UNDERBELLY:SQUIZZY (TV Series)

Chronicling the rise and fall of one of Australia's most notorious criminals, 'Squizzy' sees the Underbelly franchise make a welcome return to Melbourne, taking advantage of the cities unique period style locations and experienced crews.

We are also retuning to provide a huge range of digital VFX and production solutions across the series.

With many challenging period productions already in the can (Cloudstreet, Miss Fisher, Dangerous Remedy, Dr.Blake, Howzat and Hansom Cab), the team at Chroma were a perfect fit for the challenges and expectations required for Underbelly, bringing our production-streamlining post solutions to all departments. The production leaned heavily on green screen, CG integration and digital augmentation to create its expansive locations and set pieces while reducing cost and complexity across a range of departments.

As always, we are also producing the opening titles, now on it's ninth iteration, although a different approach this time around.

Underbelly: Squizzy hits the Nine Network in 2013.

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!

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

DEAD GORGEOUS (TV Series)

Produced by Burberry Entertainment on behalf of both the ABC and the BBC, Dead Gorgeous is a beautifully produced tale of three sisters from the 1800's who return to the modern-day land of the living.

We have been commissioned to produce the opening titles for the show. This takes the shape of a 'pop-up book' style journey through the girls old house, which has now become a bustling school campus. 

To give the titles a unique look we used a technique called 'photogrammetry', a process where many high-resolution photos are taken of the physical locations and then the resulting images are cut, warped and arranged together in such a way that they can form a 3D 'set' that can be navigated through. Alternate versions of the title were produced for each block in the series. 

Dead Gorgeous is set to air early in 2010 on ABC, BBC and Nickelodeon.

Check out the titles here

CHROMA@WORLD EXPO 2010 (Visuals)

Back in 2005 we were involved in creating the 'DataForest', a 12-minute, 80-screen, totemic video installation for the Australian Pavillion at the World Expo in Japan. 

We are pleased to announce that we are again commissioned, by ThinkOTS Worldwide to produce another cutting-edge installation at next year's World Expo in Shanghai in 2010. I've been engaged as senior creative director alongside Pete Ford, Dave White and Alistar Flemming, tasked with designing and producing the content for 'Act2' - a massive, moving video installation in a 360˚ theatre.

Check out some early glimpses of the building and regular updates on Expo2010 HERE.

BED OF ROSES (TV Series)

Bed of Roses is a bitter sweet drama staring Kerry Armstrong that's coming to the ABC later this year.

We've worked with Ruby Productions (Stephen Luby & Mark Ruse) before on Let Loose Live and a few other projects over the years, but when asked to design the opening titles for 'Bed of Roses', it required something a little softer and more feminine than what we have done in the past. It's great to be working with the guys again and, vicariously, with Kerry who we worked with on One Perfect Day.

Produced entirely using illustrated elements placed in a 3D environment, the idea was to create a single move through a soft and feminine landscape akin to a living Chinese printed fabric - it contains a lot of subtle visual clues that tie in with the core themes of the show, using the simple device of thorns (that look like Chinese dragons) evolving into a sea of roses - creating the notion of personal growth, the strength of family and the positive changes that can result from tragedy and displacement. 

The palette is very muted and was effected to create a slightly dirty quality to the soft visuals, this is also reflected in the typography and main title card which are done in a rustic treatment to better connect with the riches-to-rags narrative and prevent the whole thing from looking too 'girly'.

It was also fun to do as it's rare and refreshing for a drama on Australian television to not contain images of the cast or locale (or the dreaded 'montage of footage'). It shows confidence and shifts the audience's perceptions of production value - presenting a more international, mature style. So props to the guys at Ruby and the ABC.

The hi-def titles are now complete and perfectly complement Niko Schnable's beautifully reworked version of 'Bed of Nails'.

NEWSTOPIA (TV Series)

Produced by Fremantle Media, Newstopia is a news-style parody staring Australian comedy legend, Shaun Micallef. We're big fans of Shaun's work and its been a pleasure to work with him on his new show which is currently airing on SBS.

Chroma designed and produced the opening titles, involving (or is that revolving) a shoot with Shaun in studio which saw him spinning around on a turntable all afternoon. Shaun was later composited rotating around the Earth, a guardian of the World's news and current affairs.

News programs always feature a huge graphics package and Newstopia is no different. We wanted to give the show the same flair and packaging you would find on a primetime network. Given the incredibly tight turnaround and sheer amount of content that needed to be produced, it all came together quite well ... especially considering all of the support graphics, parody TVC's and fake SBS promos we put together for use throughout the series.

We have gone on to produce a wide range of visual effects shots and animation from week-to-week, including a 'second life' John Howard and more recently 'The Guilford Four' where a car parked in the background explodes (digitally) to great effect!

You can watch the latest episode here. 

Jahasra and goodnight!

CITY HOMICIDE (TV Series)

City Homicide is a new police drama produced by Seven which aired earlier this year.

Chroma was brought in to provided a wide range of production solutions with the sole aim of delivering high-end visuals, stunts and effects for the limited budget and tight schedule. Chroma's Scott Zero worked as VFX Supervisor on the first six episodes and worked closely with series Directors, DOP (Craig Barden), Stunt coordinators (Zev - True Grit) and practical effects (Brian - FilmFX) to create several high-end effects sequences far exceeding the shows budget.

Some VFX shots included:

• A huge sequence inside a burning house where two children and trapped by an arsonist, to be later saved by the City Homicide team. The sequence involved a massive practical 'burnable' set (built and overseen by Brian Holmes) rigged with practical flame rigs, smoke machines and removable walls. Due to the tight confines of the rooms and the safety issue with actors and children in a burning set, the practical flames were later augmented with digital flames. 3D tracking was used to add huge flames, digital sparks, smoke and heat convection to the 6 minute sequence.

• A 'one-shot' scene where an actor strolls into traffic and is struck by multiple vehicles to the shock of onlookers. Created using multiple plates and a separate jerk-harness rig shot against green screen, acquisition took only an hour yet delivered a visceral an unexpected shock to viewers as the wide angle and hand-held camera give no clues as to what is going to happen.

• An in-vehicle car accident which involved a studio shoot combining a practical car, body drop rig and rain machine with HD rear projection featuring VFX content created to convey the convincing illusion of the car hitting multiple objects and spinning out of control. The final shot creates a claustrophobic, dramatic accident scene from two separate angles for a fraction of the cost of a location/low loader style shoot and the entire effect was produced in camera with no post required.

• Several exterior views of a commercial airliner in mid-flight created to match the interior set. This high-poly model was created with custom livery and featured volumetric clouds. The final shots were rendered at 4k and pulled down to 1080 to give it the clarity of high altitude footage.

ARIGATO EVENT, JAPAN (Visuals)

After a huge year at the 2005 World Expo in Japan, the 'top three' rated Australian Pavilion has just claimed a Silver Medal for its efforts.

To commemorate its success and as a thank you to our Japanese hosts, a huge concert was staged in the massive Expo Dome that saw a diverse range of Australian acts performing in front of a huge live crowd. Featuring popular Australian artists, Amiel and Christine Anu alongside Tetrafide, ARC, Saffire and the Nagoya Children's Choir the event was hugely successful.

Chroma was commissioned by Jack Morton Worldwide to provide a unique visual show for each of the 5 acts, presented on a huge Komaden LED screen that dominated the stage. All content was created specifically for the event (in NTSC) with Scott Zero travelling to Nagoya to perform the visuals live on stage.

LET LOOSE LIVE (TV Series)

Featuring some of Australia's best known comedians and produced by the same team that brought you Fast Forward, Seven's new late night comedy series "Let Loose LIVE" is performed live in front of a studio audience and features opening titles, bumpers and program inserts produced by Chroma.

In addition to the broadcast identification and brand development, Chroma were also responsible for the creation of physical set pieces, neon signage and graphic panels to create an integrated visual packaging for the show that shares elements of the opening titles.

Due to the very short time line, specific program features and sheer size of the featured cast, a concept was developed that conveyed all of the requested show features while still retaining a late night feel and comedy flavor.

Working closely with director Ted Emery and the shows producers, production designers and composer, Yuri Worontshak - Chroma's understanding and experience of broadcast television resulted in a smooth, flawless delivery of, not only the titles and post production components, but of signage, set pieces, graphic panels and even crew apparel.

A studio shoot was organized , where the 12 cast members were shot against a green-screen key in two takes to create the 'big head' characters. Work on the 3D set and the cartoon backgrounds began as soon as boards had been approved, working ahead of the acquisition.

Overall, the completed opening titles were delivered with the various breakers, bumpers and program inserts along with the physical set deliverables in only 2 weeks from brief.

Famously, the show was cancelled after only 2 episodes... that's gotta be a record!

WORLD EXPO 2005, JAPAN (Visuals)

After a years work, the think!OTS team have successfully completed construction of the Australian Pavilion in Aichi, Japan.

The project was quickly hailed as Australia's most innovative and crowd pleasing pavilion yet, with Prime Minister John Howard praising it as the best yet.

The centre-piece for the pavilion, the Data Forest, was developed as a huge, high-resolution 'forest' of vertical video totems made up of over 80 plasma panels. These totems presented a digitally driven, tesselated show where the 80 screens overlap and fragment to create huge, three dimensional imagery. These animations were produced as massive 'superbitmaps', or single completed scenes that were then diced up into the 80 separate feeds, resulting in a 360 degree display, far exceeding the HD format or even iMAX film with a total resolution of 36 Megapixels running at 25 fps - making it the world's largest single moving image to date.

The final act also required character animation of the official mascot (originally designed by Nathan Jurevicus) to appear in various projected videos.

I was commissioned by think!OTS in late 2004 to produce the animated content for all three acts of the Australian pavilion. Working alongside fellow creators David White and Martin Buchhorn, the Data Forest team were also involved in the development of the overall concept which included all acquisition and creation of hundreds of original design and animation components. Operating as a separate unit out of Chroma's Sandilands office the team worked tirelessly to produce the 13 minute presentation, making use of 3D visualization tools and a scaled-down 'Mini Totem' to present work to the client in this unique vertical format.

The project was completed on budget and schedule in December of 2004.

THE SECRET LIFE OF US (TV Series)

After two stellar seasons of the hit Australian drama, The Secret Life of Us, Southern Star commissioned Chroma to update the shows existing HD opening and closing titles. Director Matthew Saville worked closely with Chroma to deliver the carefully crafted visuals.

Matt shot the source footage around St.Kilda on a hand-held Bolex 16mm camera. The optically graded film was transfered to HD before compositing began. As the treatment of the titles still needed a strong connection to the original version, the box-out style was kept with attention being paid to the treatment of the imagery. This resulted in a more deconstructive approach with a faster pace than the original, complementing the new title track by Motor Ace.

Chroma went on to produce a series of visual effects for the shows final episodes which required stylish, on-screen incarnations of SMS and email messages between the characters. Added to this were several complex montage sequences and post support for the final episodes.

ROY HOLLSDOTTER LIVE (Tele Movie)

Matthew Saville's 2003 film ' Roy Hollsdotter Live' surprised audiences with its strong performances and clever writing.

Having worked with director, Matthew Saville for many years on a range of projects, Chroma were brought in to produce a variety of effects for his first full-length feature. Work required compositing and creation of several digital mattes, addition of various visual effects and production of the opening titles. Chroma also produced the 'Claire De Loon' sequence that features in the film, with footage shot and post completed overnight.

A simple titles treatment was produced along with the regrading and effecting of several key scenes throughout the film. Various visual themes, such as lens flares and subtle effecting of background elements were added throughout and several digital mattes were produced to transform a midday exterior scene into a late afternoon thunderstorm.

To assist with the film's hectic shooting schedule, Chroma were also employed to create the 'Claire de Loon' musical sequence which required the acquisition of night-time traffic footage and a composited edit where the lights begin to dance to the Debussy track. The sequence was shot and posted overnight to meet the tight production schedule.

The film was well received by audiences, picking up a Dendy award, an ACS Golden Tripod and an official selection at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2003.

BOOTLEG (TV Series)

Chroma have just been brought in to produce the opening titles for the upcoming BBC childrens drama, 'Bootleg'.

Set in an alternate future, chocolate is banned and a band of kids take matters into their own hands.

The title features huge vats of melted chocolate about to take their final form with titles appearing before being stirred in to the mix. Directed by Matthew Saville. Chroma also produced a ‘One News’ opener that appears during the series.