Toronto

A Stereoscopic Look Inside the Mind of Leonardo da Vinci.

iamstatic released the trailer for their upcoming feature length documentary Inside the Mind of Leonardo last week, and based on the look of the trailer, this is going to be something worth going to see in the theater.

Created over an 8 month period of time the film is about the threads of thought and working processes of genius inventor and artist Leonardo Da Vinci. Based on pages of handwritten notes and drawings the 30 minute documentary is a stereo 3D animation that transports the audience into Leonardo’s thoughts and ambitions. Director Julian Jones, and a masterful crew from iamstatic and Township & Company have created something that I can’t wait to catch in the theater later this year.

Woodland Park Zoo Gets Crushed.

Here’s a little Tuesday inspiration. Toronto studio Crush via creative agency Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener, Seattle have created a really nice animated spot for the Woodland Park Zoo.

Designer Jullian Ablaza and children’s book illustrator Ashley Barron created the stylized look of the animals. Once the animals were created, Ablaza designed the simple environments to compliment the animals as the film flowed from scene to scene. The animation was built by senior designer and animator Yoho Hang Yue in a single After Effects project helping to keep everything streamlined and reduce costs. The result is beautiful, fun, and entertaining.

“We wanted a very tactile feel, which we would have done in camera if the budget and timeline allowed,” said Gary Thomas, Creative Director, Crush. “The end result was very close to that and allowed for a lot of flexibility. The creative team at Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener were a dream to work with. They were totally on the same page and brought great insight to the work. We are incredibly pleased with the final result.”

The Audi quattro® Experience, Interactive Installation.

OK this is the kind of interactive advertising/marketing that I love. It’s more than just digital. It has a physical component that is tied to an iPad app, and website.

Audi built a one of a kind experiential event that was tied directly to an integrated campaign that allowed participants to drive 1/32 scale custom fabricated Audi slot cars on a 140 square foot hand built track. The track was placed in the heart of Toronto’s financial district where participants could use the world’s first iPad slot car controller that featured live in car camera feeds giving participants the feel of being inside the slot car itself. What a great idea. I hope Audi takes this on a tour of North American cities because I want to play.

Sound of Vision.

In the last 5 years film making has undergone a revolution. Camera technologies have improved. Editing and compositing software has gotten so good and so easy to use that anyone with a good eye and design sensibility can produce a pretty solid film with a digital camera, and a laptop. This is something that would have been really hard to do a few years back. I’m not saying that everyone can do this. There is plenty of junk on the internet, but when the right tools are in the right hands, magic happens.

A great example of this is from Konstantin Syomin and “20Coop”. Their documentary film, “Sound of Vision” was shot entirely on a Panasonic GH2 micro four-thirds camera. The film won the International Documentary Challenge in Toronto. I tried to embed the video below but couldn’t instead click on the image below to be taken to the film page. Here you can see this wonderful film, plus the rest of the finalist.

The film won

— Best Film
— PBS’ POV award
— Best cinematography
— Best editing
— Best use of Genre