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38 Post • June 2014 www.postmagazine.com broadcast gallery Black SailS N EW YORK — The bicoastal Imaginary Forces (www.imaginaryforces.com) created the opening title sequence for Starz's Black Sails series. The show focuses on pirates settling in the West Indies in the 1700s. The 1:30 sequence artfully uses Baroque motifs, Gothic architecture and Rocco style to depict a maverick society that is ultimately doomed. The creative team drew on inspiration from artists such as surrealist sculptor Kris Kuksi and photogra- pher Pablo Genoves, creating detailed CG imagery that represents sailing ships, scrimshaw, carvings and statues. Imaginary Forces used Maya, 3DS Max, Zbrush, V-Ray, Mari, Nuke and Flame on the project. All of the CG was based on storyboard illustrations. FNa C ULVER CITY, CA — Charlie Company (http://charlie co.tv) created the open for CMT's new FNA show, which debuted in April. The one-hour program celebrates all of the things that make America great, and features an ultimate all-American countdown each week. Of course, the open has iconic American imagery: muscle cars, electric guitars, girls in bikinis, monster trucks, fireworks and much more, all presented in an over-the-top fashion, along with a bold 3D logo. Charlie Company used Maxon's Cinema 4D to design and animate elements for the open, as well as for title cards, lower thirds, transitions, mortises and backgrounds. Their work also appears on outdoor billboards for the show. Josiah Taylor, senior animator at Charlie Company, says the Mac-based facility likes the motion graphic-specific tools in Cinema 4D and its tight integration with Adobe's After Effects. BBQ PitmaSterS M IAMI – 2C Media (www.2cmedia.com) created a :30 launch spot for Destination America that promotes Season 5 of BBQ Pitmasters. The series puts teams from Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee against each other in a competition for the ultimate barbecue bragging rights, a $50,000 cash prize from Kingsford Charcoal, and entry into the prestigious Kingsford Invitational Destination America's Chris Grant called on 2C to conceptualize and create the launch spot, which adds a new region- al component and judge (Moe) to its already successful mix. The promo plays up the show's competitive spirit and local nuances. A special-edition director's cut was also created. 2C credits included ECD Chris Sloan, director/CD Brian Eloe, and senior preditor Adam Cronan. Bart Tau served as DP, capturing imagery of the competitors as well as slow-motion footage of match strikes and meat being sliced, seasoned and smoked. According to Cronan, Avid Media Composer 7 on a Mac running Mountain Lion was used for the edit. He has a Black- Magic HD Extreme 3 video card. Tiger Technology's Infotrend is used for storage and the studio has just over 1PB. Carlos Cotte created the graphics using Maxon Cinema 4D. Tracking was performed in Adobe After Effects. BoxeS S EATTLE — PBS's Boxes is a new animated brand spot created in collaboration with design and production studio TheNewBlank (www.thenewblank. com) that takes viewers to worlds beyond our own. At its core, the message is that those worlds were accessible only through the television "box," but today PBS reaches audiences wherever people go: on demand through mobile devices, tablets and online. TheNewBlank wrote the visual story and contin- ued its work through all stages of modeling, anima- tion, compositing and finishing. Boxes originated as a mythical napkin sketch, where a simple line is the proverbial connector. A blend of 3D animated card- board paper dolls and origami, Boxes begins with the line drawing folding and unfolding to take view- ers through time and environments. One of TheNewBlank's executive creative direc- tors, Bobby Hougham, wrote out and designed the various scenes. He sketched out rough camera paths with multiple options for different timings and handed all of this to his 3D lead and team, who used Autodesk Maya due to its rendering speed and the way it handles character rigging and animation. Adobe After Effects was used for compositing, dust particulate (Red Giant's Trapcode Particular 2) was included into the environment. Depth of Field (Frischluft LensCare), vignetting, and lens flares (Video Copilot Optical Flares) were all built to make it feel as though it were an in-studio miniature display.