Tuesday, April 24, 2012
As the saying goes, everything old is new again and with the 80s
making a comeback in today's fashion, art and pop culture, the Mill
embraced its neon, legwarmer past and teamed with filmmaker,
Vincent Skeltis on his remake of classic Vanity 6 video
for "Nasty Girl".
For "Nasty Girl", Vincent and Mill colorist, Sal Malfitano
first agreed they would set looks to differentiate the real world
street footage from the colorful and slightly dreamlike dance
footage. The street footage was kept neutral to cool, overall
natural and a bit gritty. The dance/dream footage was all about
bold colors, rich skin tones, deep blacks and glowing highlights. A
lot of softened highlight streaking - sometimes vertical, sometimes
horizontal was added to enhance the look but the most important
thing was to keep the effect off of Jocelyn Saldana's face as much
as possible.
The biggest challenge of this project was to find a balance
between enhancing the dream sequences and preserving as much detail
as possible. Flame Artist, Roz Paradis achieved this through
defocused vignettes and subtle chroma separation.
With Vincent's great eye for composition and color and the
Mill's Creative vision, this homage is just as "nasty" as the
original. As children of the 80s, it was fun to help Vincent
reinterpret a catchy classic.
Director: Vincent Skeltis
Editor: Colin Patton
Colorist: Sal Malfitano (The Mill)
Flame: Rosalind Paradis (The Mill)
Titles: Mikey 907
Special Thanks to NY Millers: Lily Tilton and Claudia
Guevara
Friday, April 20, 2012
Some ten years ago now the folks at IHAVEANIDEA
had a brilliant idea: create a social event to foster a bright new
generation of ad creatives by introducing established and rising
talent superstars. On May 23, 2012, the sun will
set on cities around the globe as hundreds of the world's top
creative directors meet with thousands of aspiring copywriters, art
directors and designers. Representing the California creative crème
de la crop, agency 180 returns as host for Portfolio Night 10 (PN10) in Los Angeles.
"The mission is simple yet grand: to celebrate the next generation
of creative talent, to guide them as they begin their fascinating
careers in the advertising industry, and to raise their city's
creative flag to be counted on the world stage," reads the
Portfolio Night site. PN10 is set to occur simultaneously in 14
countries and 18 cities around the world.
At The Mill we celebrate creativity in all
shapes, sizes and formats. Join us at PN10, the event at which "the
best of the present meets the best of the years to come". It was at
PN6 that 180 hosted and then hired one of the aspiring attendees --
who knows, it could be You this time around!
Friday, April 20, 2012
Our Friends at Escape Studios will be running an open day on May
9th for practical advice and help on putting together
the perfect showreel.
They'll be revealing industry secrets behind the professional
shots, demonstrated in their latest student VFX reels and giving
tips on making sure your showreel stands out from the crowd.
A great opportunity to learn from the pros and not to be
missed!
Check out VFX showreel of Escape alumni, Lammie Veracruz,
put together in under 12 weeks!
Thursday, April 19, 2012
The Mill partnered with Variable to produce a cinematically
beautiful reminder for us all to stop and smell the roses. In an
age where we spend more time in front of our computers and
smartphones than we do our loved ones, this short encourages all of
us to take a second from our hectic lives and appreciate the
magnificence of the world and cultures around us.
Production Company: Variable - WeAreVariable.com
Creative: Variable
Post Production/Editorial: The Mill - TheMill.com
Directors/Cinematographers: Jonathan Bregel & Khalid Mohtaseb @
Variable
Executive Producers: John Rule & Mike Sutton (@MNS1974)
Producer: Tyler Ginter @ Variable
Line Producer: Viraj Velinker
Phantom Tech: Nick Midwig
The Mill: New York City
Post Production Producers: Dee Allen & Alex Maxwell
Editor: Ryan McKenna
Colourist: Sal Malfitano
Original Score/Sound Design: Salomon Ligthelm - ligthelm.tv
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
This weekend saw the birth of cinematic miracle - short
film 'Eradicate' was made in just 48 hours!
Team 'The Vogon Poets', which includes William McGregor as
director, Ben Burdock as producer and Adriane Scott-Kemp as VFX
producer had no idea on Friday night what exactly the film they
were about to make would be about. Then on Saturday morning at 10
am they received the title, a key prop and a line of dialogue, all
of which had to be included within the film. They were taking part
in the Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge 2012. And we had a
very tired looking Martin Karlsson, Mike Chapman, Adam Brandon and
Emily Greeley here on Monday morning after pulling an all nighter
to get it finished……..plus beautiful work by Adam Etherington DoP
and Katie MacGregor on production design!
So what kind of a film can you make in 48 hours? Take a look at
their entry 'Eradicate' and good luck to 'The Vogon Poets'!
CAST
LUKE NEWBERRY
EDDIE WEBBER
JOHNNY PALMIERO
RACHEL BRIGHT
DIRECTOR
WILLIAM MCGREGOR
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/WRITER
TOM NASH
PRODUCER
BEN BURDOCK
EDITOR
IAIN WHITEWRIGHT
1ST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
MARK LACEY
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
LUKE DOUGLAS
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
ADAM ETHERINGTON
FOCUS PULLER
ED BOWEN-CARPENTER
CLAPPER/LOADER
JOSEPHINE THIME
GAFFER
NICK BUDDING
ART DIRECTOR
KATIE MACGREGOR
ART DIRECTOR'S ASSISTANT
SAMANTHA SHELDRAKE
WARDROBE STYLIST
YANIKA WATERS
WARDROBE STYLIST
CHARLOTTE LUCAS
MAKE UP ARTIST
ZOE MOORE
DIT
EMILY GREELEY
COLOURIST
ADAM ETHERINGTON
SOUND RECORDIST
TOM WHETMORE
BOOM OPERATOR
SCOTT YOULDEN
RUNNERS
MICKEY ODONOGHUE
JAMES QUINN
STILLS PHOTOGRAPHER
MATT DADSON
VFX PRODUCER
ADRIANE SCOTT-KEMP
2D VFX LEAD
MARTIN KARLSSON
ON SET VFX SUPERVISOR
MIKE CHAPMAN
2D ARTISTS
PATRICK ALTMAIER
MIKE CHAPPMAN
EMILY GREELEY
KARL VAGLAND
ROTO/CLEAN UP ASSISTANT
DOUGLAS HAYNES
TITLE ARTIST & DESIGNER
ADAM BRANDON
MUSIC SUPERVISOR
AIDAN F. SHAW
SOUND DESIGNER
TRISTAN POWELL
Monday, April 16, 2012
Tom Knight, Talent Assistant, is breaking into the
blogging world with the following Mill Talent's news and review
post.
Welcome to my first ever blog! My head is full of information on
talent, learning, careers and Mill Talent initiatives so I thought
it should be fun to delve into the dark corners of my mind on a
monthly basis…
Skillset and The Mill have been working side by side to encourage
young people into VFX. Collaboratively we produced two films to
help children, parents and teachers learn about our industry. Check
them out here - Careers in VFX for 10
year olds+, Careers in VFX for 15
year olds+.
Karl, our new
Swedish motion graphics intern, has started this week and is
smiling from ear to ear.
Our other latest intern Cat
is starting today. Take a butchers at her stuff below, where, as
SFX & Miniatures Supervisor for 'Skyborn' she created "A
world of smoke", fire, flaming torches, cloudscape
and a miniature flying machine.
Life Drawing is back! Some amazing work was
produced last time so why not do more. Need some inspiration? Look
at some of the drawings our own Millers have created.
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To round things off, we have a brand new Mill
Talent twitter account. We have been tweeting our
heart out so starting following if you want to know about jobs,
news, events.
Sneak peek into next week's blog; The Mill travelling to FMX in
Stuttgart and an update on our short film competition.
Friday, April 13, 2012
So you've seen our Formal Friday clad Millers, today we have a
very formal Friday in fact take a look at our Glam
Formal Friday! TGIGFF... Go Andrea!
Check out sauve 2D
and the very dapper 3D!
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
In November last year Design Challenge was launched. It aimed to
find students with a talent for storytelling techniques, using
digital film making or motion graphics. In particular, stories that
say something about how we interact with objects and the way their
design can affect our everyday lives.
The brief given to all entrants was to tell a story or create a
scenario which depicts how the public's life would change if an
everyday object was redesigned to fit around the peculiar needs and
behaviour of humans. Our own Nils Kolth and Carl Addy were among
the judges.
The winner was Andreea Dumuta for her engaging 'The Dining Little
Cubes', and she will be doing a 2 month internship at our London
office.
Yi Ju Tsai's insightful project, "The Lift" was also Highly
Commended.
The competion was led by Sadhna Jain: Lab and Field, in
conjuction with The Mill and hosted by the Graduate School, CCW,
University of the Arts London,
Read more on Sadhna's website.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
The UK's visual effects (VFX) industry is busier than ever right
now and yet there is an acute skills shortage and it has become
apparent that school age children are not really aware of the
variety of roles available in VFX, or in fact that we have so many
films, TV show and Commercials right here in London!
In light of this we have joined forces with Skillset (UK's Creative industry Sector Skills
Council), UK Screen Association and other leading VFX facilities in
London to make two inspiring films explaining a little more about
what we do, and what subjects they should study at school to follow
a career in VFX.
Claire Anderson our Talent Manager explains "Our goal is to
inform the next generation of talent that VFX is a rewarding and
exciting career path, and make sure they have all the tools
necessary to be successful'.
Take a look at the videos we made together for 10 year olds plus
and 15 year olds plus
to learn more.
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
As we all know, the woolly mammoth is extinct. And we know we
don't have any photo real images of the mammoth. Or do we? We've
been working with the BBC and Producer/Director Tim Walker to delve
into our planet's natural history and bring you "Woolly Mammoth:
Secrets from the Ice".
Our team headed up by VFX Supervisor Jean Claude Deguara explains:
"This was a fascinating project from the start and Tim and BBC team
were absolutely brilliant to work with. Tim was totally
focussed and determined for us to really push the boundaries and
create the most realistic mammoth ever seen on screen. Our
R&D led us to many world renowned experts on the mammoth, and
we had detailed descriptions on how they looked and how they
behaved from The BBC Natural History team".
One of the main challenges was creating the photo real CG
fur. In order to match our and Tim's ambition the fur had to
look totally convincing and needed to be able to move and react to
itself and to its natural environment, this was particularly
difficult during the fight sequence which required careful
manipulation to ensure the fur moved and reacted in the most
realistic way possible. The mammoth fur was groomed over a period
of four weeks using Shave and Haircut, with each mammoth groom
consisting of more than 2 million hairs per creature.
As a team we were delighted with the results and would
like to thank Tim, Katie, Jo and all those at BBC Natural History
for the opportunity to work on such a unique and creative
project.
You can catch "Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice" tonight
on BBC2 at 9pm and see what it was like when these relatives of the
elephant roamed across what is now Europe and Asia.
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