Joe's Works

Thursday, June 3, 2010

My Animation works

This video file is my animated reel for TV commercial and music video works during 2004-2007 when I worked with Blu Fairy Animation Studio.

I had chances to work in a variety of projects and styles.

I took responsible in Layout Setup, Character Animation, and Art Direction roles.

Here is the breakdown of each project.

KAO Laurier (Japan) Sanitary napkin Corporate Image (TVC 15 sec)

Responsibility: Animate all cuts

"Yi-Sip Yi-Sip" One2Call (TVC 30 sec)

Responsibility : Design, Set Layout, and Animate all cuts

"Personality"

Responsibility: Design, Model, Shade, and Animate

"Personality 2"

Responsibility: Design and Animate

"Dat Dat" (TVC 30 sec)

Responsibility: Set Layout, Animate, and Supervise

"Eskimo" Nestle Ice cream (TVC 30 sec)

Responsibility: Set Layout and Animate all cuts

"Suk-Jai" Tourism Authority of Thailand (TVC 30 sec)

Responsibility: Supervise animation

"Reading for Life" (TVC 15 sec)

Responsibility: Animate all cuts

"Sip Park Wa" (Music Video)

Responsibility: Supervise animation

"King-Kong" Double A paper (TVC 30 sec)

Responsibility: Animate and Supervise

Here is the full animation.

"Baby Cancer" Wattanosoth Hospital (TVC 30 sec)

Responsibility: Animate and Supervise

Here is the full animation.

" Nature " Nakornloung Thai Bank (TVC 15 sec)

Responsibility: Animate all cuts

In addition to the animations in my reel video, I have also worked as the animation director in several projects. Here are the two that I like.

"MK Man" MK Restaurant

Responsibility: Direct Animation

"Stubborn" Music Video

Responsibility: Direct

Friday, October 9, 2009

Working with Stylize Film Maker

During year 2005-2008, I had chances to work with one of the most famous film director in Thailand, Wisit Sasanatieng who received many international film awards around the globe including Dragons and Tigers Awards from Vancouver International Film Festival in year 2000. Most of his works present very strong visual impact in a very unique style. I and Blu Fairy team had worked with him in various types of projects. We started with a TV commercial for Thailand's most famous suki-yaki restaurant called "MK" in 2005. He was the creative and gave me the opportunity to co-direct this TVC called "MK-MAN". I got a brief from him and started designing characters and the environment. I also did storyboard, animatic, and animation. After we got approval from the clients, then the production process began. The clients really loved Pixar's The Incredible type of character and style so we had to find some kind of solution to meet their expectation but not totally copy the reference. Here it is the result.

MK-MAN Television Commercial

We spent 3 months on the whole process from sketch design to finished product. It was a great time to work with Wisit on this project. Nothing to be hurry. The clients was not so bad at all. We had room to think and try more things in term of design and animation. I am very happy in the final result. Here are the breakdown of all processes to share with you.

MK MAN working processes

After MK MAN not too long, I had a chance to work with Wisit again on another TVC. I and Blu Fairy had to create a book character that represent knowledge, called "BookaMan". In this TVC I worked mostly on supervising and client relation but anyhow I still wanted to animate the main character too. It was a fun job because in the middle of project, the director had changed from Wisit to Tom-Pen-ak Ratanarueng -- another Thailand famous film direct who has totally different style from Wisit. However working with Pen-ak was stunning. He had so much power and vision to control his film into his direction with ease. In the shooting location, I had so much fun working with him and his team. However he gave me freedom to work on the character as I like. He accepted any input from me and Blu Fairy team quiet freely. It was one of the happiest project that I had ever done.

"BookaMan" TVC for Reading for life project

In year 2006, Wisit faxed me a brief of new TVC board call "Baby Cancer"

It was a rough sketch but clearly communicated his idea of what will happen in the story line. I and Blu Fairy team started with character design and looked-development for presenting to client with in 2 weeks. Then we did some adjustment and finalized the key visual before we shot the film.

First design for the baby cancer

Final model of the baby cancer

Final Look-Development for Baby Cancer

We shot some lighting references during the shooting session so that we can use them for rendering purposes.

After we shot all BG plates I and Blu Fairy team did camera tracking, created animation, lighting, rendering, and compositing into BG plates to the cutting approval purpose. Here is the result.

"Baby Cancer" TVC for a Hospital

In this TVC we use simple muscle system rig created by our TD, Aaron Smitd, in order to get muscle movement on the baby caner. Also we did the final color grading after we done with all animation and compositing process. Here is the muscle system and comparison between non-color grading and final color grading. Color Grading made film feel much more rich in term of look and feel.

Muscle System had been created for this project.

Breakdown process from animation to compositing all rendering passes

Color Grading made the film look much better.

Music Video is another type of job that I and Blu Fairy enjoyed. We and Wisit worked together on a music video project in late 2006 to early 2007. This time was pretty much on creativity and made it happen. It was not too much of client requirement or selling any product. We went far beyond the commercialized limitation. The artist whom we make music video for is Petch Osathanugrah who was the most modern electro-pop musician in Thailand during 80's. He is also a success business man. The song called "Fill Me" is one of his new album "Let's Talk About Love". Wisit subjected this MV to make fantasy idea come true life. I and Blu Fairy team were very excited to get this opportunity to full fill Wisit's imagination and visualized it in to the film. We created 'mini Petch' a plastic doll based on Petch himself characterize for the singing sequences. Also created a baby doll (head-replacement on real doll shot footage) who is a close friend of a girl in the story. At the end of the MV we also created plants form into the baby doll to remind her about love in childhood. We used Paint Effects in Maya to create such effect.

"Fill Me" Music Video for Petch Osathanugrah

Here is behind the scene of head replacement shots in this MV.

Behind the scene : Fill Me

There are more projects that I worked with Wisit. I will add more soon. Thanks for watching.

Friday, September 11, 2009

My Music Videos era

During the time that I worked with Blu Fairy, I had worked with many kind of projects. Music video is another type of project that I prefer. Because of my background started from being an art director then a director in music video production field so that make me love the thinking process of making music video.

I did initiate "DDZ" project with RS big boss around nearly end of year 2004. DDZ is the first digital character which made to be the first digital singer in Thailand. But I did pass the opportunity to direct its series of music videos to my friends to take care of it. We did 4 music videos out of 10 songs from its song list. Here is the opening MV of DDZ project. It was a big hit and made 1,000,000 ringtone downloads during the first 6 months.

DDZ first song (Kley-Tol-Ma-Krub)

After the big hit the second one followed up which was not made any impact much because it followed the world cup fewer and also the third one. I'd like to share with you the forth one which is the last MV for DDZ. This song featuring "Lydia" Thailand R&B princess. She is cute and very popular it that time. She was set to be a special friend of DDZ. The thinking process was simple "Just build relation ship with a girl." We solved this theme by put him in a mood for love. And get Lydia to back him up in both song and video.

DDZ : You have a call.

After that Blu Fairy launched another CG characters to music business call "Han & Ping", the piggy duet. I had a chance to direct 2 brand new MVs for this Pig characters. The first one was set up in Magic City theme -- We have to create these characters and put them to fit in life shoot background environment. It was a fun project and have to be done in super quick in production schedule.

Han & Ping : Magic City

We animated this MV using combination of basic key-frame animation and motion capture technology. We use motion capture mostly in dancing part by put the calligrapher in the motion capture stage then transfer those dancing data into our main characters.

After finished the first one, we created another MV call "Ab-Beaw" This time we did it all in CG environment and treat it more cartoon style. We did it all by hand animated to get a sense of cartoon movement. It got quiet a good feed back in term of visual impact and attraction to the teens.

Han & Ping : Ab-Beaw

One2Call TVC series

During 2002-2003, it was the promotional war era among leading brands of cell phone service provider in Thailand. I had a chance to direct and create a series of TV commercials for "One2Call", the biggest pre-paid cell phone service provider. It was fun period to think and create such fast and diversity animation to communicate hip and snappy message to the target audience.

The first TVC "Freedom" that I directed in year 2002. It was a single man production project. I did it all from re-thinking according to the Ad-Agency board, develop to be my final storyboard, animatic, look development, model, rigging, animating, lighting, rendering, compositing, and final presentation to client. It was all done with in 3 weeks period. It was fun and challenged myself in every way of my skills. This entire animation was done in LightWave 3D and composited in AfterEffects.

Freedom Free style

Freedom in process

Next TVC "20/20"was made in early 2003. I directed and animated with Aaron another Jr.Animator at that time. It was a two-people-production. The style had change to be 2D looked over 3D structure inside. We had so much fun animated and thought about the continuity and the flow of the whole TVC with out loosing the mean message. We did it in 10 days periods including 3 presentations to client and got final approval. We used Maya and AfterEffects to made this TVC happen.

20/20 with 3D-structure

20/20

This is the sequel animation after "20/20" and Medley. This TVC "More" was made for promote another calling plan of One2Call. We did it again. This time client gave us 14 days of total production time. I directed and also animated this TVC with couple animators at Blu Fairy. The challenge was set up this 3 head character with big belly stomach looked. Here are the setup. We use simple cluster function in Maya to simulated big belly bouncy motion for More.

simple setup for More

Here is the final animation.

These are some animation that I had changes to direct and create. Good to see some development from the first to the last in this series.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Logo Motion Design

During year 1999-2002 I did several Logo motion design for many Thai film production companies. Some still operate some are already closed down. Here are some examples.

I designed and made this logo motion for "Film Bangkok" in year 1999. Under concept of "War of movie" because in year 1999 Thai Film was started to be well known in global market and "Grand and elegant" were used as the mood-tone". I used Thai old style of drama puppet dance called "Nung-Yai" as an execution. Filmed "Nung-Yai" then tele-cined it to digital form then added effects and motion of the logo are process of its production. It was one of the first logo motion I had done for a film company.

I designed and made this logo motion for "Sahamongkol Film International" in year 2000. With concept of "Mystery of Thai Art" and "Grand & Mystery" for mood and tone, I executed it out with thai sculpture on a giant wall plus some mirage effects and motion to the logo. Photshop is my main software to make the whole picture of the giant wall. A little work in 3D software to create the logo look nice and add more dimension then animated and add effects in After Effects was the final process to made it happen. This one is a very distinctive work that I have ever done.

In 2003 Film Hansa was a new Thai film company in a hand of a great thai director. We are so excited to work for him. This logo motion was so much fun to work with. I designed the concept "Spirit of Thai Film" by using the silhouette value of 3 kids from the logo to tell a story with in 15 sec. animation form. Reflection of thai environment in the foreground make us see a bit of environment and get a sense of thai village around the kids. I use mostly 3D animation as a main software then composited them with glow effects to add more dimension to it.

After I finished Sahamongkol Film logo, I had a chance to design this one. Mongkol Major is the subsidiary of Sahamongkol FIlm. It was totally different story from the mother company. The company was new and modern. Packed with fresh and innovative people. So I came up with "Reflected Image" as a concept and also "Sharp and Crystal clear" for mood and tone. It took me only 3 weeks to got it done.

Hope that you can see the thinking processes and how I implement them in to the final works.

Motion Graphics

Hi, in this post I would like to share with you my works from 2004 - 2008 for many clients in Asia.

The following video is the montages of motion graphics works when I worked with Blu Fairy Studio, one of the most well-known CG studios in Thailand. For some works, I worked on the whole process, from conceptual design - visual development - finishing process - and final presentation to the client . For others, I worked as a creative and supervisor.