Table of Contents Show
Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 16, 2015. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
And these are the lucky animago winners this year!
Best Advertising Production
“Lycra Moves You”
by Glassworks London
Glassworks was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in London. Glassworks worked with advertising agency SapientNitro and production company Independent Films to create the advert, in which CG fabric weaves its way through the scenery and the dancer’s everyday life in a perfect drape that follows her movements, for their client Lycra. The final CG elements of the film required very precise and lengthy advance planning of the shoot and integration into the original plates. They were created using Softimage, Flame and Nuke, among others.
Here is the making-of of the clip:
Special prize of the jury
“Cosmos Laundromat”
from the Blender Foundation
The current Blender Foundation project has won the race in this category! The jury found that “Cosmos Laundromat” delivered such a high level of quality – both narratively and visually – that this must be honoured. The entire animated film was created using open source software. Following the release of the first part, other international teams will now be working on the continuation of the story, so that after a few years there will be a complete feature film that was created exclusively with Blender. And that’s a good thing, because there are many cliffhangers at the end of “First Cycles”: Who is Victor, what is he trying to achieve with his “Cosmos Laundromat” project? What will happen to Franck now? We are very excited to see what happens next!
All further information – such as how you can continue to support the team, where you can download the material and much more – can be found on the Gooseberry project website.
Best newcomer production
Les Liens de Sang (Blood Ties)
by Manon Lazzari, Sophie Kavouridis, Marion Louw, Thomas Ricquier, Simon Pannetrat from the Ecole Georges Méliès
The student team from the French Georges Méliès University received the award for the best young talent project, including the cheque for 3,000 euros donated by DP. The team was naturally delighted. This year, in addition to the visually impressive result, the animago jury was also impressed by the courageously chosen theme of the animated short film: Using methaphoric CG art images, “Blood Ties” tells the family story and dream-thoughts journey of a young girl who is abused by a family member. The film was created using Maya, ZBrush, Mari, Nuke, After Effects and V-Ray, among others.
Best Visualisation
“Ambition”
from Platige Image
There’s no question that space travel is extremely fascinating – even for the animago jury. Platige Image took on the great challenge of visualising the Rosetta mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) in a VFX short film in order to arouse interest in the elaborate mission, which has been planned for over 20 years. Platige realised the CG elements of the film, such as the Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet and the nanobots, using current data from space and under the scientific guidance of the ESA. At peak times, 30 VFX artists worked on the project; in total, the team completed the film “Ambition” in six months. The film was directed by Tomek Bagiński from Platige and stars Aidan Gillen from “Game of Thrones” and the actress Aisling Franciosi from the TV series “The Fall”.
Best Still
“On the Tramp”
by Manuel Peter
This animago AWARD was not presented by the jury, but by DP readers and the Facebook fans of DP and animago! In the online voting, most people voted in favour of the turtle still by the student from Ansbach University of Applied Sciences. And open source software was also responsible for the result of this image: Manuel Peter created “On the Tramp” exclusively with Blender. You can find the detailed making-of of the still, as well as the other winning projects, in the current animago special issue 2015, which was published yesterday.
Best Postproduction
“Sundays”
by PostPanic Pictures from Amsterdam
The Amsterdam-based studio PostPanic Pictures has been working in the industry for 18 years, but until now mainly for commercials. With the short film “Sundays”, the team took its first big step into the feature film sector, which was a complete success: “Sundays” will soon be realised as a feature-length film with Hollywood support. The team financed the shoot in Mexico City via crowdfunding, while the VFX work was realised by PostPanic Pictures with the support of a network of international artists who worked on the project free of charge. This resulted in over 100 VFX shots for the 15-minute short film. Glassworks Amsterdam also helped out with the editing of the large CG final scene.
https://vimeo.com/postpanic/sundays
Best short film
“None of That”
by Isabela Littger, Anna Hinds Paddock, Kriti Kaur from Ringling College of Art & Design
The topic of “censorship” affects every artist at some point in their career. It influences artistic freedom in projects sometimes more, sometimes less. The three students from Ringling College of Art & Design tackled this topic in “None of That” without pointing a finger. A museum guard on his nightly tour encounters a nun who moves around ninja-style and censors the naked statues. Stopping her requires the guard to use his full physical strength … The team worked on the film for 1.5 years, using ZBrush, Maya, 3DCoat, Nuke and Renderman, among others.
Best Trailer/Opener
“The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” Launch Cinematic
from Digic Pictures
In the launch cinematic by Digic Pictures, the “Witcher” Geralt of Riva roams through a Nordic kingdom on the hunt for monsters. A red-haired beauty he meets turns into a vampire monster, who is not at all friendly towards Geralt. Digic Pictures from Budapest/Hungary is an old animago acquaintance: This is the seventh animago trophy for the studio, which specialises in full 3D animation, VFX for feature films, commercials and the video game industry. The team created the extremely elaborate trailer using Maya, ZBrush, BodyPaint, Modo, Mari, Nuke, Houdini, Final Cut Pro and the in-house software dProject.
Best Character
“Escargore”
by Oliver Hilbert from the Media Design School New Zealand
Oh mon Dieu! You just want to go out for a nice bite to eat with your friends, unfortunately choose the wrong restaurant and then rush for your life in a completely inelegant manner! That’s what happens to snail friends Claude, Shelly, Corky, Sheldon and Bruno in the animated short film “Escargore”. These slimy CG companions in the rarely chosen genre of “snail horror comedy” made the animago jury laugh a lot and impressed them with their first-class CG character design. The film was created as a bachelor’s degree project at the Media Design School in around 4 months with 22 artists. The team used Maya, Houdini, Mari, Nuke, Premiere, After Effects and V-Ray as tools.
The animago winners for 2015 have now been announced. We would like to congratulate all the winners. Entries for the animago 2016 can be submitted directly after the animago – and this will be a very special event, as the DP is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the event! Be there, all further information here: www.animago.com
Here you can order the current animago special edition 2015 with all the making-ofs of the winners, information on all the nominees and lots of backstage information on the animago AWARD & CONFERENCE.
