Mill Blog ♥

Introducing Bill, the interactive corgi…

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

We have new talent joining us at The Mill London and he has short legs, a tendency to bark and royal relatives. Introducing Bill… the interactive corgi who has moved into our window to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee!



You can follow Bill at twitter.com/themillcorgi. See what happens if you ask him to #feed #party #play or #chill ? Plus you can feel warm and fuzzy in the knowledge that a right royal 50p is donated to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home for every tweet-treat.



Come down and visit the Bill (40-41 Great Marlborough Street) and watch him respond live as you tweet your command. Tweet, retweet and put our 4-legged friend to work.



One is amused!

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My Time is Now – with Nike and W+K London

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Nike with W+K London has launched "My Time Is Now", its new campaign for the 2012 European championship that aims to promote a new generation of football players.

The three-minute film opens on a football match between France and Holland, when the pitch is over run by hungry new and young players from "The Chance," Nike's scouting mission to find 100 potential soccer champions from 50 countries.

With some really enjoyable cameo appearances by Neymar, Franck Ribery, Wesley Sneijder, Mesut Ozil and Danny Welbeck, and even LeBron James. The YouTube version of the film invites viewers to go through hidden tunnels to get a deeper look at athletes and their inspirations.

Stuart Harkness, Creative Director at W+K London, added: "Nike has always stood for innovation. So it's a football spot about the next wave of players trying to break through, but it also rewards those hungry enough to find what it takes to make it, online, via hidden content in the film itself."

Matt Williams The Mill's Producer explains "We got involved at the very early stages with W+K London and Stink and this allowed us to help plan the VFX side of the shoot and build the correct team for the vast amount of post we had to complete over the 10 week period. It was a fantastic project to work on and one we're all incredibly proud of".

Tom Bussell Head of 3D at The Mill adds; "Nike produce some of the best creative and commercial content out there and its always exciting collaborating with them and W+K. All of us here thoroughly enjoyed the challenges laid down by Adam Berg (W+K London) and the opportunity to raise the bar yet again. We hope everyone enjoys the result." 

https://www.facebook.com/nikefootball/app_345703908784256

http://www.nike.com/en_gb/football/the-chance 

http://wklondon.com/

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Hugo Guerra, our Head of Nuke, talks about his recent masterclass.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Hugo Guerra is our Head of Nuke, he also teaches compositing at Escape Studios and most recently he went off to Sweden where he regularly gives Nuke masterclasses. Have a read of last week's trip below.

Last week I visited the Campus i12 VFX school (formally known as IAA) in Sweden, I've been teaching compositing at the school since 2008, and I try to get over there once or twice a year.

For those of you not familiar with the school here's a small introduction from Sofia Delis, Programming Director.  "Campus i12 belongs to the University of Jonkoping and the school is located in Eksjo, an hour from Jonkoping in Sweden. We have 180 students studying in several areas; 3D, compositing, digital design and visualization for architecture and design.

"The courses last two years, with 20 weeks of work experience included. We believe that the courses should aim to be reflective of actually working in the industry and this is why we have both compositors and 3D artists working under the same roof.  We aim to find the very best people in post production come in and teach our students and we were very proud to have The Mill and Hugo Guerra supporting us. We hope to give the vfx industry some of the best vfx artists  in the world."

The objective of my three day masterclass was to teach the 1st year students about the advanced 3D system of Nuke in the context of matte painting, sky replacement, pan & tile and 3D tracking. Then, at the end of the day the class's assignment was to make a sequence using these techniques.

I also took the opportunity to show the VES keynote presentation we did at The Mill about Audi's 'Hummingbird'. This presentation was shown to the 2D and 3D students from the school. Take a look at the making of Audi 'Hummingbird' here.

Overall I had a great time over there, and it was really good to see all this wonderful talent growing in Sweden, I really hope I can visit again and soon.

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The Mill’s Saturday of football at the Broadcast Fives Tournament 2012

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Last Saturday saw Broadcast's legendry Five-a-side 2012 Tournament and a Mill team go every year.  This year we made it through to the final 16 out of 52 teams. You can see our team in action with some snaps from the day.

Ashley Ireland aka Ash - Team captain explains "We played four games in our group, winning three and drawing one, scoring eight goals altogether.  We then won our next knock out game on penalties before eventually losing in the last 16." Good game lads and all for a very good cause!

All in aid of Vision Charity, http://www.visioncharity.co.uk/events_detail.php?id=31. Bring on next year!

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Hey Batter, batter!!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The boys of summer are back! Mill NY hosted a Swings and Swigs event to kick off the summer season. All four of the Field House batting cages at Chelsea Piers were rented, one of which was even set to "professional" to really test the mettle of the group. Yankees gear, cold beers and good cheer abounded as Mill Producers, 2D, 3D and TK artists mingled with clients. Batter up!

This was the first time on the diamond for most including Sean Costelloe, Head of Production, who threatened to break out his cricket bat and really show how to swing!

Baseball isn't just for the boys. Girls just wanna have fun too, even in heels.

But the real heavy hitters were Adam Isidore, EP of Brand, who brought his own bats.....

And Jared Yeater, Deputy Head of Production and MVP, who knocked it out of the park in the professional cage.

No matter the level of ability, a good time was had by all and a new Mill tradition is born!

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Tom Knight talks about The Mill’s trip to FMX Stuttgart.

Friday, May 04, 2012

We are really looking forward to this year's FMX Stuttgart. It is the 3rd year in a row for us now and the 2012 FMX conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia is set to be a marvellous week for looking at creativity in the digital industry.

If you are attending FMX this year why not drop in on us? We have a stand in the recruitment area, Booth 4 and we'll be there all day Wednesday 9th May. We are really keen to talk to any TDs or Animators that are interested in an internship in our London, NY and LA studios.

As well as looking forward to meeting and chatting to everyone, we'd love you to come and listen to some of our Millers talk.  We have Claire Anderson our Talent Manager  and Alex Fitzgerald a VFX Producer  talking about all things recruitment on Wednesday 9th May at 10:00am. Murray Barber, VFX Supervisor is primed and ready to chat about film quality VFX on a TV budget on Wednesday 9th May at 12:00pm. Jan Walter our principle R&D engineer will be comparing global illumination (GI) renderers on Thursday 10th May at 11:00am and finally, our commercial team's Rob Holmes, Joint Deputy of 3D, will be dispelling Fact vs. Fiction and the challenges our commercial artists face every day on Friday 11th May at 4pm.

So, tickets done, bags packed, you know where to find us, please do pop by and say hello, otherwise we will see you at the party on Wednesday evening!

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