Flavor Opens Half Rez Event with Puppet Madness

The Half Rez motion design event returned live to Chicago this year with a packed house and this opening from the team at Flavor who slammed together 2D, 3D, AI, VR, and mo-capped puppets into a mad visual rampage.

Flavor ECD Brian McCauley: “Collectively, we all appreciate Half Rez as a fun opportunity to share your creative voice, and we noticed that the logo has a speech bubble design. Since ACD Brad Backofen has been experimenting with motion capture hand puppets in C4D, a puppet finding his creative voice felt like a great place to start.

Brad Backofen: “We had an idea for how to animate CG puppets using a very simple but effective method of motion capture, which let us just shoot a performer’s hand doing the movements and lip flaps of a puppet.

“We then tracked those performances and applied the data to our custom puppet rigs, and with only some minor adjustments, we had lifelike puppet animation in 3D.”
 
Half Rez opening sequence Chicago Flavor | STASH MAGAZINE

Half Rez opening sequence Chicago Flavor | STASH MAGAZINE

Half Rez opening sequence Chicago Flavor | STASH MAGAZINE

Half Rez opening sequence Chicago Flavor | STASH MAGAZINE

Half Rez opening sequence Chicago Flavor | STASH MAGAZINE
 
Client: Half Rez
Planning Board: Chris Schmidt, Amador Valenzuela, Brad Chmielewski, Gavin Morrissey, Miqui Crespo, Michael Kislovsky

Production: Flavor
Creative Director: Brian McCauley
Associate Creative Directors: Brad Backofen, Mack Neaton, & Colby Capes
Executive Producer: Kate Smith
Managing Director: Neal Cohen
CG Supervisor: Brad Backofen
Art Director: Mack Neaton
2D Animation Supervisor: Colby Capes
Storyboards: Danielle Otrakji
3D Artist: Brad Backofen, Brian McCauley, Ryan Bechtel, Emily Berveiler, JC Tecklenburg, Krzys Pianko, Dan Tiffany
2D Artist: Colby Capes, Sam Stucky, Keith Slawinski, Torey Kervick, Aaron Fisher, Sierra Lee, Marly Koven, Jesse Willis

Live-Action Production: Dictionary Films
Director/DP: Brian Broeckelman
Technical Director: Adam Kohr
Puppets: Liz Backofen

Sound Design/Mix: Another Country
Managing Director: Tim Konn
Senior Producer: Louise Rider
Sound Designer/Mixer Jordan Stalling
Assistant Audio Engineers: Cathryn Stark, Brett Rossiter