The Lion's Den

This was an opener for a special on Brisbane's local AFL team 'The Lions'. I think it was broadcast nationally a few months back on the 7 network.

Now, I'm not much of a sports fan and I know absolutely nothing about AFL. Luckily my son started playing footy this year so (being the enthusiastic dad) I've had a crash course on the ins and outs of Australian Rules.

Can't say I'm any closer to understanding it...

The Great....Escapes.

Here's a job I did late last year. It was an opener as well as some graphics for Discovery's 'Animal Planet'. The basic premise was a series of documentary episodes showing mainly security camera footage of different animals making a break for it.

It seemed to have a fairly light-hearted approach at its core so I thought some cute 2D animation might be appropriate.

It was real fun to do. The producers were great to work with. I pretty much created it all in After Effects. Man, AE really is quite a cool tool for doing this sort of 'whacky' 2D animated stuff. I really want to do more of this.

Moreton Region TVCs

A couple of vids from me. Oops, once again, I've been MIA on this blog. The first vid here is one of a number of TVCs my company did for a local council. What was great about this project was that we extensively story boarded the ads knowing that the concept had to pass the approval process of a twelve seat council. Amazingly it all went really well with very little problems. The floating bits of the logo were animated in Lightwave and comped in After Effects.

This was done as an opener to one of the many Corporate DVDs we my company has produced Queensland Rail.

Colorado

More After Effects fun. Basically I as given a bunch of stills of shoes and a one day deadline to produce two TVCs. This was the the result.

Ipswich City Council

This is one of a series of TVCs advertising the virtues of the the city of Ipswich.
They were all completed entirely in After Effects. I do so love that program!!

More Dinosaurs

I've been neglecting this poor old blog lately...oops...Anyway here's a dino animation I cobbled together from bits and pieces for one of the local shows. As always there was no budget. The main sauropod was actually a bit of 2D animation.

GSE 2011

GSE2011 from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

I recently had the privilege of redesigning the look and feel of one of the local television programs we produce here called 'The Great South East'.

The previous look to the show had a very graphical '2D' look. I wanted to try and get away from that and devote more time to the images and textures that are actually out there in our local area. I also wanted the talent to look as good and as larger-than-life as they could.

It was an interesting experiment to pull back the graphics content and just let the images do all the work. While I certainly don't think its perfect, I'm quite proud of this new take on a long running show.

It's funny, some have reacted really positively to it while others have been a little bit shocked by what is a reasonably radical departure from had been done before.

This is one of those rare times when something I have worked on really has engendered a wide variety of responses.

The music on this clip isn't used on the actual weekly show. GSE has its own original scored track. This music is taken from the opening titles to an absolutely brilliant show called 'Boardwalk Empire'. That series title sequence was the original inspiration for me.

RoboDingo!

Robo_dingo from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.
More animated Dingoes (for the company that has a Dingo as its logo). This was based on artwork supplied.

Ruff Graphics part 2

Dingo animated logo from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.


This is the logo for the company I did the previous graphic for. I found some footage of dog walk cycles on the net and took my animation cues from that. I pretty much did the whole thing in After Effects.

Ruff Graphics

old style TV from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

An old style 'movietone news' animation for an intro to a segment in a corporate video.

Life Drawing....again....

A new post...at last...or to put it another way...who cares? Just a couple of life drawing sketches this time around. 

Also an animation I did late last year for the agency handling the Liberals campaign in NSW. Now being the sort of bloke who tends to dress to the left, I was a little hesitant about this project. But I figured Labor in NSW was screwed anyway and it was one of those rare paying gigs

Liberal Party Ad from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

I was proud of my animated flies...basically a sort of 21/2 D solution. They then asked for the maggots, which I felt was 'gilding the lily' somewhat, but I guess they really wanted to ram home the message.

Anyway, despite my early misgivings it actually turned out to be a fun animation to work on.

Summer by the Beach...

Local Show Summer Promo from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

Forgive me Father it has been more than two weeks since my last post.....

A couple of sketches from a comic strip idea I've been working on.  A promo I created for the local shows over the summer. I shot the beach, surf and timelapse clouds on the Canon 550d then comped them all in After Effects.

Wet, wet, wet.

Offshore Superboats Opener from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

Here on the eastern seaboard of Australia it has now rained constantly for over two months. I live in what used to be known as the 'Sunshine State'. Pretty soon we'll all have to start using boats instead of cars to get around.

Ok, that was a really dumb attempt to make this latest post relevant in any way...

I did the graphics for this show over a year ago now. I was happy with the way I intergrated 3D from Maya into After Effects. I love the way you can directly import 3D information from Maya into AE via the .ma file extension. At the time I think I was only just exploring the possibilties, now it's standard practice for me.

Australia's Greatest Theme Parks

Theme Parks Opener from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

 I recently completed the opening titles and graphics package for a special that went to air on the 7 Network. As always my budget was pretty tight, so I had to do something that didn't require lots of fiddly layering. I liked the idea that the credits were themselves a rollercoaster ride. Most of the sequence was rendered in 3D and then tweak in After Effects.

Gallivanting Gourmet

Off the Eaten Track from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

Gallivanting Gourmet was the 'working title' for a while. Hmmmm, seems like forever since I've posted...been busy.

One of the things I have been busy with is creating the graphics for this 'lifestyle/cooking' show. I was inspired by a fellow's animation on Vimeo that was in turn inspired by the work of the great 60s designer Saul Bass. He did a few of the posters for Hitchcock movies (the most notable his work for the film 'Vertigo') as well as some great designs for ad campaigns. I love his stuff in the same way I love Vic Mizzy's sound from that time.

So many people I know seem to think something is inferior if it 'dates' or doesn't speak with the same voice to future generations. While I can certainly understand that point of view, I love the sense of 'flavor' and style from something that truly belongs to its age. It forces you to stop and work a little harder at immersing yourself in a different period of time. That can sometimes become a very rewarding experience, I think.

Anyway, this was pretty much all animated in After Effects. I'm finding I'm doing more animated character stuff in AE, I found this awesome script that lets you set up IK controls inside AE. Bloody brilliant!

Oh, the music was composed/performed by a talented fellow I work with called Pete Christie. He is actually an editor by day, but makes music in his spare time as well as running a music publishing label.

Valley Rattler

Valley Rattler from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.
Out and about with the Canon 550D again. This time our family took a trip on an old steam train that traverses  the hills and valleys surrounding the country town of Gympie. I was impressed by the sheer 'bulk' of the engine. It really had quite a presence.
I think I've mentioned before that I really need some sort of camera stabilisation for the Canon. They don't call  it the 'Valley Rattler' for nothing.
I gave the whole thing a bit of a grade in After Affects.

Toybox

Toybox Opening Credits from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

Starting last week on the Seven Network is a kids television series I worked on called 'Toybox'.

I basically did the opener as well as a few graphics peppered throughout the show.

The concept is a well known one: when the people leave, the toys come to life and play. It's aimed at  a younger audience with an educational perspective to it.

It was great fun to work on. As always, time and money were very tight so I had to be fairly economical with my approach to the opener. Because of the 'green screen' nature of the show the camera had to be 'locked down' for the ease of production. I was determined that I move the camera as much as possible for the opener to give the audience a greater sense of the characters interacting with their environment.
This is the opener with the temp audio track laid in.

Toybox_patch vfx from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

As the 'toys' were performers in suits, there was both a 1:1 scale set and an over sized set built.
Budget constraints meant that only certain 'frequently used' areas could be built in the over sized area. All other locations were achieved with the actors on green screen keyed into the 1:1 set.


Toybox_Tina_vfx from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

Obviously props like giant scale chairs and tables would have cost far too much to build practically, so CG versions were created and the original camera move tracked.

Toybox_Tom_vfx from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

This shot was very difficult to track. I realised after the shoot that I needed WAY more elements in the green screen to help with tracking the shot. Matching perspective also became a challenge. In the end, I think I managed to strike enough of a balance between making the shot believable as well as aesthetically appealing.

When in Rome...

Rome animation from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

 A couple of quick shots establishing the scene for a 'Gladiator'-like sequence for the same company I did the 

'Space Hairdryer' for. Once again, time and money worked against more eleborate set-ups. The first shot uses photos from a huge model located in Italy of ancient Rome. It truly is a remarkable piece of art. I would love to see it 'in the flesh' one day.

No Strings Attached....

GSE_vfx from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.

This was part of a sequence dealing with modern television production. I had next to no time to come up with something (so what's new). I wish I could get a few more 'vfx' type gigs. They're good fun and break up the monotony of the daily grind doing 'flying-logos'.

Weird, Whacky and er...Whacky

Weekender Special Opener from Pete Mullins on Vimeo.
This was done for a special 'Queensland Weekender' (one of the lifestyle programs made by my company). The program featured 'colourful' characters and events. It had to be turned around fairly quickly, so I didn't have much time to add too many elements.
I used Maya and After effects.