Forever Welcomes Builders Club to Collective Launched by FutureDeluxe and Tendril
April 25, 2024
MPC NY Ups Brukman and De Biaggi
MPC bolsters the management ranks in the NY office promoting Justin Brukman to managing director and Camila De Biaggi to executive producer. [Watch]
Smith & Foulkes: “It’s Payback Time, Cancer”
Nexus directors Smith & Foulkes brew up two-minutes of apocalyptic fun for a serious cause in this broadcast and cinema spot boosting awareness for Stand Up To Cancer, the partnership between Channel 4 and Cancer Research UK, billed as a ‘killer night of fundraising.’
Smith & Foulkes: “The initial brief was to turn the table on cancer, depicting the disease as a civilization spreading aggressively – unable to prevent its own Armageddon in the style of a disaster movie.
“The main challenge was how to visualize the cancer cells. We wanted to steer away from the obvious route of showing cells as a bunch of grotesque alien germs, but we were also acutely aware of not making them too human or cute.”
“We also had to find a way to illustrate the new therapies, drugs and scientific breakthroughs that are fighting Cancer. We wanted their arrival to be initially magical and mysterious. so we used a glowing blue orb, an unexplained light descending upon a shadowy world.
“Disaster Movies rely heavily on vast visual spectacle and a cast of thousands, so working within our time constraints we decided to recreate this using 2D matt paintings to show a sense of the city without having to model every building.
“This gave it an illustrative and richly textured feel. Modeling and animating our cast in 3D gave us the flexibility of performance we wanted, and made them stand out from their environment.” [Watch]
MPC: Money Supermarket “Elephunk” Behind the Scenes
MPC say they channeled Samuel L Jackson, John Travolta, Michael Jackson and Beyoncé to choreograph the moves of a funky 15-foot African bull elephant strutting the streets of Vancouver for Money Supermarket thru Mother.
MPC 3D Supervisor Fabian Frank: “The biggest challenge was creating an elephant that could pull out the moves with the best of them, yet was also believable and true to life. We solved this by ensuring his dance moves stayed within the realms of what a real elephant could do.”
“The second challenge came with integrating the elephant into the shot footage. Matching the interaction between Graeme and the elephant were key, so Graeme was tracked and rotoscoped back into the shots – using select takes to perfectly match the elephants walk cycle.”
Watch the VFX Breakdown and the finished spot below:
Agency: Mother
Production Company: Smuggler
Director: Guy Shelmerdine [Watch]
Zak Thornborough Joins MPC Creative US
MPC Creative, the content production division of MPC, gears up in the US with the addition of EP Zak Thornborough who arrives after co-founding prodco BREED and serving time at The Ebeling Group and Digital Domain. [Watch]
Juan Cabral and MPC: IKEA “BED”
A solid idea from Mother London and bang-on execution from MJZ director Juan Cabral and a crew of 15 MPC VFX artists keeps IKEA’s ‘The Wonderful Everyday’ campaign going with this very-watchable spot which gains even more altitude via Prunella Scales’ reading from “The Tempest.” The MPC team, led by [Watch]
Jake Mengers Joins Passion
London’s Passion continues to expand their commercial, gaming and music video roster with the addition of director/VFX veteran Jake Mengers (former CD, Advertising at MPC London) for representation in the UK, Europe and the USA. [Watch]
