studioGPU

Producing a broadcast commercial a month using MachStudio Pro

MachStudio Pro has been out on the market for less than 6 months, but already I've seen examples of some impressive production work. Last week there was a press release about the PlayMobil DVD for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and no doubt there will be other high visibility releases.

But I wanted to do some informal callouts in this blog of some of the interesting work I've seen, running from small productions, to experiments, to high visibility projects. What got me thinking about this, was the recent "Natal" video I received from FX, lda, a Mozambican post production studio for TV. FX, Ida is using MachStudio Pro to produce one commercial each month for the Arroz Leao brand of rice.

Nildo Essa is the principal behind FX, Ida. He began as a one man shop but has recently expanded to add in a second modeler for background scenes, and a story writer. Nildo himself does all animation, rendering, lighting and character modeling.

Natal (a punk jingle bells holiday commercial) is the second commercial in the series created with MachStudio Pro (see his other video in the showcase)

The workflow for Natal

For the "Natal" Commercial, Nildo motion captures all moves of the 3 characters in his very small but workable mocap studio (Nildo is the actor!). He imports this data into Max, cleans it up, and then maps into onto the final characters which are already modeled and textured.

With the camera work done he moves all assets into MachStudio Pro. For Natal he rendered the foreground elements separately from the background and then used After Effects for compositing and motion blur. In Premiere Pro he adds the final touches and special FX.

Now the kicker: Each commercial averages about 1 week of actual production from audio recording to the final piece and showing to the client. Impressive to say the least.

If you have an example of work you have done in MachStudio Pro, or impressions/critiques about the productions I feature in this blog, submit a comment.