MAINFRAME
STUDIO 10, THE PIANO FACTORY
117 FARRINGDON ROAD
LONDON EC1R 3BX
Tel. 020 7833 5546
Mainframe, is a Motion Graphic, Animation and visual effects company in London that we visited on Wednesday 4th March. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see the whole of the talk, but from what I was there for I found impressive. The studio was exactly how I imagined, clean, stylish, modern and bright yet messy with random objects, sketches all over the place, just like Dvein in Barcelona. The main difference was how much bigger the team was in comparison. It look like a more interesting environment to work with. At Dvein, i was put off by the small team to work with, which as a job I would find boring after a while. In the future, I would want to work with a large team, being able to get to meet new faces once in a while.
The first part of the presentation was to show us the 2009 show reel. My initial impression was how impressive it was. It can be found by this link -
Web Link - Show Reel
Just by watching the show reel, it was easy to see how big this company was. A lot of the work seems to be for big television companies with lots of branding and idents. It was refreshing to see such a mix of techniques as well. There didn't seem to be one standard way of work, the show reel showed a mix between 2D animation, and 3D, live footage, minimalism styles to extremely detailed work.
Unfortunately, after watching the show reel, I had to leave. So therefore I watched more of their work via there website. Here are some of the projects that stood out to me. All videos again can be found at the website -
Web Link - Projects
This animation was for Challenge T.V. Easter line up. The idea simple, 3D bunnies, a symbol of Easter running around a city. Because I enjoy working with 3D, I enjoy watching 3D animations. What I like about this piece is how 3D has been incorporated into live footage of a city, creating the shadows of the bunnies on the real ground to make people believe they are really there. What is also nice about this piece is that although 3D realism, the ability to make something look as if it is really there is a beautiful tool of 3D, sometimes the stylist approach, which is a more simpler style can also look fantastic. For example, its clear to see the characters in this design are 3D elements, but its this quality that gives the advert an almost dreamlike appeal.
3D animation and VFX have become big tools over the years, a tool that can be used alongside live footage to create a sense of realism. But what you don't see as much is 2D animation working alongside film. It's this technique that really gives this ident a child like imagination.
In a lot of mainframes animations, they use a lot of stylistic detail such as curved lines and illustrations in the backgrounds. But they also can do something so simple in concept. This piece for the channel TMF ident uses flat colour and the concept of flat card being folded into the logo of the channel. The extra quality that this has is the timings of the folds can co-incide with the rhythms of the music.
This last example is of the title sequence for 100 greatest cartoons for channel four. What I enjoy about this piece is both the concept and the technique. The logo for the program has been turned into a character, moving in and out of popular cartoon shows and being placed into cartoon like situations e.g. the floor being sawed around him. The illustrations are 2D, black line, bold colour drawings, what you would expect of a cartoon show, but given that extra depth by bringing these elements into a 3D world.
I have really enjoyed watching the work of Mainframe and I look forward to seeing what else they do. The techniques I have seen have really inspired me and I will consider them in research for my own future projects.
The first part of the presentation was to show us the 2009 show reel. My initial impression was how impressive it was. It can be found by this link -
Web Link - Show Reel
Just by watching the show reel, it was easy to see how big this company was. A lot of the work seems to be for big television companies with lots of branding and idents. It was refreshing to see such a mix of techniques as well. There didn't seem to be one standard way of work, the show reel showed a mix between 2D animation, and 3D, live footage, minimalism styles to extremely detailed work.
Unfortunately, after watching the show reel, I had to leave. So therefore I watched more of their work via there website. Here are some of the projects that stood out to me. All videos again can be found at the website -
Web Link - Projects
This animation was for Challenge T.V. Easter line up. The idea simple, 3D bunnies, a symbol of Easter running around a city. Because I enjoy working with 3D, I enjoy watching 3D animations. What I like about this piece is how 3D has been incorporated into live footage of a city, creating the shadows of the bunnies on the real ground to make people believe they are really there. What is also nice about this piece is that although 3D realism, the ability to make something look as if it is really there is a beautiful tool of 3D, sometimes the stylist approach, which is a more simpler style can also look fantastic. For example, its clear to see the characters in this design are 3D elements, but its this quality that gives the advert an almost dreamlike appeal.
3D animation and VFX have become big tools over the years, a tool that can be used alongside live footage to create a sense of realism. But what you don't see as much is 2D animation working alongside film. It's this technique that really gives this ident a child like imagination.
In a lot of mainframes animations, they use a lot of stylistic detail such as curved lines and illustrations in the backgrounds. But they also can do something so simple in concept. This piece for the channel TMF ident uses flat colour and the concept of flat card being folded into the logo of the channel. The extra quality that this has is the timings of the folds can co-incide with the rhythms of the music.
This last example is of the title sequence for 100 greatest cartoons for channel four. What I enjoy about this piece is both the concept and the technique. The logo for the program has been turned into a character, moving in and out of popular cartoon shows and being placed into cartoon like situations e.g. the floor being sawed around him. The illustrations are 2D, black line, bold colour drawings, what you would expect of a cartoon show, but given that extra depth by bringing these elements into a 3D world.
I have really enjoyed watching the work of Mainframe and I look forward to seeing what else they do. The techniques I have seen have really inspired me and I will consider them in research for my own future projects.
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