Smart Made Simple for Weight Watchers

Late last year we worked with our amazing producers at In the Thicket to craft 8 spots for Weight Watchers and their creative team at BMF.

For the campaign we combined a mixture of stop motion and live action using a very stylised and graphic approach to the props and styling. A few of the spots are now live with the rest rolling out through the year.

Unexpected Collaborations: Robocrop process

This week's post is about the Robocrop video and the process behind making it. It was quite a different approach to Sweetfighter with the entire video this time shot in camera. We used lighting techniques and wired props to tell the story of an agricultural / robotics collaboration. Our concept was to present a futuristic vision of nature through the symbiotic relationship between science research and nature. The idea was to use plants but have them glow, Avatar like and also be wired electronically to sway as if swaying in the wind.

Having proposed all this in our storyboards we then had to figure out how to build it so began nightly tests using fluorescent fluid to make the flowers and plants glow. After finding some helpful tutorials online we settled on using two recipes. One based on highlighter fluid and the second on tonic water. The difference between the two was the colour of the glow they created. Highlighter fluid created a more toxic looking yellow glow while tonic water produces a more softer blue glow.
Even the clean up produced some interesting specimens. The close up of the tissue looks almost cosmic.

We also tried different methods for getting the plants to soak up the fluid, A – through the cut stems which took a bit longer to take affect and is less effective, B – soaking the flower blooms directly in the fluid. Much more vibrant and the effect can be seen within hours. Just watch out that the blooms don't start to disintegrate! The variegated devil's ivy was soaked through the stem in highlighter fluid for about a week and you can see the glow start to spread through the veins in the leaves. It was really interesting doing these experiments. We'd love to do another project using similar techniques. Not that plants aren't already naturally beautiful but it's amazing how they can be transformed through a relatively lo-fi technique. Down below you can see some of our glow tests on kale, fox glove and the garlic flowers.



Although for glowing purposes white and pale pink flowers worked the best we had to make sure the plants we used were edible. Luckily were able to source some pretty interesting plants at the Eveleigh growers market as well as the Chinatown markets where we scored garlic flowers which we'd never heard of and the enoki which looked amazing under the blacklight.

Meanwhile my partner luckily has started to tinker in electronic gadgetry so offered to build the contraption needed to wire the plants. He used an arduino board with a manual trigger, some of the early tests show a bit of experimentation with how to get the wires hooked up to the plants elegantly. We initially used metal collars which gave a nice motion but looked a little too steampunk. In the end we wrapped the wires directly onto the stems and crossed our fingers the force wouldn't snap them. 

Some shots below on set of the plant set ups in 'daylight' and under the blacklight. The same plants were used for both sets. One of the advantages of using the tonic water to make the plants glow is that it's clear in daylight (unlike the highlighter fluid that gives off a faint yellow tinge).

Unexpected Collaborations: Sweetfighter process

Earlier this week I posted up about the video campaign we worked on for the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre. As briefs go this was a treasure to work on. The campaign centres around the theme developed by The Monkeys, of 'Unexpected Collaborations', as the centre fosters collaborations across deliberately diverse fields to encourage progressive research and teaching. With this theme in mind we brainstormed ideas using a visual play on the subject matter that would allow us to tell these stories in an engaging but informative way. The concept for Sweet Fighter (diabetes experts working with gaming programmers) was to focus on the theme of balance as it relates to diabetes and the constant need to keep blood sugar levels in check sometimes with the aid of insulin. Balance also tied in well with the other half of the collaboration - gaming - as there's often a sense of using physics and balancing interactions in gameplay.

The end product (view video here) is a series of carefully balanced sets/still lives incorporating fruit, vegetables, sugar and medical paraphernalia. We wanted to continue on the theme of unique insights coming from unexpected collaborations by also including a visual play at the end of the video that would hopefully surprise the viewer and have them question what they were viewing. With this video the mirrored reflection reveals itself to be a whole different world - another nod to gameplay and virtual realities.

We thought it would be nice to share the process behind making these videos as we always enjoy seeing the behind the scenes of other animations and the steps in getting to the final product. Also we had a lot of fun with this project so it's nice to have a record of how it went! For this post i'll focus on Sweetfighter and follow up with Robocrop.

Below are some of the very first storyboard frames created for the pitch. Early on in the pitch process we decided that a mixture of stop motion and live action would be the best way to handle the production as timings were tight. I think in all we had 3 weeks for pre production and shoot (3 days) so a full stop motion production would have been impossible.

It was important that we use as many found 'ordinary' objects as possible but have them behave in unconventional ways e.g. the glowing mechanised plants, bouncing ice creams. Not just thinking laterally but behaving laterally too so to speak. So it wasn't going to be a case of fabricating our props from materials like paper/clay etc like we had done in the past. Initially we thought this would make pre-production simpler. As long as we could source the objects we were fine. But after thinking through the sets (3 alone for the Sweetfighter) we realised how wrong we were. We were going to be dealing with a lot of fresh fruit that needed to be attached together without spilling their guts onto the set, make semi-solid jelly that could be used structurally and figure out how to make ice-cream that wouldn't melt on set and could be manipulated for stop motion.

Luckily the internet taught us how to make fake ice-cream (frosting and a lot of icing sugar) and we had access to Barnes nearby and found jellywax. What turned out to be the trickiest set to make was the first scene and the fruit molecule. We had about three goes creating the sculpture, the first to test the technique of connecting the parts, the second on set for the pre-production shoot to test the rotating base and then on the actual day we had to make it again from scratch. Timing was important so we had a lot of back up fruit raided from the all the supermarkets and green grocers in my neighbourhood plus Paddy's markets. After a near meltdown at one point when I couldn't find a perfectly round and green melon I went upstairs to the supermarket and found the mother lode of perfectly sized round melons. We came home with about 5 and used 0 in the end.

The rigging for the props was one major hurdle especially with the fruit. We thought gluing might work which shows what complete DIY non handypeople we are, but luckily had skewers on hand to spike them together. With clever rigging designed by Mel Pragassen for the spinning hoop (disco ball) and turntable we were able to make the first scene live action.

The next two set ups were a mix of stop motion plates comped together and a bit of live action to capture the exploding balls. With a lot of elements made to look like they are floating in the air rigging turned out to be a bit of a headache! Charlie, Sam and Maricor did a great job on the rig removal. The shaky behind the scenes video of the spinning molecule above and the photo below shows how much had to be cleaned up for the finished video.

So that's how we made Sweetfighter, next up will be Robocrop!

London Calling

So long Sydney, we're sad to say goodbye but hello London!

We arrived early Tuesday morning at around 5.30 and after 24 hours flying thank goodness we opted for a cab transfer from the airport. I doubt we'd have made it to our friends' place otherwise. The flights themselves were pretty good but any extended period of time suspended in halfway time between your old timezone and your new one is always disorienting and exhausting. On the second leg from Hong Kong to London we somehow managed to score first row seats which meant we had extra leg room. I felt a bit guilty though. Since we're small asian girls we were in the least need, especially as there seemed to be a whole fleet of giant rugby fans/players crammed in nearby.

Our first week has been a mix of work and exploring.. sadly more of the former. We sorta nerded out and made sure we hunted down an art supply store, fabrics and craft store and grocery shops nearby. No denying where our priorities lie :)

On Saturday we checked out a couple of Markets around east London. I scored a rope necklace at the new Designers Markers Market and we ogled the beautiful food (and people) at Broadway Market. We're hoping to find a rental nearby since the markets are so amazing. I miss living in Newtown and it feels somewhat similar, a cross between Newtown and Surry Hills.

This week we have a commission to finish that's been keeping us from exploring more. I shouldn't complain about being busy but it's a bummer we're stuck indoors. Oh well we'll just have to sew like crazy :)

Maricor and I have also put up a massive update on our site. The full series of embroideries from our Turns of Speech & Figures of Phrase exhibition is up as well as the latest Global Village artworks and an illustration we made for Anorak Magazine's Food is Fun series. We are also proud to share our latest animation that we created for British Council Australia. Together with Republic of Everyone we created an animation to help launch Big Green Idea, a great funding initiative by the British Council. We worked on it before we flew out and had to multitask more than usual for this project. Making the props, rigging, lighting, camera ops and post production. It was a bit of a stretch at times! Although it was a busy two week we had a great time working on it, coming up with the cute paper characters and learning new techniques.

Pinching Ourselves

The last couple of months have been pretty awesome for ca and me when we thought it couldn't get even huger, BAM, something comes up which makes us pinch ourselves and wonder if its all for real. The nominees we're announced for Plus Camerimage 2010 and in the music category sitting amongst the big names Lady Gaga, Gorillaz, Fever Ray, Florence And The Machine, Eminem and UNKLE et al is our clip for Murder By Death.

Plus Camerimage is an international festival dedicated to cinematography and our animated clip for Murder By Death's "White Noise" has been nominated in the music video category and to say we're chuffed is a huge understatement! We're excited just to be amongst great directors and to have our work seen by the jury.

Other things that have happened this week include; meeting one of our creative heroes, Deanne Cheuk, missing out on a SOYA award but huge congratulations to the winners and all the finalists, taking part in the I Can Draw You A Picture: Re-Building lab at LiveWorks, getting an ass-whooping in Scrabble, taking down our group exhibition ABD6 and parting with some favourites and enjoying a day in the sun at the Newtown Festival.

Capture the Fade Photography Exhibition opens at the Paper Mill Gallery this Wednesday and guest judge Bill Henson will announce the overall winner of the competition. Congratulations to our friend Gene whose work will be exhibited and good luck for the anouncement!!

One last thing for this Monday's post, ca and I have started work on our next series of type and thread pieces, below is a sneak peek. Oh and since ABD6 has finished up, the unsold pieces will be put up for sale soon on our site, we'll keep you posted.

/co

'Blerg' IdN magazine 100th issue + Australian Edge interview

The stop motion animation we directed with Michael Blanche is finally finished! We didn't want to jinx it in case it wasn't finished in time for the deadline but now we can say what it's for. We'll post the final animation when the issue comes out.

Also co and I have an interview up at AustralianEdge. Thanks Clayton and Duncan!

A new animation

We've got a new animation in the works, it's a stop motion one with miniature sets. We're experimenting with a few techniques with lighting and lenses and we've done all the animation in camera. This piece is a joint collaboration with co-director Michael Blanche and our super talented friend Becky Freeman aka Sui Zhen is providing original music.

We're just putting the finishing touches on it so in the meantime here are some progress shots. The process has been interesting and to describe it as hectic would be a huge understatement! The turnaround for the whole project has been 2 and a half weeks but we're all chuffed with the results.

co/

Murder By Death "White Noise"

Here is the finished animation for Murder By Death's "White Noise", the band were awesome to work with! We had fun with some stop motion in this video but the majority of it was created in After Effects using hand drawn graphics, built props, bleached chicken bones and bits and pieces we scavenged from our garden and our clothes.

Murder By Death - "White Noise" from MaricorMaricar on Vimeo.

WIP - "White Noise" music video

We've almost finished our latest project, an animated music video for Murder by Death's track "White Noise". The band have been awesome to work with, they came up with the idea for the video and asked us if we would like to work with them after they saw our animation "Say Hello to the Ground".

These are some style frames for the animation and I've also posted some photos from the mini stop motion shoot we did. Thanks Michael for building us an amazing animation stand!

/ca

Empire of the Sun - Live Visuals for Parklife 2009

Live visuals created for 'Walking on a Dream' by Empire of the Sun, for their debut live performance at Parklife 2009. This was the finale for their set and was also used as part of their Aria performance. Created with Michael Blanche whilst at Mathematics. 3D modelling by Ben Dunlop.

You can view their Parklife performance here.
The live visuals for the rest of the set were created by Michael Blanche, Matt Kamen and Ben Dunlop.

'Songs to Make You Smile' by Justine Clarke

Animations created for Justine Clarke's 'Songs to Make You Smile' album and dvd for 'Creatures of the Rain and Sun', 'Doin' It' and the single 'Dinosaur Roar' while at Mathematics. Visit our vimeo page for more animations for 'Imagination, 'The Witches' Ball' and extra animations created for the DVD release.


Justine Clarke - 'Creatures of the Rain and Sun' Songs to Make You Smile from MaricorMaricar on Vimeo.



Justine Clarke - 'Doin' It' Songs to Make You Smile from MaricorMaricar on Vimeo.



Justine Clarke - 'Dinosaur Roar' Songs to Make You Smile from MaricorMaricar on Vimeo.

ABC Playschool - "If All the World Were Paper' animation

If All The World Were Paper from MaricorMaricar on Vimeo.

Paper animation we directed and animated for the ABC's Playschool while at Mathematics.

Architecture in Helsinki - 'Like it or Not' video

Music video sewn and animated whilst we were at Mathematics. It was inspired by the work of Megan Whitmarsh and the imagination of Cameron Bird.

The video was featured in IdN as well as onedotzero's 'Craftwork' programme 2009!

SBS fund raising promo

SBS promo video animated whilst at Mathematics

Justine Clarke 'Songs to Make You Smile'

We created the following videos for Justine Clarke's second DVD release 'Songs to Make You Smile' while at Mathematics. The design package also included the DVD cover and internal artwork as well as the DVD menus, bumpers and credits.

Art direction, illustration and animation for 'Imagination', Creatures of the Rain and Sun', 'Songs to Make You Smile', 'Doin' It', 'Witches Ball' and DVD menu and credits by Maricor and Maricar. Animation for 'Dinosaur Roar' by Maricor and all live action directed by Mathematics.

Animations will be posted up soon, in the meantime here are some stills from the videos and the album art.

The Living End 'Moment in the Sun'

Video directed by Josh Logue at Mathematics. For the video Maricor created the projection graphics that played behind the band and edited in the graphics and post effects for the final video.

After the Fall - 'Desire' music video

Directed and produced by Maricar and Elvira Wilkinson whilst at Mathematics.
The miniature forest and cave set was designed and built by Elvira Wilkinson, Maricar Manalo and
Andy Hawgood. Post and visual effects by Maricar Manalo and Michael Blanche.

Say Hello to the Ground

shadow studies: music by erik satie and william basinski