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NYC Skyline Before & After

After our recent New York City shoot, Kmotion Media took on the NYC skyline, executing a complicated, multi-layered series of high-end digital enhancements in post.

This NYC shoot is part of a nationwide campaign Kmotion has produced for Aurora Health Care. The testimonial campaign highlights the great distances real people have traveled for care at Aurora St. Luke’s. The local scenery plays a large supporting role in the spots.

However, the shoot was plagued with torrential rain during the day and heavy drizzly fog at dusk.  We had one chance to shoot our family overlooking the NYC skyline. It was an undesirable evening, with heavy fog that covered the entire city.

before

But it was our one chance to get our closing shot with the family, so we pressed on.

We came back the next night to shoot the same scene, but without the family, hoping for better weather. It was a bit better, but still quite foggy.  Knowing we’d need to work quite a bit of magic, we shot the scene for about an hour, capturing all phases of sundown.

Plates

Back at Kmotion, we combined the family’s scene with several of the second night scenes and then actually digitally “built” the remaining parts of the NYC skyline that were obscured by the fog on both days.

Bridge

By special client request, we added spotlights to the Brooklyn Bridge where there are none and adjusted some of the skyline to be more aesthetically “balanced”.

skyline

The NYC shoot also had some real highlights.

In addition to shooting in the heart of Manhattan, around Lexington and 51st, we also shot the interview on a rooftop that’s frequently used for commercial shoots and movie productions. Scenes from “Men in Black 3” were recently shot on the rooftop.

production

The final spot:

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American Heart Association Animation

Kmotion Media Produces Animated National Spot for the American Heart Association’s National Center

Video Site

 We recently completed production and delivery of a national spot for the American Heart Association’s Dallas-based marketing group. The thirty-second PSA, which will be broadcast nationally, is an animated infographic style spot designed to promote awareness of atrial fibrillation and its impact on increased risk of stroke.

The American Heart Association’s team had developed a one-page printed infographic that had been successful as a printed piece, but the AHS marketing group wanted to develop a motion graphic approach that would take it to “the next level”.

So the American Heart Association’s team headquartered in Dallas, Texas, contacted Kmotion to execute the project. We dived in and, under a tight deadline and with a limited budget, quickly implemented the spot.

Working from the very stylistically simple infographic, which also contained a wealth of information, the Kmotion team developed a spot concept that dynamically engages the viewer while clearly delivering the message. We presented several initial concepts and after deciding on a single approach, developed two storyboard options, each representing a different visual style. Once a final storyboard concept was selected, the spot was executed using a mix of motion graphics and 3D software.

The American Heart Association will also be featuring the spot on its website for a limited time at this location:  www.heart.org/AFib.com

 

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Surreal Inspiration

Greg and I are just back from a trip to Paris, where we indulged in art, architecture and food. (LOTS of each and every one of those!)  We went to a fantastic exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, “Subversion Images: Surrealism, Photography, Film”.  In addition to the arresting, iconic and inspirational manipulation of the modern image, the exhibition also highlighted the emphasis that the Surrealists placed on the group over the individual.

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One of the beliefs driving this was that collective creation opens new possibilities for artistic and poetic expression.  Our philosophy here at Kmotion Media follows suit – we believe that creative elevation occurs when creative people (our group here, agency folks, photographers, graphic  & digital artists, marketing & communications pros, writers, directors, etc.) come together and work back-and-forth, building upon ideas and supporting each other during the creative journey.  Not to mention, it’s just more fun that way.

surreal2

 

Just like us and our peers, Man Ray was also a commercial artist.  In fact, one of his most famous images (above) was created for a cosmetics ad.  Inspirational.

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Kmotion’s Work Featured on Sony’s VideON Online Network

Our “Denise” spot has been accepted to be featured on Sony’s VideON Online Network – a website dedicated to educating and entertaining the professional production community.

Video Site

Kmotion shot the spot with Sony’s newest CineAlta video camera. The camera is Sony’s first professional handheld digital production camera with a cinematography grade, Super 35mm imager.

To take full advantage of the CineAlta’s Super 35mm sensor, Kmotion also invested in a set of matched Carl Zeiss Prime cine lenses. Like all Zeiss Prime cine lenses, they are manufactured with absolute precision and tailored to the demands of professional cinematography. The Zeiss Prime lenses deliver low distortion, high resolution and excellent color rendition for sharp, punchy cinematically rich images.

The Aurora Health Care spot is the first project Kmotion Media has completed with the Sony CineAlta camera.

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Kmotion Media Wins Gold American Design Award

webpage

The kmotionmedia.com website has been selected by the American Design Awards (ADA) for the month of September (just announced last week) for excellence in website and interactive design.

The American Design Awards (ADA) is among the top internationally recognized design awards organizations, and perhaps the most popular independent awards organization globally with more than 35,000 submissions annually.

The award is given monthly to a small percentage of entries.  Kmotion Media received the September 2009 award for excellence in design, which is scored according to creativity, effectiveness and practicality. 720 entries worldwide were entered and out of those only 40 were selected. Kmotion Media’s entry ranked fourth, earning a Gold Award and placing above such prestigious websites as Converse.com and Weber.com. We are (needless to say) extremely honored to be chosen for this prominent award and are very humbled to be recognized alongside some of the industry’s largest and most-prestigious digital advertising agencies. The site is a full-screen video website experience. Part art installation, part visual experiment and part creative showcase, the site takes advantage of the latest in web technology, digital video compression and design to offer an ever-changing full-screen video experience.  The site currently features more than 15 random video backgrounds unique to the site – including a spoof of a 1950’s Martian movie which depicts a flying saucer over Green Bay’s classic Sky-Lit motel, a favorite video of site visitors. See if you can find the flying saucer (hint: hitting the “reload” button on your browser resets the background movie selection): www.kmotionmedia.com

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Packers Pro Shop 2010

Kmotion Media just completed production of the first two spots for the Packers Pro Shop 2010 campaign.  The Karma Group, an experienced branding group based in Green Bay, asked Kmotion Media to partner on the production and post-production.

Helmet-Blue-Screen
Blood-Drip

We worked closely with the Karma team, led by Creative Director Johnny Mackin and Senior Art Director Bill Luebker.  Johnny set the stage with an awesome vision and the willingness to take a risk by suggesting a radical departure for the 2010 Packers Pro Shop campaign.  Bill added to the mix by providing some killer storyboards and visual direction.

Shirt-Green-Screen

The resulting spots utilize a few things from the Kmotion bag of tricks:

HD video production
Chroma keying
Compositing
Rotoscoping
Matchmoving
Graphic design
Motion graphics
3D animation
3D model building
Kinetic type
Visual FX
Illustration
Color correctionPhoto manipulation

We started by creating the “All Day” & “Connected” Style boards:

pro_shop_sb1

pro_shop_sb2

 

“All Day” and “Connected” making of video:

The final “All Day” & “Connected” spots:

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