Wednesday, February 23, 2011
A festive group braved a California winter's night last
Thursday, and gathered at The Mill L.A. in Celebration of Cycling
to benefit City of Hope Hospital's
Leukemia treatment and research for a cure.
"For those who suffer, we ride!" is the calling card of Fireflies West, the San Francisco to Los
Angeles companion ride to Fireflies Europe. Hosted by Rapha, RSA
Films and The Mill, the night's entertainment included three
cycling-inspired, passion-fuelled film shorts - D'Acciaio, Two Broad Arrows
and Throw the
Dice.
The Mill's Ben Hampshire, RSA's Jake Scott, Rapha's Slate Olson
and City of Hope's Sharon Wilcznski, M.D., Ph.D., all spoke,
sharing info on how to get involved.
Also announced at the event, the dates for this year's Fireflies
West ride are: Sunday, Sept. 18 - Friday, Sept. 23, 2011.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
As one of the highest grossing films of 2010, The Chronicles of
Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was enjoyed by millions
across the world.
Now you can take an exclusive step behind the scenes with our
Lead FX TD, Andy Guest, who reveals how The Mill's VFX team brought
some of the film's stunning water scenes and the magical Naiad sea
creatures to life.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
…Ok, the next video I want to talk about is "Beck's - loser"
directed by his friend Steve Hanift. At the time it came out around
1993 I watched a hell of a lot of MTV and this seemed to be on
permanently, working its way into my music video subconscious. The
vivid colours and 'mash up style' was something I don't think I had
seen before, and I liked it. Beck said in an interview at the time
that "We weren't making anything slick - it was deliberately crude.
You know? It wasn't like one of these perfect new-wave color
soft-focus extravaganzas." Which is exactly what it was. The use of
archive footage, positive images, video and grainy super 8mm had a
lasting impression on me for sure.
The next video, which was also on around the same time as 'loser'
is, "smashing pumpkins - 1979" Directed by husband and wife
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who also directed "little Miss
sunshine" . Apparently Spike Jonze also pitched on the video but
his idea would of cost too much money so they left it. Anyway, the
final result is simply a cool video in which they drive around in a
cool car (Dodge charger) going to cool parties rammed with
massively cool shots. (Sorry about the over extended use of the
word 'cool' but this was to emphasise and back my original
statement) the shots are something though. The use of body cam in
the mini market. The use of body cam on the toilet roll. The fully
revolving shot in the interior of the car. The wide angle lenses.
The underwater pool shots. We've all seen them loads since and
whether they are original or not, it was the first time I had seen
them.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
It's fair to say that we've certainly come a long way since the
days when Pac Man, Donkey Kong and Frogger were the height of
technological and computer gaming sophistication and had us
fighting over our Commodore 64's...
So check out our new Games Reel which features
everything from gaming trailers, online teasers, in-game content
and cinematics created for some of the industry's biggest
developers and games titles by our very own in-house Gaming
team.
Tetris anyone?
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Spurred on by industry nods such as three VES nominations last
month and crowd-pleasing Super Bowl spots such as Audi 'Release the
Hounds' and Best Buy 'Outdated World', The Mill LA has hired eight
new CG artists.
Pictured, back row, left to right: Michael Panov, Yorie
Kumalasari, Gawain Liddiard, Nick Lines, Andre De Souza.
Front row, left to right: Josh Hatton, Felix Urquiza, Sam Kao
Plans are also well underway for a summer move to a huge new
30,000-sq-ft warehouse space in Culver City, complete with
additional suites, CG stations and newly created departments...
Read the full story in Post Magazine:
http://www.postmagazine.com/Press-Center/Daily-News/2011/The-Mill-LA-adds-talent-plans-expansion.aspx
Monday, February 07, 2011
The Super Bowl is a hugely expensive, but seen as an enormously
worthwhile, opportunity for advertisers to get their products out
to the masses - and we should know as The Mill has worked on many
of these commercials over the past few years. It's not
unusual to see big hitters spend up to $2.5 million for a 30 second
spot, but seeing as it's reaching nearly 90 million viewers,
perhaps it's not all that surprising.
This year saw that small dogs love Doritos… a lot; the ace Darth
Vader spot for Volkswagen as well as diminutive Canadian child
singer Justin Bieber showing up alongside the Osbournes for
electronics uber store Best Buy.
There were multiple movie trailers released, some of which we've
seen glimpses of before (Battle Field LA), others, such as JJ
Abrams' 'Super 8' have been kept tightly under wraps. Below
are a few of my highlights from last night's Super Bowl broadcast,
my personal fave being 'Super 8', as it manages to capture the old
school magic of ET, Indiana Jones (pre-Shia LaBeouf) and The
Goonies.
For a full debrief on all the ads and their general popularity,
check out USA Today's ad-o-meter:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2011/super-bowl-ad-meter/43271432/1
PS: Before I go, well done The Cheese Heads!
Super 8
A bunch of kids in 1979 inadvertently capture the escape of
something most inhuman from a train wreck on their super 8
camera - adventure and government cover ups ensue. Awesome.
The First Avenger: Captain America
As Marvel gear up for what is rumoured to be a possible 9 films
about The Avengers, we get our first introduction to the first
member of the super team, Captain America. Set for the majority in
the 40's, it looks like we could have a Indiana Jones type
adventure on our hands. I love the before and after of Steve Rogers
too.
http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/565-first-captain-america-footage-shown-during-the-super-bowl
Thor
More Marvel as Thor acts all naughty and is cast out from Asgard
to live in California and date Natalie Portman, oh, and fight
baddies and throw a giant hammer to boot. Another Avengers related
tale FYI...
http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/565-first-captain-america-footage-shown-during-the-super-bowl
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Transformers was forgivable, enjoyable pap, the second movie was
one of the worst things I've seen, so the jury's out on what we can
expect from Mr Bay, other than big explosions. Let's hope the
racist overtones of the second film are replaced with a script and
storyline. Still, nice trailer though.
http://www.slashfilm.com/transformers-3-super-bowl-commercial/
Fast Five
Yup, we definitely need another one of these movies, and hey,
why not throw The Rock in while you're at it. Two words: car
chases.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides
The only reason I'm interested in this is to see Ian 'Lovejoy'
McShane tear up the screen in a role not dissimilar (though I
imagine less sweary) to Mr Al Swearengen from Deadwood as he plays
Blackbeard the Pirate. All other pirate clichés will be
included.
The Eagle
Channing Tatum (which sounds like a village in Kent) plays a
young soldier out to protect his father's reputation by finding a
missing Roman emblem. Jamie Bell comes along for the ride, perhaps
there's some dancing? (there's no dancing).
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1845733948927
Monday, February 07, 2011
Yesterday's Super Bowl XLV was a great game and a great day for
the Green Bay Packers! The Mill Group had a pretty good day too!
While we weren't in there running a Hail Mary on 4th and long, we
did manage to work on over 20 Super Bowl spots between our NY, LA
and London studios. We were incredibly lucky to have collaborated
with such an amazing calibre of clients, agencies, directors and
editors, as well as world-class crews! Congratulations to everyone
involved.
Grab a beverage and
click here to enjoy a closer look at some of our Super Bowl
highlights!
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
With three series of the hit drama under their belts, our Mill
TV team's work on Merlin could be considered something just short
of magical itself!
From epic battle scenes both inside and outside the castle's
walls, to the mystical creatures that regularly threaten to wreak
havoc on the Kingdom of Camelot and its famous residents, our VFX
team have their work cut out.
Series 3 has been no exception. In our special behind-the-scenes
making of video, VFX
Supervisor Barney Curnow lifts the lid on some of the key
challenges the team faced bringing the show to life.
Check out the Mill on: