John G. Shedd Aquarium Penguin Playscape Animation: Case Study

Shedd and Mightybytes approached us in late 2008 with a job proposal: create a twelve-minute, loopable animation using real penguin behaviors, and deliver it under a very tight budget and in over double-HD resolution.





Working closely with Mightybytes, we coordinated research on animal behaviors and built the digital environment to take advantage of the actual shape of the wall where it would be projected. All animal assets were created from scratch, rigged, and animated based on meticulous reference video.

Each texture and render layer was tweaked to render as fast as possible. Even a relatively low render time of 12 minutes per frame was too high for our budget and delivery schedule, so everything was rendered separately for lightning quick renders of penguins/water/background animals/etc. Compositing tricks were used to mask loop points, particularly in the ocean and sky, to allow the video to loop endlessly.



Radek at the Shedd display

Defective: Case Study

Created as a senior project at Columbia College and used in a contest sponsored by Microsoft, this film is remains the longest stretch of 3D computer animation created by Radek Michalik. The goal was to create an emotionally engaging film with as much detail and work as could be crammed into a semester of work. Radek decided to go with the "connection" story archetype: a smelting machine toiling on an assembly line having pity on a defective toy that has somehow become conscious. All music and sound work is original and created by Mark Nadolski.

ONLINE SOON!

ALONE NO MORE (2010)

Alone No More titles sequence: Case Study

The goal of these titles was to add to the narrative of the film. More specifically, we wanted to hint at the origins of Maddie’s mental instability. The director, Radek Michalik, felt strongly that the root of it lay in the experience of losing her mother, and the idea of staging the title sequence within a muted, colorless church, with the apparitions apparently coming together out of droplets of tears/blood, seemed appropriate.





To achieve this look, the church was photographed with a high-resolution still camera. Then footage of drops of food coloring were filmed hitting a tub of water, a paper towel, toilet paper, etc. All of the elements were then composited together, often projected onto 3-D geometry to create a rough feeling of depth and parallax.

ALONE NO MORE TRAILER(2010)


Amy Helix (Amanda Krumrei) and her younger sister Maddie (Dana Arcicovich) grieve at the funeral of their late mother. A day later, Amy is back to her usual self—except for the nightmarish, faceless figures that now haunt her sleepless nights. Maddie’s concern for Amy grows as she finds out about Amy’s insomnia, but Amy is convinced these figures are just figments of her imagination. Her fiercely independent nature backfires, however, when she forcefully refuses Maddie’s help. Is Amy strong enough to banish her bogeymen? Or will her nightmares just keep multiplying…





In many ways, I think, Alone No More is a short film engineered to buck the norms of what you would usually see coming out of recent Columbia grads. Where you might expect an arthouse picture with a somber, thoughtful tone, we give you a meaty film capped with an appalling ending that stubbornly refuses to provide catharsis or resolution in the conventional sense. Not really a horror film in a conventional sense, Alone No More is more of a thriller that probes our grief and concludes that it doesn't always follow an easily identifiable pattern-- and that it's something that some will always be haunted by.

STUDENT OF FORTUNE (2010)

UFO in Poland (2010)

UFO SIGHTING ON AIRPLANE (2010)

Passengers recount their experience with a UFO on a flight to LA.

FATAL ABORTION (2010)

Kim has an unfulfilling job and a husband wallowing in self-pity.
But things turn from bad to worse when something comes from the night and chooses her...

a film written, directed, produced by RADEK MICHALIK

co-produced by NICOLE KLEMENS

cast
DENEEN MELODY
MATTHEW ALLIS

director of photography NICOLE KLEMENS

music produced and composed by MARK NADOLSKI

script supervision by ROBERT IWATAKI

sound design by MARK NADOLSKI

visual effects by RADEK MICHALIK