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Exposing Visual Creativity
IGNYTE 1
Exposing Visual Creativity
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I recently flicked through your latest issue – it looks great! Satah Slee
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Editor ’s Letter If you’ve been a frequent visitor to the Ceiga website you probably would have noticed a few subtle changes. First of all the addition of two new sections; ‘Editor’s picks’ and ‘Articles’, the option to sign up to a weekly newsletter containing everything that was posted in the blog, and an increase of articles to the blog in general. This is all in response to a survey I put out a few months ago primarily to find out what type of people visit the site but it also included a question for improvements to the site which a few people responded to. So if you have an idea for improving the site/magazine or have seen something elsewhere you think we should have please don’t hesitate to send an email to info@ceiga. co.uk. Now to talk about this issue of Ceiga. As a child I’m sure we’ve often imagined ourselves in different worlds, more whimsical and magical ones. No doubt this is due to the fairy tales we read in books, cartoons we watched on Saturday mornings, or the Disney classics we saw on repeat with excitement. Even now as an adult that childhood imagination comes back sometimes, triggered by something I’ve seen in a film or read in a book and this flooded back to me as I saw the Baileys Coffee Creamer for the first time (and the second, and the third). The advert shows a woman walking through a gloriously golden factory where Bailyes is created with workers on all sorts of contraptions for pouring the cream mixing the caramel and funneling the chunks of chocolate. With the presence of a goddess she tastes each ingredient, smiles and the workers and is finally presented with the finished product at the end, ‘The One’ which is conveniently the title of the ad. It’s all very ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory‘ and it’s fantastically brought to life by the team at Ignyte. Prior to that advert I had never heard of the German based production studio, after exploring their website and seeing all their other great pieces of work, I thought it would be a crime not to create an issue of Ceiga on their work. Hope you enjoy it.
Richard Bray E D I TO R
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GNYTE are an artist-driven vfx, design and animation studio based in the heart of Munich. They specialise in visual effects and animation productions for commercials, feature film, game cinematics and media design. A high-end kitchen would probably be the equivalent of how they work on their projects, blending art and technology, ingenuity
and magic to deliver visual delights even on challenging schedules. From entrĂŠe to dessert, only the best ingredients combined to ignyte your senses. Their core team is a band of elite digital artists, passionate about what they do. By applying a tailored approach to every project they guarantee a smooth postproduction workflow throughout the entire production process, from concept design and set supervision, through to final delivery. They constantly reinvent themselves to bring your creative imaginations to life, regardless of scale and complexity.
IGNYTE.DE
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Baileys are well known for their undeniably delicious creamy liquors, but coffee creamers?! Yes they do them too, and they are as creamy and as indulgent as their alcoholic counterparts. Despite the tight turnaround we were thrilled to be involved in this production. The spot starts off with huge cg doors opening up with a complete cg marble hall in the background. The individual mechanisms were meticulously crafted and animated – the cinnamon snail baking the biscotti, the almond grinder, the cinnamon belt, the chocolate mill, and the vault. And of course a spot like this wouldn’t be complete without the liquid simulations – the cream flowing columns dotted throughout almost every shot and last but not least our cream curtain. See for yourself how it all came together. A dreamy production process of something so irresistibly good they have to be kept in a safe.
https://vimeo.com/97334395
BAILEYS “THE ONE” Agency: BRAND CONTENT Director: MATTHIAS ZENTNER,VELVET Client: VELVET, MUNICH (velvet.de)
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What could be more indulging than being wrapped in a flowing stream of lucious creamy chocolate goodness?! This commercial for turkish client Eti is indeed one of indulgence, and not just for the chocolate addicts. This spot is jam-packed with 3D fluid simulation of liquid chocolate pulsing through 3D-lidar-scan rebuilt hotel corridors.
https://vimeo.com/53328178
ETI “HOTEL” Agency: SAATCHI & SAATCHI, ISTANBUL Director: MATTHIAS ZENTNER,VELVET Client: VELVET MEDIENDESIGN (velvet.de)
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GIVING WORK A MORE REALISTIC AND EMOTIONAL TOUCH I’m sure after seeing all the brilliant images in the previous pages you’re convinced that Ignyte are a top notch production studio, but just in case you’re not convinced – I’ve got an interview with the founder of the studio Leif Petersen who talks about how he got into the industry, his favourite project and the country in the wold he would most like to visit. 1) Could you tell me a little about Ignyte, what you guys do and
2) What is your role at Ignyte and could you tell me some of your
IGNYTE is an artist-driven vfx, design and animation studio based in the
As we are a boutique studio my role at the moment is very diverse. It
for commercials, feature film, game cinematics and media design. A high-
supervision, directing, pipeline programming to all kinds of vfx and actual
how you started?
heart of Munich. We specialise in visual effects and animation productions
end kitchen would probably be the equivalent of how we work on our projects, blending art and technology, ingenuity and magic to deliver
visual delights even on challenging schedules. From entrée to dessert, only the best ingredients combined to ignyte your senses.
Our core team is a band of elite digital artists, passionate about what they do. By applying a tailored approach to every project we guarantee
a smooth post-production workflow throughout the entire production process, from concept design and set supervision, through to final delivery.
We constantly reinvent ourselves to bring your creative imaginations to life, regardless of scale and complexity. The studio is owned and
managed by Leif Petersen an accomplished VFX artist who has 15 years experience in the industry. It all started with a single machine in Leif´s
home office which was quickly outgrown. Luckily we quickly found some
great clients that trusted us that we can accomplish outstanding quality in our projects. Since then the company is steadily growing to face more and bigger creative adventures.
day to day tasks?
ranges from producing, marketing, recruitment, it-administration, onset
production tasks. I always enjoyed learning new things and working in very different areas.
3) What programmes do you use at Ignyte and how many people currently work there?
Our core team is a band of elite international artists, handpicked individuals who are passionate about what they do. We believe in small
and very effective highly-skilled generalist teams. Basically people that
love what they do. At the moment we are averaging 6 people here but
the whole infrastructure is specifically build so we can easily have more
software and hardware, and can quickly accommodate more artists at
short notice. Our pipeline is build to handle much bigger projects than we are currently working on. At the same time we are constantly evolving our toolset to find the right solution tailored to each job. We are using off the shelf tools like Maya, Nuke etc. and extend them to our needs.
4) How did you develop an interest in creative production work?
your job can be very rewarding.
I came from traditional video editing, back in the days with actual tape
6) What is the most important thing you’ve learn’t since you began
machines, and I also have a background in music. I was always curious
and wanted to learn more. I think computer graphics are a great way to learn a lot of things about our world. Especially in advertising where
you find more generalist artists and you are not bound to a completely rigid pipeline. Every job is a little different and you get to look at many
different things our world is made up of. Be it cg-animals or how liquids
behave in different scales. I also always enjoy the melting pot of creativity and technology.
your 3D art journey?
There is always more to learn. Don´t stop learning and learn to evolve. 3D Animation is heavily influenced by technology and this technology is
changing ever faster. At the same time art skills, great ideas and creativity
will always be the reason why people will be emotionally touched by images. It got much easier and faster to create compelling images and there is a huge army of skilled people out there now to work in this industry. It´s a living art form and if you want to succeed you need to evolve with it or better be a step ahead.
5) What is your favourite project you’ve ever worked on and why? There is a quite a few project that I really enjoyed working on for different
reasons. A few years ago we worked on a commercial for “DU” a big
telephone provider in the middle east. This commercial was shot over a week in and around Dubai at mostly 47 degrees heat in the desert. It
was a very full-on shoot with a crazy schedule and I really enjoyed the adventurous nature of the shoot.
We accomplished many effects with actual stop-motion and timelapse effects on camera. Mostly our job is based around sitting in front of a screen making pretty pictures, very disconnected from the real world.
I think it´s extremely important to get outside to touch, feel, hear and see
7) Are you allowed to talk/hint about any exciting you’ve been working on and plan to release in the future?
We recently worked on a very cool commercial that has huge exploding
water balloons. You can watch this commercial soon on our website
Personally I have a little 9 month render job going on as a coproduction with my wife and we are very excited about this.
8) And finally if you could visit any country in the world where would you go and why?
real things yourself. This connection reflects into your project, giving it a
In general I love travelling around Asia but specifically I would love to go
a toilet paper commercial we recently finished can be a very rewarding
there.
Everybody on the team enjoyed working creatively without boundaries,
Thanks Leif for taking the time to answer these questions. If you would
more realistic and emotional touch. But also full-cg projects like “Level”,
to the Philippines. My wife was born in Manila and I still haven´t made it
process.
making a very artful film that heightens paper to an art form. I think art
is a container to preserve and express emotion and getting to do this as
like see what Lief and Ignyte are up to you can follow them on Twitter (ignyte_leif), Facebook (Ignyte) and Vimeo (ignytefx).
“This commercial was shot over a week in and around Dubai at mostly 47 degrees heat in the desert. It was a very full-on shoot with a crazy schedule and I really enjoyed the adventurous nature of the shoot.” 41
In this paper art inspired full-CGI spot we pay homage to one of life’s simple pleasures. It’s Papeles San Francisco/ Level’s luxurious and unbelievably soft toilet paper line. Artistic and beautifully mesmorising, you will never see toilet paper the same way again. Surrender and let yourself be cocooned in its velvety white creamy layers. It’ll certainly bring you to another Level!
https://vimeo.com/87654662
LEVEL “SCULPTURES” Agency: VTC Director: MATTHIAS ZENTNER,VELVET Client: VELVET, MUNICH (velvet.de)
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Bursting with vfx and amazing 3D work, this spot is all about liquid elegance. Elegant black meets stylish silver – that is the look of this ad campaign. Introducing the new generation smart phone from LG. Illustrated here in this particular spot is the vividness of LG’s amazing Optimus 3D max display, demonstrated by a woman emerging from the screen, engaging us through pulsing fluid dance movements.
https://vimeo.com/53329535
LG “OPTIMUS 3D MAX“ Agency: HS AD, SEOUL Director: MATTHIAS ZENTNER,VELVET Client: VELVET MEDIENDESIGN (velvet.de)
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Join in the party in this playful spot for the major greek telecommunications company, Wind. As night falls and the shop lights go out, mobile phone app characters emerge from their slumber and come alive in a frenzy. Be entertained as they react with one another, each with their own stories unfolding. This project involved extensive 3D work as all characters were intricately designed and animated, and was successfully executed in a very short timeframe. The shoot took place at the Wind main store in Athens, which was redesigned and completely rebuilt in CGI. The success of this campaign led to further projects across different media, and we will certainly be seeing more of these characters for a long time to come.
https://vimeo.com/53329539
WIND “ONE NIGHT” Director: MATTHIAS ZENTNER,VELVET Client: VELVET MEDIENDESIGN (velvet.de)
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https://vimeo.com/97402071
MATTONI “WATER ANIMALS” Director: MATTHIAS ZENTNER,VELVET Client: VELVET MEDIENDESIGN (velvet.de)
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The process of capsule coffee-making is not just about the coffee itself. It’s about the experience, those precious moments we tend to take for granted as the delicate grains morph into that perfect creamy espresso. A powerful and captivating 45 sec spot that perfectly blends the digital and analog worlds of real high-speed photography and amazing cg elements.
https://vimeo.com/87654661
ILLY “IPERESPRESSO” Director: MATTHIAS ZENTNER,VELVET Client: VELVET MEDIENDESIGN (velvet.de)
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Exposing Visual Creativity
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C E I G A.CO.U K