live action Archives - Trunk | Animation Production Company
Shirley Collins at Rough Trade
On 08, Nov 2016 | In news / blog | By Layla
Last night we got to meet the wonderful Shirley Collins at an event on East London. She was interviewed on stage then performed a few songs. She was amazing, thanks for a magical evening Shirley.
How We Made Pretty Polly
On 28, Oct 2016 | In news / blog | By Layla
Get an exclusive, glamorous, behind-the-scenes glimpse of how we made Pretty Polly. It’s a look back on an incredibly craft-centred few summer weeks. Keep an eye out for our lovely studio dog, our shorts, our army of helpers and our paint-splattered studio.
Pretty Polly out take
On 17, Oct 2016 | In news / blog | By Layla
A little bit of behind-the-scenes from Pretty Polly
Cardboard, puppets, 16mm film, what’s not to like?
On 14, Oct 2016 | In news / blog | By Layla
Finally we can show you the fruits of our craft-based labours this summer. It’s the music video for folk legend Shirley Collins’ new single “Pretty Polly”. The album “Lodestar” marks the return of Shirley Collins after a break of 38 years. The video is the result of hundreds of hours of painting, drawing, inking, cutting, problem-solving and idea-wrangling. Shot on 16mm film this was lovingly created and directed by Layla Atkinson with enormous help and collaboration from the marvellous John Harmer and Jock Mooney with further support from Richard Barnett, Rebecca Manley, Garry Rutter, Pete Ellmore and a cast of thousands. A big “cheers” to everyone involved.
Zach Anner | Red Bull “We Are All Stories”
On 21, May 2016 | In news / blog | By Layla
Layla directed the animation on this funny little film last year. It came about through our old friend Justin Weyers of Made Visual Studios and is a tall tale full of horror, tension and comedy bears. Take a look if you’ve got 5 mins
http://beta.redbull.tv/…/AP-1M5CEMV992111:episode/zach-anner
Solomon Grey | Sweet 84
On 17, May 2016 | In news / blog | By Layla
The music avalanche continues at the studio. Junior has just completed a wonderfully unsettling video for Solomon Grey. See if you can find the cameo role played by our very own Richard “Cap’n Barnacles” Barnett
Trunk’s director Junior Martinez directs a haunting video for Solomon Grey.
On 29, Mar 2016 | In Press | By Pip
Trunk’s director Junior Martinez directs a wonderfully haunting and unsettling video for Solomon Grey.
Solomon Grey are composers Joe Wilson and Tom Kingston, known for amongst other things, their acclaimed score for Casual Vacancy, the BBC and HBO adaptation of J K Rowling’s best-selling novel.
Following the success of their 2015 release’s, Selected Works and Selected Features, the band released their self-titled debut album on Friday – 18th March 2016. Notion Magazine described their music as “incredible vocals working flawlessly with the heavy and complex electronic melodies”, and noted that “Solomon Grey have been hard at work crafting their own unique sound”.
For their track ‘Sweet 84’ the band wanted to work with a director who would be able to capture the feelings and emotions of the track, “When we were writing sweet 84 we got obsessed with our childhoods and the memories we still held onto. Our parents watching the news, being held up on their shoulders, falling asleep in the back of the car and being carried into bed while sleeping, …becoming aware of the wider world and its enormity”.
Junior flew to London and met with the band and they quickly developed a great rapport. Junior states, ”It was wonderful working with Joe and Tom, both had loads of great ideas and references were soon bouncing off everyone and we were quickly in tune with each other. From this collaboration Richard and I put together a running script detailing the kind of shots we wanted to do and the guys were delighted with that and told us to go ahead. They trusted me a 100% which whilst daunting really allowed me to concentrate and totally zone in during the shoot”.
To capture the sense of unease that comes with the unknown, Junior directed the video from a small girls point of view. We see her happily playing and running around with her toys, whilst in the background there are ever-ominous signs. The TV is full of war scenes, flashing blue and red lights tint the landscape, and veiled camera angles obscure our view. Junior describes that feeling “as though you are in a fairy tale, the feeling that whatever is lurking in the background will rush out and eat you, but of course never does”. Junior used the depth of field, palette, and colour grade, to play and build on the suspense that lives within the action, always playing with this suggestion of danger and threat, rather than showing anything overtly dangerous itself.
The small girl who stars in the video was a family friend. Junior said, “Working with her was great we allowed her innocence and sense of play to shine through, rather than directing I more than often just filmed her going about her play, by the end she was directing herself! Choosing how and where to place props it was like having a mini Kubrick on set. But this approach in essence allowed us to be the ‘dark presence’. I controlled the focus and lighting and brought in a lot of film references for each shot, that aimed to give an overarching feel of unease”.
The video was filmed over two days, the first on set in the mountains overlooking Junior’s home city of Barcelona, and the second in the streets of the city itself. Richard and the Trunk team worked with Spanish producer Mireia Jordán to help put the team together, and DOP Jon D. Dominguez who Junior has worked with on a number of projects. Richard notes, “The team were amazing and worked so hard to achieve Junior’s vision, it was an absolute pleasure to work with them, and I can’t wait to do it all over again!”.
The final piece is poetic and unnerving, like a collage, with a sense of peril and tension. Ambiguous and with a deliberate subtle narrative, it perfectly captures the sense of foreboding within the music. The band was delighted with the end result. Discussing Junior the band state “He has done a great job of bringing to life what was in our heads when we wrote the track. It mirrors a lot of what our own children’s experiences must be now, and what they must be taking in from the world around them”.
Click below for press coverage :-
Credits :-
Director: Junior
Producer: Richard Barnett
DOP: Jon D. Dominguez
Assistant Camera: Javier Badet
Producer (Spain): Mireia Jordán
Assistant Producer: Virginia González Lancaster
Gaffer: Nathan Grimes
1st AD: Lucia Alemany
Art Direction: Heura Marimon
Actress Coach: Chabeli Arjona
Actress: Melissa Arjona
Animation: Rok Predin
Wardrobe: http://www.bobochoses.com/
Production Company: Trunk Animation
Band Management: Hamish Duff
Commissioner: Cynthia Lowe
Record Co: Decca
Trunk’s director Junior Martínez animates light.
On 03, Nov 2015 | In Press | By Pip
Trunk’s director Junior Martínez and Pablo Barquín have created a stunning and mesmerising video for Floating Points, aka Sam Shepherd. The music in the video is taken from ‘Silhouettes (I, II & III)’, an eleven-minute overture that is also the second track on Floating Point’s forthcoming debut album. Elaenia (out via Pluto in the UK and Luaka Bop in the US on 6th November).
The video came about when Sam Shepherd saw the amazing light rig Pablo had built at Hamill Industries in Barcelona. The motion rig converts digital 3D data into analog movement to control the path of an LED resulting in ethereal 3D light images. Mixing in camera effects with digital precision has always fascinated Pablo. He states that “the hardware wasn’t complicated and took us around 3 weeks to develop and build, but the software took a bit longer, almost a month. The hardest part was developing the right combination of hardware, software, electronics, cameras, lighting etc and getting them all to communicate perfectly. “
Junior felt the music needed a cinematic feel and came up with the concept for the video. “ I wanted to film the video somewhere that had a vast space such as a mountain range or desert. Pablo had always wanted to film in Rio Tinto on the Spanish and Portuguese border, it is deemed the closest thing to Mars on Earth, and ended up perfectly portraying the sense of space and grandeur suggested by the music. I wanted lights to appear in the heavens and unite on the ground, pulsating and stirring to the music. Due to time restraints I knew we had to recreate that amazing landscape in the studio yet thanks to Anna Diaz Ortuño’s excellent editing skills the transition in the video was seamless. We also worked closely together to ensure the story arc was more artistic and unearthly than narrative.”
The location also led to a lot of challenges Pablo notes “Shooting in Río Tinto was really hard, as we had only 5 nights and a lot of material to shoot. It was the first time we used this machine for a shoot so it was kind of hard to make a shooting plan with the right timings. Sometimes an animation of 70 frames could take a whole night to get done. We learnt on the fly how to be more efficient. It was a huge effort: we crossed the entire Country! Sometimes we even had to choose a location in total darkness in the middle of a mine!”
Junior observed that the tough working conditions helped the shoot in ways that were unexpected “Although I created animatics for each shot the unexpected always happened. During one of the first shoots in Rio Tinto at 5am in the morning a big scary mist came down and we thought, because it was time-lapse, taking 5 min for each frame, that it would look weird. Yet it was the opposite, it was amazing, so we added loads of smoke when we filmed in the studio to recreate the look of that amazing shot. It generated a natural glow, ambient, creating a mysterious background like E.T. “
The dazzling and compelling video is accompanied by a ‘making-of film’ that shows the lengths to which Junior, Pablo, Anna and director of photography Nathan Grimes went to finish the video.
Richard at Trunk noted “ It’s always such a pleasure when Junior sends us projects he’s working on, we have a really close relationship so it’s great to see the progression, you always know you are going to be in for a visual treat!”
Click below for press coverage:-
Credits:-
Directors: Pablo Barquín, Junior Martínez
Creative Team: Pablo Barquín, Anna Diaz Ortuño, Nathan Grimes, Junior Martínez
Executive Producers: H.I. (Hamill Industries) & Floating Points
Lead Producer: Anna Diaz Ortuño
Director of Photography: Nathan Grimes
Research & Technical Development: Pablo Barquín, H.I.
H.I. Technical Assistant: Joan Recasens
Editor: Anna Diaz Ortuño
Lead Animators: Fernando Domínguez, Wyz Borrero
Animators: Ohmyhood Luis “Inkclear” Redondo
Concept Artists: Junior Martínez , Michele Angelo
Plants Set Decorators: Estudio Sauvage
Post-production Team: Agus Verrastro, Florent Bastide
Production Assistants: Aida Busquets, Lidia Arruego
Digital Intermediate provided by RCO
RCO Colorist: Seth Ricart
RCO Producer: Marcus Lansdell
Special thanks to:
Fundación Rio Tinto, Ivan Rodriguez, 380 Monta Llum i Roda, Rab and Tanya Gordon, Chabeli Rodriguez, Marga Sardà, Alba Barneda, DVEIN, Agus Verrastro, Pamplona89, RCO, Laura Martinova, Pablo Hugo, Melissa, Saúl Narbona, Irina, Javo, Elsa Tejera, Jacinto Barquín, Marc Luelmo, Tinta, Cynthia, Sarah, Mita, Eric and specially to Sam for believing in this project since the very beginning.
Shot in Río Tinto, Huelva & Hamill Industries Headquarters
Barcelona, 2015
