Barneys 2017: The Haas Brothers

Our good friends at Barneys invited us to collaborate on their world famous holiday windows for the third year in a row.

This year, we teamed up with The Haas Brothers to bring their trippy spin on art and design to all four windows at Barneys flagship location – as well as a series of 10 Haas Rules for social media.

Director: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Design/Illustration: The Haas Brothers
Animation: Paulo Stoker, Lucas Fiacadori, Nibe Mbumba, Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Music: Honnda
Representation: Meta.is

Future Portrait

Future Portrait debuted in The Lab at The Panorama Music Festival.

In Future Portrait, motion becomes animation. Simple and amazing. No green screens. No special suits. No explanations needed. Just jump in and move, or remix the action at two touchscreen stations.

Future Portrait recreates the relationship between a performer and a director in a virtual space. Change the lighting, add AI creatures, and use touch to affect the virtual particles.

The ability to create art intuitively gets people excited and involved. The best interactive experiences are ones that you don’t overthink – you just do.

Director: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Structural Design and Fabrication: Akemi Blanchard
Code: Aggro Studios
Choreography: Tyler Gilstrap
Dancers: Suzie Rzecznik, Steven Orrego Upegui, Benji Rama
Live Music: Nate Tucker
Camera + Editorial: Eric Chang
PAs: Yon Gon, Ben Karon, Serena Fang
Representation: Meta.is

Barneys 2016: Peace, Love, Joy + Analog

Barney’s invited us back again this year to create another holiday window for their new downtown store. Mashing up traditional animation, throwback CG, and vintage analog effects, PLJ+A is a cannon ball leap into the deep end of the holiday spirit.

PLJ + A was born out of a desire for exploration: exploring how the meaning of Peace, Love, and Joy extends beyond the usual holiday symbolism, and expanding the approach that we’ve usually taken to animation.

This project represented our first work in the world of analog video effects. In addition to our usual digital animation tools, we expanded the pipeline with the addition of analog equipment including Edirol V4s, VHS camcorders and Commodore 64 monitors for video feedback effects.

Director: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Design/Illustration: Raul Burgos, Alex Bond, Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Animation: Jules Guerin, Guilherme … Read More »

Hieratic Gaze at The Panorama Music Festival

We teamed up with Dirt Empire and Antfood to create Hieratic Gaze, a 360 degree visual experience that debuted at this summer’s Panorama Music Festival.

Hieratic Gaze was an immersive – and communal – cinematic experience, allowing dozens of festival visitors at a time to experience a journey through time and space in a huge 69 foot dome.

Brooklyn Magazine wrote “The cherry on top of the entire installment was The Dome, a 360 degree virtual reality theater where everyone lies down on the floor and looks up at the immersive images together. Lying there was the closest and most connected I have felt to a huge group of strangers in a long time, the most overwhelmed and awed I’ve been since I first saw a movie on IMAX. (I also recommend getting … Read More »

Dante’s Inferno for Vox and Sony Pictures

Take a whirlwind tour through Dante’s influence on popular culture – and the last places you’d want to spend eternity – in our latest for Vox and Sony Pictures.

Director: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Design/Illustration: Raul Burgos
Animation: Jules Guerin
Representation: The Foreign Correspondent’s Club

Refinery29 + Target for Take Back the Beach

We teamed up with Refinery29 and Target to celebrate summer while feeling good about who you are.

Production Company: GoodGreatGrand
Director: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Design/Illustration: João Lavieri, Paulo Stoker
Animation: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard, Jules Guerin, Sylvain Magne, Nibe Mbumba, Paulo Stoker
Storyboards: Debi Hammack

Barneys + Lexus: Arctic Chase

Welcome to the future on ice. We made this short film for Barneys’ 2015 holiday window. Arctic Chase mixes classic anime, CG, and glitch into an insane race through an arctic world. Daredevil penguins, Low G racers with anger management issues, monster race announcers, robot submarine captains, cyborg Yeti – and more – crowd into a wild race that threads through futuristic cities, ice caverns, and under the frozen sea.

Less a coherent story and more a lost trailer for some forgotten 97 part series, Arctic Chase is our scrambled love letter to classic racing anime. We were lucky to collaborate with Gary Gerding, who built an amazing translucent slot car track on which 3D prints of our three crystal-embellished heroes race each other.

Barneys was a great partner: Creative Director Dennis Freedman and VP of … Read More »

American Express Rally On The River

We created VS for American Express’ Rally On The River event for US Open Week. Incorporating archival footage, abstract design, high-speed water footage, and CG effects, VS told the story two-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova. Using four 20K Barco projectors, the film was displayed on a 40′ x 60′ screen of falling water suspended over the Hudson River at Manhattan’s Pier 97.

Creative Director: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Design: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Editor: Nika Offenbac, Ryan Powell
Animation: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard, Birgit Rathsmann, Csaba Bardos, Karoly Seiner
Keying: Debra Khoo-Jeffrey
Producer: Nathan Jew
Representation: The Foreign Correspondents Club
Agency: Momentum Worldwide
Production Company: Bionic League
Event Creative Direction: Venom

Freight Rail Works (ILN Cut)

As usual, we couldn’t leave well enough alone. Our good friend (and wonderful director) Nika Offenbac asked us to do an endtag for a series she was shooting for American Freight Rail. But we kept rolling down the track and turned it into a whole epic journey type of thing.

Creative Director: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Design: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard, Will Huang
Editor: Maria Diakova
Animation: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard, Will Huang, Irakli Gharibashvili, Andrew MacFarlane
Compositing: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard, Will Huang
Producer: Nathan Jew
Representation: The Foreign Correspondents Club
Agency: Homefront
Production Company: Weasel Works
Live Action Director: Nika Offenbac

Special thanks to Will and Andrew for some particularly spectacular plugin hacking

Pepsi Challenge: Nicola Formichetti (ILN Cut)

Think you have what it takes to design a Pepsi can? Nicola Formichetti, fashion superstar and Pepsi global design ambassador, challenges you to give it a shot. We collaborated with our good friends at M ss ng P eces on this one. And you know we love Pepsi.

Production Company: M ss ng P eces
Live Action Director: Adria Petty
Creative Director: Elliot Kealoha Blanchard
Design: João Lavieri
Editor: Maria Diakova
Animation: Will Huang, Martynas Puodžiūnas
Producer: Nathan Jew
Representation: The Foreign Correspondents Club