Wyld Stallyons

Its been a while so here’s a wee update of the Wyld Stallyons Summer…

2010-10-08T06:53:00.001-07:00

See No Evil: 1st June, 2010.

We were invited by our good friends Tiago Maia and James Wignall to share a piece of the the Wyld Stallyons pie to an audience at See No Evil - a bi-monthly event held at Bar Kick.

Chris Sayer and Jason Arber adorned with Mexican wrestling masks fronted the talk about our recent projects and revealing the processes and stories behind the jobs along with showcasing previously unseen work that we did for Ministry of Sound.

Glug: D&AD Student Awards After Party: 20th June, 2010.

You may have also seen us at Glug - we were asked to host a 'Meet and Greet' in order for graduates to come and have a chat about life in the in the industry and for us to give them some invaluable insights into the scary transition from working within a professional environment. Natalie, Jason, Chris and myself , Janey, all enjoyed the enjoyed barbecue and beers whilst chatting to students about the next stages for their budding careers. As ever the event had a huge turnout and was a great opportunity to meet some fresh giftedpeople.

If you managed to come and speak to us then drop us an email to let us know what you are up to - or if you didn't manage to come along then get in touch with your showreels as we are always on the look out for talented individuals.

Jason Arber with a fellow graduate student at the D&AD awards.

Chris Sayer...deep in conversation.

Jason and Janey

Computer Arts - Jason Arber - 23rd September, 2010.

Our very own Jason Arber was asked to contribute to Computer Arts' Graduate Showcase Event at Cafe 1001 in September; an annual compilation of the best final-year student design work from around the world. He joined John McFaul, Richard Tilley, Matt Booth and Dan Moore to provide inspiration and insight to career hungry graduates. Jason spoke about the benefits of adopting a unique approach to work and also presented previously unseen content, which should be appearing on our site very soon. Additionally, Jason spoke about the work we did on the movie Kick Ass and also revealed a sneak preview into a brand new project we have been working on behind closed doors.

Sneaky peak into our upcoming short film:

That's right Wyld Stallyons has been working on a new short film, which will be appearing in the viral world at the beginning of 2011. Jason Arber finally lives a director's dream by screenwriting and directing the exciting high octane action short that is Magnesium with Chris Sayer managing the highly intricate VFX side. This really has something for everyone; featuring CGI robots, kick ass female Biodroids, guns, explosions and lots of bloody fights! After 4 weekends of hardcore shooting with excellent cast and crew, we are finally getting close to wrap. We will be shooting the pick-up shots next month then will begin the hefty edit and visual effects nestled in-between our day jobs. Trust me it will be worth the wait!

Cast and Crew in filming location: Jaguar Shoes, East London.

Sarah our DOP takes a closer look to check lighting in the warehouse.

Chris Sayer with our lead Biodroid, played by Selina Lo.

Producer and cameo dead person, Janey Robinson and Jason Arber.

New faces at Wyld Stallyons

2010-03-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

Janey Robinson is our new Production Assistant. Janey spent most of her uni days in the darkroom discovering the magical medium that is Photography, continuing her journey at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth. During this time she pursued curation and film, putting on a number of mixed media exhibitions and shows in and around Bournemouth. Since graduating in 2009, Janey has worked with onedotzero on the production of their Adventures in Motion 2009 festival at the BFI, Harrods Magazine, and commercials including Vodafone Ireland and Strongbow.

Daryl Higgins is our new intern. Check out his cool stuff over at Vimeo

Coming Soon: Kick Ass (2010)

2010-03-23T05:50:00.000-07:00

Wyld Stallyons make our feature film debut in the movie Kick Ass, producing approximately 88 visual effects shots with Double Negative, including a great number of screen replacements. Much-anticipated, Kick Ass ticks all the boxes with politically incorrect humour, vulgarity and intense bloody super stylised action. Needless to say, this is not your typical superhero movie…

We can only dangle a teaser of this superhero awesomeness as you will have to check it out on the big screen.

Kick-Ass trailer

Kick Ass hitting the cinemas in the UK 2th April 2010. Don’t miss it. POW!

Spring Fever

2010-03-23T05:22:00.000-07:00

2010 has already been a busy and exciting year for Wyld Stallyons in our new studio so here is a quick update…

We’ve been working on the new Hardys (the wine brand) sponsorship idents for Come Dine With Me. Working closely with the creative agency we developed a concept that would combine live action and animation. We shot the live action last month over two days at a Studio in West London with some of the regular Wyld Stallyons crew. The idents should air around the 27th March so keep a look out for them on those lazy Sundays of Come Dine With Me marathons. 
Take a sneak peek at the photos posted on Flickr

In case you haven’t checked it out already, visit our homepage for the MTV and VHI bumpers. Wyld Stallyons produced three strands for the rebrand of new channels, MTV Shows, MTV Classics as well as the existing VH1.

Also up our sleeves for 2010 is our latest showreel. We will be posting a medley with some teasers in the near future– so stay tuned.

Don't forget you can also keep abreast of latest WS events and news on our Facebook.

Films to see before you die: Nacho Libre (2006)

2009-11-21T05:13:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that Napoleon Dynamite, the 2004 movie from Jared Hess, is considered by the crew at Wyld Stallyons to be one of the funniest and most original comedies of all time. It came out of nowhere, making a cult hero out of Jon Heder's titular character (he went on to feature in David Lettermen's Late Show and a spoof spot for Microsoft with Bill Gates), but it left director Hess a real problem: how do you follow up such a cool flick that's so damn funny?

Hess' second film, Nacho Libre concerns a monk played by Jack Black, who desires to be a luchador (a Mexican wrestler) so that he can help the orphans at the monastery and win the affections of Sister Encarnación (played by Penélope Cruz-a-like Ana de la Reguera). He enlists the help of Esqueleto (Héctor Jiménez), who previously mugged Nacho, and together they form an unlikely tag wrestling team. The movie culminates in a fight with Nacho's nemesis, the masked Ramses (César González), who turns out to be not quite the hero that Nacho initially thought he was.

The movie is not quite as episodic as Napoleon Dynamite, although the plot is slight and still acts as the bare bones to hang a series of bizarre situations from. Nacho Libre shares with Hess' first film a love of the bizarre, absurd and grotesque, and the movie is peppered with more oddball characters than David Lynch's entire oeuvre. Hess succeeds in creating a unique, self contained world, powered, it would seem, by Jack Black's uniquely mobile eyebrows. The movie is full of comedy Mexican accents, overwrought melodrama, slapstick and funny, quotable lines ("Chancho, when you are a man, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room... Just for fun.")

On paper, this film should be wall-to-wall laughs, and yet inexplicably it occasionally falls flat and runs out of steam. It doesn't happen very often, but it's enough to take the edge off the film. The ending, in particular, is a bit of a damp squib, and I waited hopefully to the end of the credits to see if there was a Napoleon Dynamite-style coda, but no such luck.

Hess seems uncertain whether to make the fights funny, or keep them true to the spirit of Lucha Libre, and ploughs an uncertain and wavering path between the two. It probably says more about Hess' inexperience as a director than any lack of innate comedy skills, because when he gets the magic combination right, he's one of the most thrilling and enjoyable directors around. I suspect he'll learn lessons from some of the fumbles in the movie and go on to become one of the great comedy directors.

Jack Black is consistently funny as Nacho, unafraid to make good use of his pudgy body and gurning face. It's the kind of role Jim Carrey could do, but would make unbearably annoying; with Jack Black, it's endearing.

Nacho Libre is a quirky little film, full of off-kilter nuances, that suffers from the inevitable comparison to Napoleon Dynamite. Although some aspects of the film don't quite hit the mark, this is still a far funnier film than most comedies that emerge from Hollywood (or anywhere else for that matter). At least Jared Hess (and his co-writing wife Jerusha) are doing something different: after all, when was the last time you saw a comedy about a Mexican wrestling monk?

onedotzero

2009-09-16T02:24:00.000-07:00

Wyld Stallyons were honoured to be part of the London premiere for onedotzero's annual celebration of moving image, this year entitled adventures in motion. Our music video for The Blizzards The Reason was selected to be part of the world tour which starts now. You can find out when onedotzero will be setting up the projectors in your neck of the woods by checking out their website.

We've moved!

2009-09-04T04:46:00.000-07:00

We're still knee-deep in boxes and looking for cables that attach one bit of equipment to another, but finally we moved out of our old offices to a new address in lovely Barbican. Luckily, this is five minutes walk from Clerkenwell, so clients who haven't yet updated their Blackberries with our new details won't have far to walk.

Now, all we need to do now is sort out that pesky internet...

Aneurysm

2009-06-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

Director Jason Arber's short film Aneurysm finally makes an appearance on the Wyld Stallyons site. Initially conceived as a studio test for the Canon 5D Mk II DSLR camera, it quickly became an unsettling peek into some of the darker regions of Jason's mind. Although we can't say for sure, we suspect he was dropped on his head as a baby.

Films to see before you die: When The Wind Blows (1986)

2009-06-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

Although it seems an unlikely notion today, back in the 1980s nuclear war seemed a distinct possibility, even a foregone conclusion. The Cold War had pitched the West against the Soviet Union and its allies resulting in a massive arms race and increasingly sinister sabre rattling. After the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the World was almost thrown into a full scale nuclear conflict, the only defence was deterrence, otherwise known as MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. Both sides had the capacity to destroy each other several times over, so any attack could be construed as suicide. However in the latter stages of the Cold War, with improving accuracy and missile technology, this deterrent was undermined by the doctrine of First Strike: attempting to destroy as much of the opposition's nuclear arsenal as possible.

This period was full of fear and paranoia, a time when the UK government issued a pamphlet entitled Protect and Survive, which demonstrated that they took the prospect of nuclear war extremely seriously. This document was to be one of the inspirations for Raymond Briggs' comic book, When The Wind Blows.

In the 1970s, Briggs had authored several comic books—Father Christmas, Fungus the Bogeyman and The Snowman—that had found success with both children and adults. During the following decade, his work took a darker, more adult tone, beginning with Gentleman Jim (1980), which followed the fortunes of Jim and Hilda Bloggs, loosely based on Briggs' parents.

Jim and Hilda returned once again for the pessimistic and satirical When The Wind Blows (1982), as the couple survive a nuclear blast—no thanks to the contradictory advice given in various government leaflets—but gradually succumb to the effects of radiation sickness. It's a sad and poignant tale set in the remote Sussex countryside, contrasting Jim's unwavering belief that the government has everything under control and the stark realities surrounding them.

The book was made into a powerful animated feature in 1986 starring Sir John Mills as Jim and Dame Peggy Ashcroft as Hilda. It was directed by Roger Corman protégé Jimmy T Murakami, who previously found fame with Humanoids from the Deep (1980), Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and a segment in the cult animation Heavy Metal (1981).

Murakami managed to craft an animation that remained an almost panel for panel reproduction of the comic book, but introduced some innovative techniques, such as placing the 2D characters in a 3D environment that was filmed with motion control cameras. The result is probably the closest a British movie has ever come to Japanese anime.

Although the threat of a Nuclear winter has diminished, the film still manages to pack a powerful emotional punch thanks to the flawless script by Briggs and the strong characterisation by Mills and Ashcroft, who are perfect in their role as the naïve, retired couple. The movie is grim and uncompromising, but also very human, and it's impossible to feel unmoved by Jim and Hilda's slow, painful decline.

It's arguably one of the greatest British cartoons ever made, up there with Watership Down (1978) and Yellow Submarine (1968). The DVD release comes with a German-produced documentary made while When The Wind Blows was in production and offers a fascinating insight into how cartoons were made before the introduction of computers.

Films to see before you die: Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

2009-06-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

A fairy tale for adults is the best way to summarise Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, childlike, magical and full of dark menace in equal measure, the movie is an incredible experience. It could be considered a companion piece to del Toro’s earlier The Devil’s Backbone (2001), and he himself thinks the movie could be seen as an informal sequel. At the 59th Cannes Film Festival, del Toro stated that compared to the earlier movie, Pan's Labyrinth is "a darker, more complex and metaphoric film."

The movie takes place in a post-civil war Spain in 1944, when the 12-year old Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) moves from the city to the countryside with her pregnant mother to be with her new stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi López). Vidal is trying to eradicate the last of the rebels on behalf of the fascist government, and is cold and merciless, a human embodiment of evil.

A fairy leads Ofelia into an ancient stone labyrinth next to the small village, the centre of which is a spiral staircase cut into the rock which leads to carved plinth and a giant faun (Doug Jones). He tells her that she is the reincarnation of of an ancient princess and gives her three tasks to do before the next full moon. He hands her a blank book, and tells her to read it when she is alone for instructions.

Her first task is to feed a giant toad a handful of stones and pull a key out of its stomach. The second task is to enter the lair of the Pale Man (Doug Jones) and use the key to find a hidden dagger. Under no circumstances should she eat from the great feast the Pale Man has laid out before him. But she ignores the advice and eats two grapes awakening the creature, who has a penchant for eating children.

Meanwhile, Vidal is trying to brutally suppress the rebels whilst trying to discover the identity of the informant in the village who is smuggling antibiotics to the wounded freedom fighters hiding in the woods surrounding the Captain's troops.

Ofelia’s mother struggles with a difficult pregnancy, falling in and out of a fever, which is temporarily relieved when Ofelia, on the advice of the faun, puts a mandrake root in a bowl of milk under her mother's bed. As the rebels finally attack the camp, the faun gives Ofelia one final chance to demonstrate that she is the princess of the netherworld.

The strength of del Toro’s work is that it effortlessly fuses the mysterious, surreal and nightmarish world of fairy tales with the brutal, dark and cruel reality of Spain under Franco. The art direction is astonishing, mixing del Toro’s unique vision with Goya, The Brothers Grimm, traditional folklore and hints of Alice in Wonderland.

Ivana Baquero is astonishing as Ofelia, giving an incredibly strong performance, reminiscent in many ways of Natalie Portman's portrayal of Mathilda in Luc Besson’s Léon (1994). Sergi López oozes evil from every pore in his role as the heartless captain, although if a criticism could be levelled at the film, it's that Vidal is so relentlessly malevolent that he becomes a cipher, and is not so well rounded as some of the other characters.

But this is a minor point for a film which is so wonderfully fantastical and works on so many levels. This film is designed to be allegorical and different meanings can be stripped from it, such as the perils of fascism and dogma and the loss of innocence for both Ofelia and Spain. The film deals with the difficult choices we all have to make and just as the faun is an ambiguous creature, capable of tenderness and violence, the reality of Ofelia's world is for the audience to decide.

Films to see before you die: Alice (1988)

2009-06-20T03:53:00.000-07:00

I'm sure Lewis Carroll didn't envisage anything quite as disturbing and nightmarish as Jan Švankmajer's Alice when he wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865. The dreamlike quality of the book has made it open to interpretation and over a dozen movie adaptations had been produced before Švankmajer's in 1988, the most famous of which was Disney's whimsical animated version in 1951.

Švankmajer is a Czech artist, born in 1934, whose work spans decades. He's best known for his surreal, stop-motion films, such as Darkness/Light/Darkness, Meat Love and Dimensions of Dialogue. His off-kilter aesthetic is darkly humorous, where plates of meat come to life and clay statues see with glass eyes. Švankmajer directly influenced artists such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam (who called Dimensions of Dialogue one of the ten best animated films of all time) and The Brothers Quay.

Švankmajer first tackled Carroll with his 1971 short film Jabberwocky (watch an excerpt here). Alice (or Něco z Alenky in the original Czech) is more inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland than a straight retelling of the story, and includes many changes to the original and new sequences.

Alice is now a slightly grubby child, who narrates the movie in the third person. The story is told in a mixture of live action and stop motion, with Alice (played by Kristýna Kohoutová and dubbed by Camilla Power in the English version) often shrinking down to a stop motion doll for certain sequences.

The movie is full of nightmarish images: stuffed animals, like the White Rabbit, who leak sawdust, ominous skulls, a rat hammering wooden stakes into Alice's head, and jars full of nails. It's a quietly menacing and disconcerting film, like an acid trip gone horribly wrong. And yet there are so many visual puns and funny moments it never becomes overwrought or bleak.

Švankmajer's entire oeuvre is worth checking out, but if you only have a chance to see one, Alice is a great example of his unique talent.

Interested in Digital Filmmaking?

2009-06-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in low-budget filmmaking and a roll-your-sleeves-up approach to special and visual effects, but don't know where to look for help, tutorials and like-minded people, here are a few links to get you started. It's not an exhaustive list, but a handy jumping off point to some of our favourite sites.

FXGuide
VFX Industry news, interviews and tutorials, and home to some of the best video and audio podcasts around, such as FXGuideTV, FXPodcast and Red Centre. FXPhd is a membership-based series of courses on all aspects of digital post-production, such as high-end compositing, and using industry standard software such as Nuke, Flame, Maya, Houdini, After Effects, Final Cut, Color, and more.

Video Co-pilot
If you want to learn After Effects, there's really only one place to go: Andrew Kramer's awesome Video Co-pilot site. He covers the basics, but also features advanced techniques that teach even long-time AE users new tricks in a funny and engaging way.

Creative Cow
Creative Cow is a less polished and more variable community, but still features a lot of handy tutorials on a wide range of creative software from After Effects to Apple Color.

DV Rebel
First of all, if you haven't bought the book, The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap, you should stop what you're doing right now and buy it. We pretty much treat it as our bible at Wyld Stallyons. Then head on over the the Rebel Café and dive into the forums which are full of useful information.

Film Riot
Filmmaking on the cheap: Ryan Connolly, together with Tim Allen and Joshua Connolly, show you how. This is basic stuff, but presented with such infectious energy and humour, it makes you want to grab a video camera and start shooting some exploding heads.

ProVideo Coalition
News and tutorials from people who really know what they're doing. Always an interesting read.

The VFX Show
A joint production between FXGuide and The PixelCorps, a team of panellists, including Mike Seymour, John Flowers, Jason Wingrove, Matt Graham and David Stripinis dissect new releases and classic movies, discussing the visual effects in wonderfully geeky depth.

DVXUser
This is where the filmmaking community hang out: a massive, useful and friendly forum. If you have a question about any aspect of digital filmmaking, chances are someone here has asked it already and the answer is a few mouse clicks away.

Have we forgotten anything? Email us and let us know!

We [heart] Red

2009-06-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

Film has some great qualities such as wonderful organic grain and amazing exposure latitude, but it's also expensive to shoot and process. Digital, on the other hand, is still playing catch-up in the latitude department, but the main advantage is that it can be much, much cheaper than film.

As each year passes more and more major Hollywood movies are shot digitally. George Lucas got the ball rolling by shooting Star Wars Episode II on the Sony HDW-F900, but other directors, such as Robert Rodriguez and Steven Soderberg have seen the way the wind is blowing and shot digitally too. Panavision's Genesis is often the camera of choice for DOPs thanks to its Super 35mm recording area, making it focally compatible with regular Cine Primo lenses and giving a true 35 mm depth of field.

While Panavision is an established name in the movie business, there's a new kid on the block: The Red Digital Cinema Camera Company, created by Jim Jannard, the founder of the eyewear and apparel company Oakley, Inc. A keen photographer with an interest in cinematography, he felt it was possible to create a brand new pro digital movie camera for an affordable price.

The Red One camera was announced in 2006 and released in 2007, and is a 4K camera which means that it has just over 4,000 pixels of horizontal resolution. Its low cost, high quality performance and advanced imaging techniques such as the wavelet technology in its Redcode Raw format have created unparalleled enthusiasm for a digital movie camera. Cynics have accused enthusiasts of being fanboys and of ignoring shortcomings in the Red's output, such as the rolling shutter effect caused by the CMOS sensor and the clipping of highlights. Later builds of the camera's firmware have tackled the latter issue, but some VFX professionals still prefer the Genesis camera's CCD sensor, which doesn't have rolling shutter problems.

To be fair, most rolling shutter artefacts are difficult, if not impossible, to detect on the Red One's output, unlike the current crop of digital SLRs capable of shooting HD footage, such as the Canon 5D Mark II. Many have hailed these new SLRs as a boon for indie filmmakers, but current incarnations of the cameras have some serious limitations. In the case of the popular Canon 5D Mark II, its framerate is fixed at an NTSC-friendly 30fps, which is largely unsuitable for PAL regions which shoot at 25fps or footage destined for the big screen which is shot at 24fps.

Red have announced the Scarlet, a "DSMC" (Digital Still & Motion Camera) which looks likely to compete with the Canon 5D Mk II in the low-budget, indie filmmaking market. Although the first Scarlet cameras will not be released for several months yet, the footage we have seen so far looks tantalisingly good, but there really hasn't been enough of it out in the wild to formulate a true opinion of the camera's capabilities. It's quite likely, however, that in situations where we may have been tempted to use a Canon 5D Mk II, we'll probably end up using the Scarlet, due to its more professional controls. The digital SLRs seem to be great stills cameras that also happen to capture moving images, whereas the Scarlet is hopefully a video capture device first and foremost, that also happens to take decent photos.

At Wyld Stallyons we love the Red camera because it fits into our way of working. Rather than edit R3D files natively in Final Cut, we often have an After Effects workflow. We use Red Alert or RedCine to output selected clips as ProRes 422 (HQ) Quicktime files and import these into After Effects. We can then use them, just as we would any other footage.

While we may not be taking advantage of all of the R3D features, it suits our purposes very well. And by inputting 10-bit images and using a 16-bit or 32-bit float workflow, we're maintaining the quality all the way down the pipeline until final delivery.

Other professional formats have given us headaches of one sort or another, but using the Red One camera and the Redcode Raw file format has been nothing but a pleasure.

We Have Already Begun to Die

2009-06-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a sneak peek at a new Wyld Stallyons short film called We Have Already Begun to Die. It's a personal project from Stallyons director Jason Arber, and was created with the help of individuals all around the world who kindly contributed their time and skills.

It should be finished next month, so keep checking back to find out more!

Summer 2009

2009-06-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

Everyone's sweltering in the summer heat, but we've been working away on cool new work and updates to our site.

Our blog is now on our website, as well as living at its usual address on Blogger, which means you don't have to go as far to find out what we've been up to.

A lot of people enjoy our twitter feed (which can be found at twitter.com/WyldStallyons so we've pulled out all the cool links we post there and incorporated them into a new Wyld Stallyons Tumblelog. Check it out!

We're going to be updating our blog much more frequently and include a wider range of information, so keep checking back for all your Wyld Stallyons news.

Fresh for 2009

2009-01-20T04:16:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone.

It's been a little while since the last piece of news. However, tis a new year, with new president and new work from us!

Yes, in case you haven't checked it out already, visit our website www.wyldstallyons.com to view our latest work, commissioned by Universal Music for Irish band, The Blizzards. We delighted at all the great feedback and press we've had so far... and the fact that it will also be appearing in the next issue of STASH Magazine/DVD which is very exciting for us.

Also in the pipeline is our latest showreel for Spring 2009. We'll be posting a montage with some cheeky little nuggets never seen before pretty soon - so stay tuned.

Don't forget you can also keep abreast of latest WS events and news on our facebook group page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/group.php?gid=4608570953&ref=ts

Laters dudes

x

Wyld Stallyons curate an afternoon of moving image

2008-10-30T04:07:00.000-07:00

Greetings Bloggers

Once again we've teamed up with our friends at Best Laid Plans to bring you an afternoon of visual delights THIS SUNDAY!

Wyld Stallyons will be taking over BLP cinema for 2 hours, showcasing a few nuggets of our own work, plus curating an array of animated goodies that have inspired and amazed us.

Hosted by Jason & Nat.

Join us from 2pm-4pm in the main screening room with the comfy seats.
Best Laid Plans is a FREE event and also features some rather good live acts and DJs throughout the day until midnight.

Date: 2nd November 2008
Venue: At Proud, The Horse Hospital, The Stables Market, Chalk Farm Road, London NW1
Time: 2pm to 4pm (BLP Cinema) and open until midnight with live music & DJs

For more details check out:

MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/bestlaidplanslondon

Hopefully see you there
x

Wyld Stallyons News

2008-10-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Stallyons HQ. Sorry for the lack of blog!

It's been busy busy here but we thought we'd drop you a line and let you know what 's been keeping us out of trouble for the last few weeks.

The Insiders Promo
Turner Broadcasting asked Wyld Stallyons to create a dynamic, exciting ride through a vortex, where we meet the characters of a new show on the Cartoon Network channel Boomerang called The Insiders - a story of three kids who use their amazing gizmo to get inside all kinds of crazy places.

Combining a live action shoot at Pinewood and state of the art 3D techniques, we created a 20 second visual effects sequence to be inserted into a promo that will be featured on TV screens and cinemas around the country. Check out our website very soon for details.

UK Jewish Film Festival Trailer
We were approached to create a trailer for this year's UK Jewish Film Festival, taking place from 8th to 20th November at a cinema near you. The UK JFF is a celebration of Jewish culture in film and is a platform for many acclaimed and up and coming Jewish directors. Wyld Stallyons created the concept, directed and animated the festival trailer which sees our character, Aaron, encountering a seemingly relentless stream of famed Jewish perils on his way to the festival.

The trailer is currently running at the Odeon Belsize Park and other cinemas across London. See www.ukjewishfilmfestival.org.uk for full details.

Megadrop Madness - Bid TV Commercial
Agency Rees Bradley Hepburn ask Wyld Stallyons to bring their ad concept for Bid TV to life, in the form of pseudo-stop-frame animation for their Megadrop Madness season in September 2008.

Using a combination of stop-frame and 3D, plus the voice talent of Gavin & Stacey's Joanna Page, we created the £1 coin character who is frantically pursued by various household items, determined to hunt him down. This 30 sec spot featured on cable and satellite channels throughout September. You can see it at www.wyldstallyons.com

MTV 'What Happens in Vegas' Promo
Once again, Wyld Stallyons joined forces with MTV to create a 1 minute promo celebrating the release of 'What happens in Vegas' on DVD.
The spot features a combination of movie footage alongside our own sleazy neon Vegas, offering viewers a chance to win the ultimate trip to sin city

Soon to come...
We are in the throes of putting together our brand spanking new showreel for Autumn/Winter 08. We've got more great new projects coming up which will be making an appearance too, so keep an eye out for the official launch.

Love from all the team.
See you soon.

x

Wyld Stallyons do Narnia

2008-06-26T02:27:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Stallyons HQ...

Just a quick update on what we've been up to lately.

The nice folks at MTV asked us to create an animated competition spot for screen spectacular, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian which went on air last week. Visit www.wyldstallyons.com to see it in all its glory.

Also watch this space for our latest collaboration with our friends at Hub TV for Hilton Hotels' new Garden Inn.

See you soon... love from the WS team.

Bob Staake's Struwwelpeter

2008-05-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

A while ago, Jason here at WS interviewed Bob for Pixelsurgeon about his book, 'The Orb of Chatham'. We love Bob's work and thought about how excellent it would be to animate one of his books. So we posed the question to him and he offered us his take on the infamous story 'Struwwelpeter'.

We jumped at the chance, and have produced a few tests in conjunction with our good friends James 'Mutant Hands' Wignall and Alex Amelines. See the latest on our website www.wyldstallyons.com

Hopefully there will be more to come!

New WS Summer 08 Showreel!

2008-04-29T04:54:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally got round to finishing it...

Check out our site for our brand new Summer 08 showreel montage. As you can see we've been busy busy. We'll be getting our full DVD showreel together very soon, so drop us a line if you'd like one sent out to you via snail-mail.

Hope you enjoy...

www.wyldstallyons.com

Jon Burgerman & WS magic collaboration

2008-04-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

Hello friends.

As briefly mentioned before, earlier this year we were approached by illustrator Jon Burgerman, who asked us to create an animated version of one of his illustrations, due to appear on DVD with his forthcoming book 'Pens are my Friends'.

Using a poem written by Jon (and utilizing the voice talents of director and friend of WS, Mark Walker), we created a journey through this surreal world based on Jon's drawings, using After Effects with a touch of Cinema 4D plus adding our own soundtrack and foley... all coming together to create 'Magic Ink'. So head to www.wyldstallyons.com to see the goods.

Also, keep an eye for 'Pens are my Friends' which is due to hit the shelves later on this year - we will keep you posted on the date.

Best wishes from the WS Team.

Wyld Stallyons in Computer Arts Magazine.... again!

2008-03-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

The very nice folk at Computer Arts magazine have featured us Wyld Stallyons for the second month running in their mag and on the covermount DVD.

See the press section of our website - www.wyldstallyons.com for more.

This month features promotional bumpers that we produced for Bacardi B-Live through youth culture marketing agency 'Espionage', shot on location in New York, Ibiza and Moscow in 2007.

...

NEW NEW.... Lily Electric & Jon Burgerman

2008-03-06T03:36:00.000-08:00

Hey folks.

It's been a while since we posted our last blog - but that's mainly because we've been busy busy doing the following great new projects:

LILY ELECTRIC MUSIC VIDEO

Another collaboration with director and honorary Stallyon, Mark Walker and Beofilm, who approached us to produce visual FX and grading for 'Don't change the suit when it's you' by up and coming Danish band, Lily Electric. Check it out on our site www.wyldstallyons.com

JON BURGERMAN'S 'MAGIC INK' ANIMATION

We were thrilled when one of our favourite illustrators, Jon Burgerman, asked us to create an animation from his own drawings and poem to feature on the DVD accompanying his new book 'Pens are My Friends' which should be hitting the shelves this April. We'll let you know when the finished version is up on our site along with a mini featurette showcasing the 'making of'.

In the meatime, check out www.jonburgerman.com for other Burgerland fancies!

Hello iPhone users!

2008-01-30T06:04:00.000-08:00

If you own an iPhone, an iPod touch or similar mobile web surfing device, you'll be pleased to know that we've created an iPhone specific version of our website just for you. Flash isn't supported by Apple's mobile webkit so if you've been checking us out on the move before today, you would have seen a big black page... but no more! Now you can see our showreel in glorious Quicktime, find out all about us, where we are, and call us simply by clicking a link! Just go to wyldstallyons.com and you'll get redirected to our iPhone site automatically.

Technology. Isn't it marvelous!

Happy New Year!

2008-01-17T02:38:00.000-08:00

As you can see, our all-new Flash site is up and running; designed by us and built by Rich Salter.

What are we up to? We've just finished up our Panic Room title sequence inspired bumpers for Bacardi B-LIVE. Mark is currently directing a new promo for Danish rockers Lily Electric, with post production starting in a week or so. A collaboration with illustrator Bob Staake is potentially heading in a very exciting direction... and we're also in the early phases of a new short called Black Sun which will be like Black Hawk Down with robots and filmed and produced in true DV Rebel fashion.

A note about the new site: Although Quicktime is our platform of choice, not all PC users want to download the plug-in (or are even able to if working in an office with strict IT department restrictions). If you require a Quicktime version of any of our movies, email us and we'll get one over to you straight away. Coming soon is an iPhone version of our site; Stallyons to go!

Back in Black

2008-01-09T07:02:00.000-08:00

We've been a bit a bit slack with our news postings, but that's because we've been busy! We collaborated once again with Mark Walker producing a music video for The Raveonettes’ latest single Dead Sound. There are some unofficial versions floating around YouTube, but expect to see the official upload shortly!

We also packed our mittens and warm hats for a trip to Moscow to film Groove Armada for Bacardi. We've previously been to New York and Ibiza to film Mark Ronson and Talib Kweli amongst others.

We’re working on a new showreel to show off our shiny new videos, and keep an eye on our website... it might be changing soon...

frYars delight

2007-10-22T08:28:00.000-07:00

When Bafta-nominated director Mark Walker asked us to collaborate with him on a music promo for young, up-and-coming artist frYars, we jumped at the chance.

So, with love, sweat and special WS sparkles, 'The Ides' is in the open. Check it out at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbtLqJmoM_8

Look out for more from Mark and the Wyld Stallyons team... coming soon.

Updates at Wyld Stallyons!

2007-08-07T04:36:00.000-07:00

Head on over to Wyld Stallyons to see the latest promo we did for ITV. Jack Osbourne Adrenaline Junkie, including one spot that isn't getting aired!

When will the craziness end?

2007-07-21T04:02:00.000-07:00

We have deadlines crashing on our heads like meteorites in a bad sci-fi flick. We welcome ITV as a new client for the Stallyons and as soon as we're able, we'll post that stuff online for you to check out.

Busy busy busy!

2007-07-10T03:37:00.000-07:00

It's been all go at Wyld Stallyons with some crazy deadlines. July is shaping up to be our busiest month ever with projects for MTV, VH1 and ITV (and others!) all on the go at the same time. At this rate it's looks like we'll have to take on more staff in addition to our new producer Nat who joined us this month.

The Doll goes live!

2007-06-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

Finally after many months of work, The Doll—the short viral video we made for lingerie company Lascivious—is live! Featuring lesbian sex robots and at least one death, this film has something for everyone! Check it out at the slightly scummy YouTube version (www.youtube.com/watch?v=riCstOAnj_8) where you can also see the entertaining Making Of), but we will be uploading better quality versions on Virb, www.thedoll.tv and the Wyld Stallyons website in the next day or so!

Wyld Stallyons on YouTube

2007-06-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

Wyld Stallyons have created a Directors channel on YouTube, which means you'll be able to check out all our cool movies in even more places. There's not much to see yet, and we're experimenting with various settings to ensure that users experience the best quality video YouTube can muster, so keep checking back. The URL is http://www.youtube.com/wyldstallyonsltd - you might want to bookmark it!

Doubleclick

2007-05-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

The Stallyons recently completed work on a short video for Doubleclick to be presented at the Insight 2007 conference.

Video for Comcast’s Ch1

2007-04-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

Wyld Stallyons recently completed production of a video for Comcast, created in collaboration with Unit 9 who did the web side of things. Expect to see it soon in Wyld Stallyon’s work section!

Wyld Stallyons wrap up MTV Europe's Top 10 @ 10

2007-04-22T05:03:00.000-07:00

Wyld Stallyons came up with 17 (count 'em!) break bumpers, title sequences, closers and more for the revamped Top 10 @ 10 show. To say a little midnight oil was burnt is a bit of an understatement. A revealing case study should follow soon...

The Stallyons complete titles for NewConsumer.tv

2007-04-22T05:02:00.001-07:00

New Consumer, the best magazine and website for green news and information launch their IPTV offering, and Wyld Stallyons produced a stylish set of titles for them

The Doll Now in Post-Production

2007-04-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

The eagerly awaited short viral film that Wyld Stallyons are producing in collaboration with Lascivious, the stylish lingerie brand, has now entered the post-production phase.

Top News for the Stallyons

2007-04-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

MTV have once again picked Wyld Stallyons to produce title graphics for a forthcoming show, Top 10 @ 10