Joe's Works: September 2009

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.