In order to celebrate all the lovely new guys and girls that have entered the new Trunk fray, and to finalise the 2010 spring clean which has been taking place here in the studio, we decided to have a bash at something new. So we got everyone in the studio together and created a brief based on the old game of ‘Consequences’, which is where you draw a picture, fold over the paper and pass it on to the next person. We gave each director an outline template, and asked them to use the space in any which way they wanted to, then with baited breath we patiently waited…………………….. Slowly the results began to trickle in, we were totally beside ourselves and couldn’t wait to see what everyone had come up with, and how, if at all it would work together! Finally the render kicked out, and we ramped it up, the new Trunk logo was emblazoned across the screen in a mad intense cyber patchwork that totally blew us away. Even though everyone had covered their work so no one could see (just like playschool), it became apparent that together, everyone shared really similar aesthetic values, but each felt defined in a totally different manner, and realized in a totally different style. For once the gamble had paid off. The next stage of the process was to enter the world of scripting, and for this we called on the genius of Niki Sehmi, who took the files that we’d been creating  in the studio and made sense of the movement in flash. I’ll be honest, this is an amazing process and a really great learning curve for all of us, but it certainly doesn’t come easy. We spent hours trying to work the file sizes down and keep the image quality as high as possible which turned into a constant battle, and without bringing the guys at Flashtalking in, we probably wouldn’t have been able to serve the expandable banner at all. We knew that as an exercise this had been a great success, so now the question was how to get this out to as many people as possible. So we contacted Sammi Vaughan at Creative Review and worked through the process of planning a little campaign. We took each of the eight sections, one for each director, and watched them separately and as stand alone pieces. They seemed to be really catchy even out of context, and Alasdair suggested that they would look really great as Skyscrapers, from that point the plan made itself. So we served each of the directors sections as totally unbranded Skyscrapers for a month across various pages on Creative Review’s Blog, a kind of taster for those inquisitive sorts. Then, binging up the rear so’s to speak was the expandable, interactive banner that you see above, and which is now being served once again on Creative Review’s Blog. It went live yesterday, and we’ve already had a really great response. It’s certainly been a long road and a massive learning curve which has for a short while quenched our thirst for creative conundrums, but now it’s finished, it’s onto the next one, a life long dream of teaching the dog to Composite.  Thanks to all the guys for all their hard work, and thanks to Imran for helping to get this started.                                   

We’re as hungry as this fella.

Here’s the penultimate episode of our comedy series Nasty Habits, this week we’ll have highly comedic use of the word “David”, a puppet Jesus and a nun gettin’ down and dirty with an attractive young pumpkin. Watch it you brutes.

Layla has recently completed work on 9 brand new channel idents for french tv channel France3. Trunk worked with Red Bee Media on the channel’s summer campaign.

The aim was to create simple live action environments in which there were various pieces of graphics such as posters, stickers, labels. These graphic objects would talk to the camera using unscripted voiceovers. We worked with our french agency Bandits who went out and scoured the streets of Paris to record various people’s ideas and memories about summer. These were then edited down to a good selection of age ranges and accents.

Compositing wizard Rob Ward worked wonders in creating convincing backgrounds and adding atmpsphere and lighting effects to flat 2d images. The background images were photographed by Ben Turner at a variety of  french locations.

As this was a job requiring lots of french lip sync we decided to use actual real french animators, Helene Friren and Raphael Di Roma. They were able to bring a lot of charm, character and subtlety to the animation. We also created 7 second idents with no voiceover, for these we used Grigoris Leontiades who, although his french is a little rusty, speaks greek so we kept it bi-lingual. Richard and Layla are now learning slovenian.

Check out these subtitled versions below.

Here’s the latest installment of our series Nasty Habits, in this one we finally get to see what’s under Sister Veronica’s bucket (and that’s not a euphemism)

We’d like so say a big “well done” to Alasdair and Jock for their video “Bottom of the River” reaching the final 3 in the Best Music Video category at the 2010 Rushes Short Film Festival. They were pipped at the post by “Our House is Dadless” by the band Kid British. Dastardly scallywags.

Here’s episode 3 of our comedy series Nasty Habits, this is our favourite episode, it’s a near-the-knuckle thrill ride through a pit of sleaze. There are also sexy vegetables, an appearance by George Clooney and some exploding sparrows. What’s not to love?

Below is a link to trunk directing duo Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney’s new website

http://www.alasdairandjock.com/

Take a look, it’s a visual feast. Also, keep your eyes peeled for their new project which will be available soon…

Last friday we had the sound record for Trunk director Mirrorshade’s new film. Here’s Mina Mirrorshade with the film’s narrator Daniel Roche who you may recognise as Ben the little rascally rapscallion from BBC TV’S “Outnumbered“
The recording went brilliantly and we are already rubbing our hands together with glee at the prospect of seeing the finished film.