Wildlife in Sri Lanka

This is a little fun project where I tracked in some strange fungi and worms to some footage I shot in Sri Lanka. I'm beginning to get to grips with the sculpting and bodypaint tools in Cinema 4D.

Motion Capture Dancer

This little edit is based on some development work I was doing for another Nickelodeon project. The project took a different turn but I thought I'd carry on developing some of the ideas. This is a fairly rough and ready little edit but I think it could develop into quite a nice piece of work, whatever that may be. I quite enjoyed getting stuck into the particles and tracer networks again!

Nickelodoen Spot

I made this for Nickelodeon, I directed, animated, did the fluid sims etc.

Experiments

This is a cut of some technical experiments, music by Max Cooper and Braids.

Some Characters

Here's some characters. Made just for fun.

West-Country Zombie

This is, well, truthfully, I'm not sure quite what it is. It's a crazy detailed zombie saying stuff in a West-Country accent. It's an animation test for a Kickstarter idea (for an animated film) but I'm not quite sure I can justify spending several months on a highly speculative Post-Apocalyptic West-Country Zombie Folk Musical pitch.  Saying that, the merch side has begun! My brother (site) has made some super cool T-shirts!

Wagner's Life In Miniature

I created this animation for SinfiniMusic about the life of composer Richard Wagner.

I did extensive research and tried to integrate as many elements from Wagners life into the animation. For example the stage where the piece is set is based on drawings and schematics of the real Bayreuth festival hall which Wagner built. You can see the exterior of the building in the final scene of the animation. All the buildings in the cot scene are based on real 19th Century architecture from Leipzig.

I drew the textures and illustrations by hand then took them into Cinema 4D to animate. I also modelled a lot of the elements and used my hand rendered images to texture them. I also used Sketch and Toon to create linework around the geometry to help integrate it.
I used a number of animation techniques from keyframing by hand to making use of rigid body simulations for the mechanical signs and cots and so on and of course cloth tags for the curtains. I also used a few particles for the 'Gesamtkunstwerk' section.

Below are some production images, click to enlarge.

See more production images, click here

Space War! Tutorial and preset

Here's a little preset I've released for Cinema 4D. It's a kind of automated space battle widget based on Thinking Particles. What use it'll be I don't know but it's kind of fun! You can download it here. And watch a little rendered test here.

Land Rover Infographics

I designed and animated these infographics at Imagination for the launch of the new Land Rover. I also created the Mesh Wall for the same project. With this project I tried to get away from the 45° edge cut which is so common with infographics and techy looking work. Instead I opted for nice curves! Most of the curves were created in Cinema 4D as After Effects still has no good solution for this technique.  

Fuse

I worked on this animation whilst at Spov. I did quite a lot of work developing the UI concept which was animated by Alasdair Willson. On this piece I did mostly 3D work, so the comms networks (particles/mograph), texturing, lighting and camera work. There's some other films we worked on which I should be able to show in March 2013.

Diesel 3D

Here's an edit of a quickie job I did for Unit 9. See Vimeo page for more details or goto the Diesel 3D page for the full video.

Infosys Experience

I worked on this installation from the future for Moving Brands. I created a giant particle wall and generally helped with the UI design and animation for this multiscreen interactive experience.
See the Vimeo page for more details.

Wagner Teaser

Wagner Teaser from Simon Russell on Vimeo.

A little teaser for a short I'm making... stay tuned

Mesh Wall

This is an edit of some work I produced for a car launch event. I made a series of pre-rendered clips which were triggered live to a giant LED screen. I hope to get some footage of the live event soon.
The turnaround was very quick, two days in total. I used DMesh to turn selected client images into meshes which I manipulated in Cinema 4D. I've added music as a DJ was used at the event.
I also created a series of animated infographic films for the launch.

Triangulation application: DMesh
Music: Cacao

Wedding Reminder

I made this stop motion animation as a little reminder for my wedding. We used the characters on the wedding cake! Click here to see a couple more pics.

Networks

Steve Kirby approached me to help out with some telecommunication shots on a documentary called 'How We Invented The World' which was produced by Nutopia.  Above is a mini edit of some of the content.

Gridify and Spiralator

I've made a couple more Cinema 4D tools with video tutorials showing you how to use them. You can download them from the Vimeo page here.

My showreel 2012

Fluid/Smoke Dynamic Tests

Marvel at my fluids. Gape at my gasses.  Particle play with DPIT Effex and Thinking Particles.

PolyStepper

I made a Xpresso tool for Cinema 4D called PolyStepper. It will flip a polygon object around the points of a Mograph cloner. You can watch a tutorial and download it from the Vimeo page. 

Particle Play

These are a series of experiments created in Cinema 4D using Thinking Particles, L-Systems and the UberTracer plug-in. I've done a lot of particle/dynamic/mograph/xpresso work recently but can't show you anything because it's all still under wraps and will be for a while yet. So I took some of the ideas and techniques I've developed and created these animations. There's really no post production on these, they're just straight from the C4D renderer.

Music: Echoes Reality (Si Begg remix) by Max Cooper
UberTracer

I've also had the chance to play around with the DPIT Effex plug-in, mainly just the fluid/smoke solver. Here's the results. Apologies for some of the colour combos!

And finally here's some pretty raw particle tests. Really very simple setups, just to observe how particles bounce. I was inspired by the excellent book, The Wavewatcher's Companion.

Wedding Invites

I designed these for my upcoming wedding. The card stock is from amazing Shepherds Falkiner's near Holborn. Click here to see the rest of the photos

Hyper-Connected: An Interactive Synesthesia Project

I'm working on a project based on the neurological condition of synesthesia. You can download an explanatory PDF if you're interested here. I'm looking for venues, brands or events who maybe interested in partnering with us to help host the installation. So please do get in touch if you're you think you could help or just to say hello.

Hyper-Connected Outline Document (PDF)
Related posts

Zombie Engagement Shoot

My prewife (I don't like 'fiancé') entered a competition on Rock and Roll Bride to win an engagement shoot by Rebecca Litchfield of Catwalk Wedding. All she had to do was submit an idea. For reasons unknown she decided on a post-apocalyptic zombie theme. Our idea was chosen by Rebecca and the nice people at the old Gillette building let us use their premises for the shoot. Thanks to Elbie who made everyone look like brain eating freaks (and made Nicola even more beautiful of course!) and to Dan 'Odin Raven' who took some amazing shots too. And of course thanks to the shambling hordes of the undead who made it such a blood soaked day to remember.
You can see the whole gallery here.

Nothing To Fear Tutorial

I've created a tutorial for AE Tuts Plus based on my animation Nothing To Fear. It covers general workflow from thumbnailing to animation and some animation techniques in After Effects such as expressions and parenting. 

Interactive Demos

I've been developing some interactive pieces for Hyper-Connected, using the iPad and Wii remote to trigger and manipulate the playback.

Nothing To Fear

Here's a personal project I've been working on for some time so I'm pleased to be able to post it up. Be sure to flip it to full screen when viewing as it's in HD.

Many thanks to Ben Ash from Candle Music for composing a beautiful piece of music and creating the sound effects. Also many many thanks to Ólafur Arnalds, Erased Tapes and Nettwerk Music Group for allowing me to use Ólafur's amazing music. It really did help set the whole atmosphere and feel of the piece. You can download them for free here.

Synesthesia stills

Here's some concept stills for the Wellcome Trust proposal. They both use and are inspired by Eric Cahan's work. You can visit his site here.

Diagramic Illustrations Of People

Click here to see the whole set. Also, clicking on the picture brings it up hi-res

Wellcome Trust. iPad Ableton demo

Here's a quick demo of a project I'm working on, I'm developing a proposal for the Wellcome Trust's arts bursary.

The setup is fairly simple, using Ableton, OSCulator and Touch OSC on the iPad. I've recently got this setup working with VDMX and can control it with a Wii-mote, I'll post up a vid soon.  All the visuals are created in After Effects and Cinema 4D. Apologies for the camera work, it does come into focus in a few seconds.



Here's the visuals straight from After Effects

Synesthesia Sketches

I've scanned and posted all my sketchbook notes and drawings on a Tumblr. You can find it here.

Wellcome Trust Project: Update

Excitingly Pufferfish, makers of extraordinary spherical touchscreen displays, have offered to collaborate with me on my Wellcome Trust proposal. Whilst being a fantastic opportunity it does of course offer up some technical and creative challenges. Below are some concept stills, using mirrors,  I've been working on to integrate the display into the installation.

Wellcome Trust Development Work

I thought I'd post a little of the project I'm working on for the Wellcome Trust.
It's an installation concept based around a neurological condition called synesthesia.

Couch Designs

Here's some t-shirt designs I created with my brother for his company Couch.

Synesthesia Experiments

A little movie of some experiments I've been working on for a synesthesia based project.

The Rag

The Rag is a Post-Apocalyptic Neon-Dubstep Sci-Fi Epic (!) I've been toying with for years. I was asked to reversion it for a comic book iPad app which was a lot of fun. You can download it here.

Christmas Idents

I made these for the lovely folks at We Are Seventeen. They were in turn working for Red Bee who were commissioned by La7, an Italian TV station. Phew! I did pretty much everything on these, design of all the elements, characters, animation, lighting and so on.

Beck's Green Box

These are some concept frames from a proposal I'm putting together a proposal for Beck's Green Box project, it's a kind of augmented reality global art gallery.

Mini Showreel: Particles and Mograph

Here's an edit of some the particle and mograph work I've done in the last six months. A lot of it is motion tests and so forth but I thought I'd pop it up anyway.

Machinery Drawing

Here's a fineliner drawing of an old bit of farm machinery I drew when staying at a farm house in Tuscany. (Click image to enlarge)

3D Characters

Here's some characters I've just made for a pitch. They're a kind of pleasantly deranged mix of muppet and Francois Chalet

Synaesthesia Theatre

Here's a first look at a model from my current self initiated project. It's going to be a short film set in the theatre below. It's based around the ideas of Kandinsky and the composer Scriabin and will involve a synaesthetic dubstep machine.

Red Rain

This short film was made in 48 hours for the 'Sci-Fi 48 Hour Film Challenge 2011'. We were given a title (Red Rain), a prop (a plate of biscuits) and a line of dialogue ("If I have to go tomorrow I'd rather leave early.") on Saturday morning and we had to deliver the finished film on Monday morning.

It was stressful, knackering and at points completely chaotic...but it was also loads of fun. We aimed to make a short that was funny and entertaining and hopefully we got close. A massive thanks to everyone who gave up most (if not all) of their weekend to help out, you made it what it is.

Credits:
Written by Simon Russell and Andy Martin
Directed by Andy Martin
Produced by Simon Russell
Starring Nick Blood, Imogen Doel, Ben Whybrow and Ben Deery
Visual Effects Ashley Pay
Music Andy Martin
Camera Evan Pugh
Audio Design Josh Roberts
Edited by Felix Black and Nicola Jude
Graphics by Simon Russell
Make Up by Kiri Mellalieu, Sofhie Clark and Michelle Hutley
Props by Janka Slawik
Runner Robbie Ash

Op Art Skulls for Gavriil Simov

Gavriil Simov

These are a couple of concept images my brother and myself have been working on for a new garmet/screen print range. We've started a Tumblr blog here.