the video," he adds.

The Mill's Gregory Reese graded the film, adding a bit more contrast throughout to give the scenes a touch of fashion spread-type feel. "We did an overall grade at the end, focusing especially on enhancing the photographic feel of the camera flash in the still images throughout the party," Reese says.

Lockhart and Storm seem to be onto something. Together their aesthetic evokes the mischievous, playful and uninhibited spirit associated with a particular time in life. Or a funky new Geren Ford outfit!

 

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110 Million Eyes Glued to Tube Watching Super Bowl XLVI

06 February 2012

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In a fiercely competitive game that saw Eli Manning and the NY Giants beat Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, the Super Bowl commercials went mano-a-mano vying for 110 million viewers' attention. It was hard enough to tear yourself away for another beer or more wings, let alone a bathroom break. Madonna's halftime performance with Nicki Minaj, Cee Lo Green and LMFAO made you want to get up and dance instead.

At $3.5 million for a 30-second spot, the stakes for advertisers were very high. Our own U.S. teams - Mill NY and Mill LA - were pleased to contribute to many of the Big Game's commercials, bringing nothing but their best game.

We collaborated closely with top agencies and directors to create VFX for returning veterans like Budweiser and Honda, as well as brands that came of age in the New Millennium like cars.com and CareerBuilder. We also worked on two NFL spots and created an evolutionary timeline for NFL.com via Grey NY, as well as commercials featuring renowned celebrities like Matthew Broderick, who paid homage to his breakthrough role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off with RPA's 'Day Off' for Honda CR-V.

In true Super Bowl tradition, we collaborated again with Grey NY and Venables Bell & Partners (respectively), on E*Trade 'Fatherhood' featuring the deadpan hilarious E*Trade baby, and Audi 'Vampire Party' - a nod to the stylish new Audi S7.  Also included in Mill Super Bowl fare, entertaining spots for Bud Light Platinum, Lexus, Toyota and Shaw.

And with that, we're off to put our feet up and watch Ferris Bueller...!  

Re-live our Super Bowl commercial highlights here: Super Bowl 2012

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Our Audi Hummingbird Hero

03 February 2012

Hummingbird_body

Is it a bird..? Is it a plane..? Close…… it's the little metallic bird we designed for Audi, whom we love! So, we asked the team behind the Audi 'Hummingbird' spot a few questions about how this project came about and most importantly, how they made our little winged friend so likeable.

Q: What was the brief given to you by Audi?

A: They wanted us to design and create a hummingbird made entirely out of car parts, as if he had actually been designed by the Audi team itself. The new Audi A6 car is built on very lightweight technology, so they wanted us to showcase all of the car's qualities in this agile little bird.
(Rahel Makonnen - Executive Producer, 3D)

Q: What was the main challenge you faced in doing this?

A: Well, it's very tricky to take something that exists in real life, but to have him made out of entirely different textures and materials, while still acting and moving like the real thing.                      
(Rahel)

Q: What was the main thing you wanted to achieve?

A: We really wanted to develop the personality of the hummingbird; this was the main tool we had to make our bird believable. He had to be friendly, he had to be cheeky and playful, he had to be elegant and at the same time he had to project all the qualities of the Audi car.                                                          
(Jorge Montiel - Head of Animation)

Q: What was the main tool you used to achieve this?

A: The Audi car itself has very elegant and clean lines, so the design had to be a simple one. This meant that the bird's movement and body language were the main ways we could express his character. As an animator, the most challenging part of this process was working on the animatic, this is where we played around with the timing and the story, and it's all about the story. Then, in the final animation, this is where we were able perfect the hummingbird's body expression. It was very time consuming but it was that extra 5% where we worked on all the little details of movement and the quality of our work that made the difference.                                     
(Jorge)

Q: How important was the compositing work in the project?


A: We had a large amount of layers to composite together in order to make the hummingbird and his world believable and realistic. Not only the bird, background and sky but we also added lost of atmospheric affects like dust and pollen and most importantly light, achieving a daytime 'photo-real' look was central to the hummingbird's world.                               
(Hugo Guerra - Joint Head of Nuke)

Q: How big a part did light play in this world?

A:
Huge! We did a lot of research on the lighting; it was one of the few 'real' elements we could use in this fully CG world. Our approach was to take a lot of photos taken in bright sun light and to use them as references for all the little subtle effects that happen in normal photography; the small chromatic aberrations of light, the distortion of the lens, and the small little glints of the sun hitting the metal body of the bird. Also, we really didn't want it to be a cold and unfeeling environment, so we added a lot of warmth by introducing warm light effects and lens flares.                       
(Tom Bussell - Head of 3D)

Q: Was everyone happy with the result?

A: It's an amazing piece of work to be a part of and everyone was very happy! It was a joint project with BBH and director Daniel Barber and we are always very excited to work with both of them!
(Rahel)

Audi 'Hummingbird' has just been nominated for 3 VES (Visual Effects Society) awards, the results of which will be announced next Tuesday, February 7th... In the meantime, you can click here to see him in action!

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The Top Gunns of 2011 have taken our breath away!

02 February 2012

The Gunn Report is based on a simple idea: It takes the winners' lists from the biggest awards across the world and, using this info, creates its own 'most awarded' league tables for the advertising industry.

It's always interesting to see the results of such a 'mega' report and this year we were extremely proud to see that in the 'Most-awarded Film Ads in the World 2011' category, we had worked on the top four spots!

In 1st and 2nd place (respectively), we collaborated with Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam on both Nike 'Write The Future' and Heineken 'The Entrance'. Of course football and beer would probably top any worldwide league table! In 3rd place was Saatchi & Saatchi's T-Mobile 'Welcome Back', who could forget a 300-strong crowd greeting weary passengers at Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5? And in 4th place Wieden + Kennedy, Portland's shirtless comedy for Old Spice 'Questions' and 'Boat' still has us chuckling!   

The Gunn Report describes its work as 'In a nutshell, our function in life is to identify the most awarded new work in the world each year; to identify who is doing it; and to celebrate both.'

You can take a look at today's Campaign magazine for a run down of the all the results or visit: http://www.gunnreport.com/

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Proudly presenting... Mill Colour 1.2

01 February 2012

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Colour us happy… we are very pleased to say that the full upgrades to Mill Colour, our award winning photo grading app for the iPhone, are now available to download… for free!

Mill Colour 1.2 allows all you budding David Baileys to alter any image with the precision and subtlety of our professional Colourists who have worked closely with our Mill Digital team to develop the app.

The app emulates the primary grading techniques used in one of our high-end digital suites; so instead of applying and manipulating a filter to fit an image, Mill Colour 1.2 allows you to adapt and refine the source image to achieve the look and feel you want.

The latest updates also include an improved maximum editable resolution for more recent hardware so users can edit photos taken on the latest iPhone; an improved pan and zoom facility allowing for a closer image inspection on screen, enabling pictures to be refined with even greater precision; and an improved image processing system to make grading and saving photos even quicker.

We were also very proud to see that Mill Colour has been recently been included in the prestigious FWA 'The App and Mobile Case Study Book', which showcases the 50 best apps of the previous few years.

Click here or search "Mill Colour" in the app store on iTunes to download Mill Colour 1.2 now!

Stuck for inspiration? Why not check out our professional Colourists' showreels:
/showreels.aspx

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London

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Tel: +44 20 7287 4041
Fax: +44 20 7287 8393

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