Tuesday, December 14, 2010

RUSH WINS BEST DRAMA SERIES FOR 2010 (News)



After three successful series, Rush has finally picked up an AFI for BEST TELEVISION DRAMA SERIES for 2010!

This follows news of the show returning for a fourth series in 2011 with a more focused 13-episode series. It's great to see the show get some recognition for bringing high-end action to Aussie screens every week. We had a blast helping to put together many of the vehicle, stunt and action sequences and next years series looks to be the best yet!

RUSH returns to TEN mid-2011.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

OFFSPRING (TV Series)



From the same team that brought the excellent 'Love my way' to screens a few years back, Offspring's kooky mix of comedy and drama features a huge amount of surreal moments and unexpected shifts in reality for it's main character, Nina (Asher Keddie). We have been flat-out producing visual effects for the entire series, covering a huge range of techniques, applications and stylistic approaches. Each episode brings some weird and wonderful requests which are a lot of fun to put together.

Like Southern Star's RUSH, we are providing VFX supervision and production for the scripted effects, but also play an important role in reducing day-to-day costs, safety and logistical issues for other departments by providing costs effective post solutions to traditionally practical problems.

Offspring is airing on TEN as we speak - Check it out!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

UNDERBELLY: FILES (Telemovie)



The runaway success of the Underbelly series has recently spawned a new series of telemovie spin-offs coming to screens later this year. The Screentime produced project will continue the tradition of gritty underworld crime drama - based on real events, but with shooting moved back to Melbourne as with the first series.

Having designed the original branding and titles for the first 3 seasons, Chroma are returning to create the titles and broadcast packaging for the three 'Files' movies. Although still in the Underbelly style, the new titles will present a more stylish direction, with a more mature edge to its visuals.

As with previous series, we are also creating several VFX sequences for 'Files' including aircraft, set extention and stunt work for the three movies. 'Files' is currently in production, look out for it on the Nine Network later this year!


Tuesday, August 10, 2010

CLOUDSTREET (Mini Series)




Matthew Saville's TV adaption of the classic Tim Winston novel 'Cloudstreet' is currently in production and we have been commissioned to produce the visual effects for the 6 hour mini series. Due to the novels high use of surrealistic sequences and period settings, Cloudstreet's effects fall between highly-stylised dreamy visuals and ultra-real CG work, transforming the west Australian locations into believable 1940's incarnations.

Rushes look amazing and we have already begun on asset creation and previs for the many effects throughout the series, including an aircraft sequence featuring a beautifully recreated CG model of the 'Catalina' Flying boat, a steam train and more to follow in the coming weeks.

Cloudstreet will be coming to Showtime later this year!

UPDATE: We got nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 2011 AFI Awards!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

WILD LIFE (TV Series)



We just finished production on the opening titles for December films latest production, Wild Life.

This realty-based series follows the daily lives of Chris Humfrey and his family who live in a chaotic private zoo in rural Victoria. The purpose shot titles feature an 'animal diary' filled with animals literally coming off the page. Branding and various other on-air graphics were also created for the show.

Wild Life is due to air on ABC (and ITV in the UK) later in the year.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

'LOVE THE FALL' (Music Video)



We just finished post production on the new Michael Paynter/Veronicas clip 'Love the Fall' for Sony.

Shot in LA on the RED ONE, the clip follows Michael's pursuit of the girls through a storybook-style forest. Aside from taking on the 2k edit and grading, we also produced several high-end VFX shots of the 'living dress' that one of the girls wears. The brief called for a high-end look but with a dirty finish, requiring advanced skin smoothing, grading and film treatments.

Check out the clip HERE!


Tuesday, May 25, 2010

RUSH S3 (TV Series)



Southern Star's hit police drama returns for a third series in 2010. With some new faces, new stories and even more action, the Rush formula continues to excite with several high action stunt sequences and effects already in production.

Rush is continuing its tradition of utilising high-end CG animation and VFX techniques to add a whole new dimension to Australian drama, something usually only reserved for feature films with massive budgets. As with series 1 & 2, we will be producing all of the shows visual effects and working closely with the stunt and camera departments to create some truly breath-taking sequences. Series three will also be accompanied by an exhaustive 'Behind the scenes' site where we will be covering some of the bigger shots produced for the series.

The current promo for the show features a few shots from the 'airliner' sequence we just produced, check it out here!

Friday, April 30, 2010

BED OF ROSES RETURNS IN 2010 (TV Series)


ABC favourite, Bed of Roses returns for a third series this year!
And we are back too, with a revision to our opening original titles and some VFX throughout the series. Can't say what we are doing yet (spoilers!), but its pretty epic - more news as we get it.

Bed of Roses S3 can be found on ABC later this year.



Sunday, April 4, 2010

WORLD EXPO 2010, SHANGHAI OPENS (Visuals)




After two years of production, the Australian pavilion at World Expo in Shanghai is now complete, opening to the public on the 1st of May.

Designed and produced by ThinkOTS!, the pavilion is a massive purpose built venue that dominates the Shanghai site. It has already enjoyed a lot of media attention, placed in the top 5 pavilions to visit and even received an early visit from China's President. Chroma were commissioned by ThinkOTS! to provide the overall broadcast design and create all of the animation for the projection content, producing both the 'ANZ Theatre' and 'Sisters' exhibits.

The 'ANZ Theatre' is the centrepiece exhibit of the whole pavilion experience, comprising of a massive rotating screen system situated in the centre of a 1,000 person ampitheatre. On the outside, it employs a 6k 1:1 tracked projection surface presenting the main show - on the inside, 3 huge LED arrays create animated backgrounds for the set pieces.

Using 7 Christie projectors and 3 LED arrays, the 10 minute show presents three animated children as they discuss the concept of the Expo's over-arching theme, "Better city, Better life". As the screens rotate around large practical sculptures (that change as the show progresses via a lift system), as the viewpoint of the animation changes to match the angle of each viewer's position in the room. This involved a long and complex process of prototyping and testing the optical effect created by the rotating, bi-secting canvas.

Between these animated character sections, the screen system reconfigures where it presents other animated sections and image sequences filmed exclusively for the show in 8K anamorphic on RED cameras. This footage was graded in-house to create some of the most stunning and high resolution pictures ever shot in Australia.

We also designed the content for the 'Happy Tubes' lighting system. This massive circular array of over 300 LED video tubes presents animated graphics with the appearance of a lighting rig, synchronised with the central show. This works in tandem with Phil Lethlean's main lighting design of the hero sculptures and the various video and animated content.

Our 'kids' (Blue, Tom and Kate) create the narrative for the whole show, appearing in three different sections covering various aspects of the 'Better City, Better Life' theme. The animation presented a huge challenge as not only are three separate characters performing and talking (in Mandarin no less!) in 360 degrees, but are also visible from all angles at all times with lots of interaction between the characters, props and environments.

The character designs, CG modelling and lighting were created by Harsh Borah (HarshCG) with Robert Dowling (PixelPickel) taking on the rigging and animation of the three characters for the whole show. All of the 'kids' sections were created in Maya.

'Sisters' is an hour-long, super resolution projection show presented on a large curved 'wave' screen, set into the entry ramp of the pavilion. Fed by four rear-projectors, the show features the success stories of 20 Australian and Chinese women making their mark in business, environment, finance, politics and culture. The entire program was shot in 2k on RED and sliced into 20 separate 'diamond' screens that join to form a lush, super screen show. The animation and broadcast design for Sisters was created by Stuart Elith at Chroma. The program was so well received that a shorter, 'sizzle' version was produced soon after for events and special visitors.

Both exhibits projection tracking and media delivery was handled by Florian Mosleh from Coolux. The ANZ Theatre in particular was a huge challenge, requiring complex 3D tracking and warping of the rotating, vertically travelling 'pillar' screens. The content was produced at a native 6k resolution with the projection mapping done in real time.

The project was an immense creative and technical challenge, involving the balancing of many technical and creative elements. It was delivered on time and budget, surpassing our clients expectations and receiving glowing reviews from visitors.

Shanghai 2010 is the largest World Expo in history, expecting to attract over 8 million visitors during the year.

It's an honour representing our country once again (Japan 2005) and working with the ThinkOTS! crew on such a massive project. The Expo event continues until the end of the year.

UPDATE: Well, that was quick! Expo 2010 is now closed and we are pleased to announce that the Australian pavilion placed in the top 5 overall with a 95% satisfaction rating from over 8 million visitors - bested only by China own pavillion! It was Australia's biggest presence at any Expo to date and also the most successful.

UPDATE: Won 2011 AVIA Award for Best install over $1M and Best Audio Visual Production


Thursday, March 25, 2010

TANGLE S2 (TV Series)




Tangle was a huge hit for Southern Star last year and it's now returning for a second series in 2010. We produced several VFX and stunt shots for the first series and we're back again for series two, with several shots already underway.


Monday, January 11, 2010

CES 2010 LAS VEGAS (Visuals)



The new year saw us heading over to Las Vegas for the 2010 CES to produce a presentation for US chip giant, Qualcomm.

Working with Think!OTS and a great local team of animators and crew, we produced an hour-long animated presentation that combined 4k motion graphics, 3D and real-time elements to create a pretty cool looking keynote. The whole project was produced on site over four days and the result was thrown up onto 3 huge screens (4K over 5 projectors) via a Coolux system operated by Florian Mosleh. The result was a big hit with the client, including producer Pete! Ford going on to write their 'My Generation' SuperBowl spot this year.