Post Magazine

C INCINNATI — Lightborne (www.light-borne.com) cre- ated a new spot that promotes the revamped Philly.com, which covers "Anything & Everything Philly." Planet Philly, via Gyro Worldwide, uses animation, rich textures and a color scheme that mirrors the Website's. In the spot, the city of assembles before the viewer's eyes. Animated paper- cutout silhouettes of people fill the streets, along with famous landmarks and icons. Lightborne built and rendered the design elements using After Effects, Cinema 4D, Photoshop, Illustrator, and pen and paper. Chris Abby then applied realistic camera movements and put them into a 3D world. 56 Post • October 2008 www.postmagazine.com N IAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ON — Animation and VFX studio Keyframe Digital Productions (www. keyframe.ca) is co-producing and creating 3D animation for 26 new half-hour episodes of Pinky Dinky Doo, the ani- mated preschool series from Sesame Workshop and Car- toon Pizza. The show, now in its second season, is being directed by Keyframe co-founder Darren Cranford. The 26 episodes will include 52 segments and 104 games. Created by Jim Jinkins of Cartoon Pizza, Pinky Dinky Doo revolves around seven-year-old girl. Pinky makes up stories and words, and is intended to inspires kids to learn the ba- sics of literacy and storytelling. JoEllyn Marlow is the exec- utive in charge of production for Sesame Workshop. Abrams Gentile Entertainment assembled the team and helped manage and execute the launch of the second sea- son. They also took over directing voice work; the sound component of the show is being produced by Highwire Post, which is providing SFX, mixing and voice recording. The music is written and composed by Dan Sawyer. While the first season was produced in Flash, Keyframe was able to maintain the show's look while adding the more fluid feel of 3D. Additional workstations were added and Keyframe technical directors wrote scripting for Autodesk 3DS Max. Compositing is via Autodesk Combustion. PHILLY LOVE PRETTY IN PINKY N EW YORK — Blue Room (www.blue- roomnyc.com) updated the show pack- aging and game-play graphics for Who Wants to be a Millionaire.The show de- buted its new look this fall. Millionaire will showcase several format updates this season, including two new lifelines: "Ask The Expert," via a face-to-face Skype video call, and "Double Dip," which al- lows a contestant to take two guesses on any question. Blue Room updated the entire game play graphic pack- age and integrated a clock concept into the overall graph- ics palette. To update the elements the team used 3D- based geometry and beveled edges. The studio used After Effects CS3, Illustrator CS3 and Photoshop CS3, along with Maya 3D on the project. The team was led by CD Brian Au- mueller and included CEO/EP Chris Gargani; EP Mark Mutschler; senior designer Steve Harper; animators/de- signers Chieh Yien, Jorge Peschiera and Jason Krilovich; and 3D animators Christian Day and Roger An. P O S T I N G S UPDATING MILLIONAIRE B URBANK — VFX house Mechnology (www.mechnology.com) recently wrapped up work on the first season of ABC Family's The Middleman, producing almost 400 vi- sual effects for the series. The show is based on the comic book series and follows a struggling artist, working at a temp agency, who meets The Middleman, played by Matt Keeslar. The duo receive their orders from an android, disguised as a librarian, and battle comic-book like villains who range from a terracotta warrior to a flying Peruvian pike fish. Each episode featured between 20 and 80 effects, and artists have to deliver scenes within five days of receiving plates. One of the more difficult shots came in the season fi- nale, where sidekick Wendy Watson finds herself in an alternate world with run down monorails and giant video displays. The shot runs over :30 and is completely hand held. The monorail and skyscrapers were built in Autodesk 3DS Max, with compositing being handled in Autodesk Combustion and Apple Shake. EFFECTING MIDDLEMAN COURTESY OF VALLEYCREST PRODUCTIONS LTD.

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