I’m unclear as to what a “handdrawn audioresponsive video exploration” is, but that’s not stopping me from fully enjoying this beautiful video by Gwen Vanhee.

Gorgeous video for MSN.ca by TAXI Canada. The butterflies are beautifully concepted, rendered, and animated.

Motion graphics mavin Joost Korngold recently posted his work for the menu system of the PS3 game Killzone 2. The concept design and animation that Joost built for Guerilla Games is brimming with his style, complete with abstract movements and industrial sound. I love that Joost posts his videos as quicktimes because it gives me the ability to go frame by frame and breakdown the transitions.

He also posts the implemented menu result, which is a close recreation of his concept (Joost mentions that he consulted during the implementation process), but misses out on some of the unique complexities that make Joost’s work stand out. The biggest change is the sound, which I’m assuming fits more in line with the score for the game as a whole. Had I not heard the audiotrack in Joost’s concept I might not have cared much, but since I had the final track comes across as sounding too slick. It’s the kind of track I’d expect to hear from something like a Spiderman trailer. Grand, sweeping notes that evoke feelings of heroism. I found myself wanting the more mechanical, ominous, “I may not make it out of this” notes.

The other parts I miss are the jerky animations of the nav elements. Granted we’ve made a transition from a motion graphics application to a game engine at this point, but the animated elements felt more scripted rather than organic. The “re-orient the camera” move seemed a little overused and didn’t tie-in with the interactions of the user as much as in the concept video. Again, that kind of control is much easier to sync up when you’re building a fully-controlled motion graphics piece, but those subtleties stood out to me and are worth noting because they’re part of what makes Joost’s concept video so compelling.

In the end the menu looks great and Guerilla Games did a fantastic job of translating the concept into their game. One thing they added that I really enjoyed was the distortion line that slides down the screen from time to time, mimicking the distortion of an old CRT display.

In a related note, Joost also did the opening credits for Killzone 2 which I wrote about back in February. He’s definitely a designer to keep an eye out for.

Very nice motion graphics piece for Hellmann’s discussing buying locally produced food from Canada. The concept of a dinner table mixed with infographics is strong and something the average consumer will be able to relate to in a much more emotional way.

The spot was created by CRUSH.

Ethereal logo animation for the World Science Festival by Trollbäck + Company. Wonderful transitions throughout. This piece they did for TCM is also fantastic.

When people go see a movie in the theater, drop it in their DVD player after getting it in the mailbox, or “insert method here” I’m sure the majority do so mainly because they want to be entertained and caught up in the story. I’m the same way. I’m a sucker for a great story and can easily veg out and let the onslaught of special effects and explosions wash over me with minimal thought applied.

But as a designer I’m also cursed, in a good way, as with every movie I watch I’m actively doing design and artistic research, especially in regards to user interfaces. That’s a part of my brain I can’t switch off and is never more apparent than when I watch a spy thriller or sci-fi film which is when my research antennae goes into hyper-alert mode.

For example, you know those scenes during a Jason Bourne movie when the government is desperately trying to locate Bourne via satellite on a massive wall full of computer graphics cycling through their clues or when John Anderton searches through the translucent visions of the precogs to determine the next future murder? Those are the times when my mind is furiously snapping away mental images for safe keeping. In fact, I own both of those movies, as well as several others, largely due to scenes like these so that I can draw upon them for inspiration.

Speaking of Inspiration

The interface used by Tom Cruise in Minority Report is easily a favorite and cited often as an inspiration among designers. The multi-touch controls were mind-blowing at the time yet seemed plausible as a method of interacting with data in the not-to-distant future, which is the setting of the film.

When I see interfaces like these I often wonder who designed and developed them as well as how they were implemented into the scene. For the most part I believe they’re created by the visual effects teams working on the project. Today, however, I learned about a company who specializes in these kinds of visuals specifically for the film industry and were actually the ones behind the interface of Minority Report. That company is called OOOii.

Designers of the Live Environment

The single-most fascinating fact behind OOOii is that they build systems instead of just visuals. While they do spend time designing interface elements (often in Adobe Illustrator) and then animating them in products such as Adobe After Effects, OOOii also develops a programming framework that gives them precise control over these visuals and how they animate and interact with the actors. Some of their early work was built in Macromedia Director and developed for the movie Enemy of the State. Since then they’ve worked on films such as The Island, Fast and Furious, and Deja Vu and utilized Adobe Flash as the programming environment for these visuals.

Obviously a goal for OOOii is to give more credence to the scene so that the viewer is able to remain fixed within the story. At the same time these live visuals aid the actors and help them remain in character and visualize the environment they’re in.

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before

OOOii just finished work on the new Star Trek film and you can see some of the visuals they created for the Bridge of the Enterprise in the above image. These visuals are a mix of Flash and After Effects elements, but the new approach is that they are being controlled via an Adobe AIR app built by OOOii. While on set the team from OOOii can remotely control all of the visuals and screens to the live action. That has to be incredibly helpful to the actors and director.

Lee Brimelow of Adobe interviews OOOii where you can find out more about their processes and see some of the various visuals they’ve produced. Visuals like these will continue to inspire me, but learning this kind of behind-the-scenes stuff is just another heavy dose to add to the mix.

Prologue Films designed and produced this year’s opening titles for the OFFF Festival. The concept feels post-apocalyptic and the visuals feature some fantastic color tones and motion-tracked copy. Check them out over at Motionographer.