New Animation Studio Amazing Spectacles Completes Its First Job

Amazing Spectacles, the new animation studio backed by Prime Focus, has completed its first job: the winter TV campaign for firelight and ignition brand Zip.
The campaign was created by agency WFCA and features the brand's new Croí Na Tine firelog. It will run throughout November and December in Ireland before being rolled out internationally next year.
The spot was directed by Martyn Pick, one of the four founding directors on the Amazing Spectacles roster: "A series of icons, symbolising important elements of the brand, are formed from flame and laced together with seamless transformations. I worked with Prime Focus Senior Animator Andi Farhall, who created the very naturalistic particle effects animation, to reinterpret the loose fluidity of hand-drawn animation with 21st century tools. The final look, which was comped by Hani AlYousif in Flame, gels the convincing realism and lush tone of live action with the magical flow of art animation."
Andi Farhall added: "I created the flame using XSI's node-based effects engine, ICE and a couple of 3rd party plug-ins called emPolygonizer (a density meshing tool) and emRender PointCloud (a hardware particle renderer). The key point of the brief was to generate fire that had a slow moving, mesmeric quality, and for it to take on clear, recognisable graphic forms, while retaining its fiery fluid quality."
The elements were comped together by Prime Focus' Hani AlYousif in Flame and the spot was produced by Amazing Spectacles' Jules Pye.
(KMcA)