This online campaign for Silk soy milk is a first to use deep linked annotations at YouTube to create interactive animation on a branded page. We created 10 different question and answer animation sequences addressing urban myths, each in a different style. Developing the style and stories for each was a very fun rapid process. The Silk Canada page can be found here or you can click on the image above to view two of the animated myths: Turkey and Shaving.

Eating turkey makes you sleepy?

Leo Burnett ran this Campaign for silk and it was a great collaboration. They sent us a list of myths, and we did a rough design and storyboard pass, went through a couple of revisions to come up with the final versions and animated everything. We also created stills for magazine print and online banner ads.

Ok. Are you ready for this? All Terrain Brain is a series of one-minute musical episodes focused on the topic of money and the entrepreneurial spirit for young kids. Featuring a cast of flash-animated minimalist characters and a collage aesthetic ATB encourages kids to follow their passion when it comes to thinking about work, money and income.

Entrepreneurs have panache! zing! style! moxy!

Putting this show together was a joy – combining a fun look, great client and wonderful crew of animators and designers. We produced 25 episodes of All Terrain Brain over the Summer of 2007 and provided extra material for the All Terrain Brain website and education support materials.

All Terrain Brain is used as an educational component in schools and is being aired by PBS stations.

'with my mind on my money and my money on my mind'

Production Team Credits:

Directed by: Nathaniel Akin
Production: Global Mechanic
Line Producer: Elizabeth Murray
Executive Producer: Matthew Charde
Senior Producer: Tina Oullette
Original Designs: Bruce Alcock
Title & Character Design: Paul Boyd
Storyboard Artists: Chez Battista & Steve Geeves
Animation: Elisa Chee, Scott Kiborn, Michael Mann, Geoff Rintoul, Leslie Rogers, Anik Rosenblum
Design & Art Department: Celest Brown, Tachi Jacobsen

For full ATB credits please see here.

Play scrabble online and be glamourous in a sassy sixties style.

This was one of those rare jobs where the client doesn’t have a specific idea in mind and they leave it up to us to write, design and produce the ad. We came up with the 50′s fashion theme as a way to tie into the nostalgia of this classic boardgame and I love the way the 2d animation and design works with the 3d cubes.

The 2d design and animation for this spot was done with a combination of flash, illustrator, photoshop and after effects. Bruce Alcock, Paul Boyd and Celest Brown all had a hand in the design.

credits:

Directed by: Nathaniel Akin
Production: Global Mechanic
Creative Director: Bruce Alcock
Producer: Matthew Charde
Animation: Nathaniel Akin, Celest Brown, Paul Boyd
Agency: Almighty

Random technical geekery: This was an interesting project because its the first time I’ve tried to do full 3d within after effects. I’ve always run into issues translating 3d camera moves from maya into aftereffects and was looking for a way around this which prompted us to buy the zaxwerks 3d invigorator plugin.

This plugin has some interesting potential for integrating full 3d into aep projects. Its mainly limited to static 3d objects, but it allows you to import meshes from maya as well as a few other 3d formats and control lighting and camera within after effects. Updating and previewing imported 3d objects is sluggish, particularly once you start adding lights, etc. – fortunately you can parent the objects to simple solid proxies enabling you to preview camera movement and animation quickly. Though its not perfect, the zaxwerks 3d plugin can be quite handy and I can definately see using it in the future, particularly for basic 3d projects when working with animators who are familiar with the aftereffects camera, but not any ‘full 3d’ software.

It's time to harvest the animation..

Click below to view the signal film:

Credits:

Directed by Nathaniel Akin & Bruce Alcock

Animators:
Chez Battista
Steve Hillman
Deb Dawson
Marv Newland
Cliff Saito
Paul Boyd
Ian Godfrey
Celest Brown
Nathaniel Akin
Scott Kiborn
Kenneth Myers
Pablo Gonzalez
Bruce Alcock

Hey! No peeking!

Just finished two more commercials from the eggo campaign, these are for eggo doubles. One is a standard 30 second ad and the other is a short 15 second spot. Kinda brilliant to include the product as the characters in the ad huh? Tragically we had to remove the fresh strawberries from the ‘complete breakfast shot’, as they would have pushed the calorie count over the legal limit.

Eggo Doubles Knock Knock:

Eggo Doubles Tag:

credits:

Director: Nathaniel Akin
Producer: Tina Oullette
Animation: Paul Boyd & Cesare Battista
Agency: Leo Burnett
Client: Kelloggs
Production: Global Mechanic

Who doesn't like cinnamon and sugar?

The studio smelled incredibly good that day.

For the cinnamon mini-rolls we had to come up with a graphic animated representation of brown sugar and cinnamon sparkles – I really like the way these turned out.

You can view this spot here:

Credits:

Director: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Tina Oullette
Animation: Nathaniel Akin & Ian Godfrey
Agency: Leo Burnett Canada

Quicktime Version available here:
http://afterfx.net/video/cheerleader

This identity package was created for the launch of New York based College Sports Television. For the original pitch I designed a world made out of sports gear including tennis ball hills, but apparently CSTV doesnt cover tennis so that was out. Instead we built these station ids around the #1 hand character and had it interacting with this semi-nostalgic sports world where sports trophies have a marching bands and the clouds are made out of volleyballs.

Credits:

Director: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Tina Oullette
Animation: Nathaniel Akin, Ian Godfrey, Cesare Battista, Paul Boyd

Quicktime version available here:
http://afterfx.net/video/cstv-station-ids

Hey! Come Back! I'm not going to eat you, I just want to play!

This was the first tv commercial I directed for the Kelloggs Eggo waffle advertising campaign: a blueberry flavor Eggo waffle chases a herd of blueberries across the screen -he just wants to play! I’ve done a few ads for this campaign now and we do each one the same way: first we take photographs of a toasted waffle from several angles, and then we attach arms and legs and make ‘em move.

Leo Burnett is the agency that writes these ads for Kelloggs. I love the amount of character that shines through in these spots even though the characters don’t have any facial features. Everything has to be communicated through body language which is an interesting challenge for an animator.

view the commercial here:

Credits:

Directed by: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Tina Oullette
Animation: Nathaniel Akin & Ian Godfrey
Agency: Leo Burnett Canada

Quicktime version here:
http://afterfx.net/video/the-chase

You wouldn't put preservatives in your beer would you?

This commercial for Samuel Adams Boston Lager was a blast to make – I used a range of 50′s ephemera; images from catalogs, magazines, etc. reworking, recombining and collaging the elements in Photoshop.

The 2 dimensional source material was then given extra depth and dimension by creating layers that stretch into z-space.. Essentially it’s two-and-a-half dimensional. Characters can turn slightly and appear fully three dimensional, but from a full side view you can see that they are made up completely of flat layers.

The sound was finished at Wayne Kozaks studio in Vancouver – they gave us just the right sound and found us just the right voice-over talent. Cheers Wayne!

View the full commercial here:

Credits:

Directed by: Nathaniel Akin
Studio: Global Mechanic
Producer: Tina Oullette
Animation & Design: Nathaniel Akin
Client: Boston Brewing Co.

Quicktime version of this ad available here:
http://afterfx.net/video/simple