Blender Entry in Radiohead Video Contest

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Martin White, whom we know from the animation ‘The Goat, The Boy and The Sun‘, submitted an entry to the aniboom.com Radiohead contest.

Martin writes:

Working with director Alex De Campi (who has made cool videos for cool people like Thomas Truax and Flipron) I have spent the last few days and nights using Blender to knock out a proposal animatic to submit to Aniboom’s Radiohead music video contest.

Have a look around and vote for your favorite. Voting closes tomorrow (Sunday April 27th). Please keep in mind that most of these entries are not finished products yet but rather concepts, so there are still some rough edges.

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    • oldboy

      Link??

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      I’m sorry, we can’t give you the link!

      j/k – updated :)

    • BonE
    • BonE

      dang, you were faster

    • kram1032

      Yeah, link!?
      Or is it the one behind “the goat, the boy and the sun”?

    • kram1032

      oh O.o xD – shouldn’t always open BN in multiple tabs and then not refresh ^^

    • mookie

      It’s hard for me to say this, but… the animation is so poor!

    • http://www.visealproductions.com sen

      oh, if i would have known about the contest…

      @mookie: its poor, but this is suppost to be an animated storyboard.

      I guess the final Animation is a lot better, right?

    • http://www.kulma.org basse

      beautiful!

      .b

    • Wishmaster

      That’s wacky….

      But yes, the title post says it’s just a concept video.

    • Durden

      uhhh… that’s why people think that blender suck =((((

    • http://www.martylog.com Martin White

      Thanks to those of you who have given it a good rating and to Bart for the support!

      Mookie and Durden: it’s an animatic, i.e. a moving storyboard to give an overall impression of the story, and it should be clear to anyone that it is far from the finished product. I would appreciate the benefit of the doubt!

      Rather than selling Blender short I would argue it’s a credit to how versatile an application it is that I was able to produce a four-minute animatic in two days!

    • Durden

      Martin, I didn’t meant to offend you.
      And I do appreciate all the work you’ve done while producing this video.
      Wish u a better results with the final work.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Durden: I’m thinking that maybe you don’t know what an animatic is. Check this out:

      http://peach.blender.org/index.php/making-the-animatic-with-sacha/

      I saw the early animatics of Big Buck Bunny and trust me, they didn’t look too hot either ;-)

    • http://www.youtube.com/alexdecampi Alex de Campi

      As Martin says, it’s only a rough animatic – just basic forms and movement to get the story across. Anyone who’s seen Martin’s finished work on “The Goat, The Boy and the Sun” will realise his finished style is much more sophisticated – as is mine.

      But yes, any of you caring to throw a 5-star vote our way, it would be much appreciated… so we can get started on the advanced work with this video, and show folks what Blender can really do!

    • Gryphon

      I’ve never really been a Radiohead fan, but I like this song a lot. Martin, Alex… Good luck!

    • Joe

      How about a new rule here at B/N? Nobody can set a post that uses words or phrases like “sucks” “crappy” “not very good” “Stupid” or other encouraging terms unless they also include a link to their own portfolio? I’m guessing most of those who say such things work consists of shaded cubes, and the occasional Suzanne with some extruding from that time you were really inspired.
      I will try really hard not to turn this into a rant, but it’s very discouraging to see such things. I really liked the test. A lot. I hope it goes far.
      Perhaps some context. I have been a musician for 20 years. I don’t like Tom Jones music. I have produced zero albums. Tom Jones has produced about 8 billion albums. Tom Jones must know something more about the music industry than me. This means I’m not going to say anything other than “I don’t care for Tom Jones”. I’m not going to say Tom Jones “sucks” is “crappy” “not very good” “He should be killed” or “Stupid”. Art is a brutal enough business as it is, it is getting harder and harder for me to stomach the way fellow blenderheads get shredded here, by their own “Community”. Post a link to your own stuff, offer constructive comments and encouragement, or SHUT UP. Rant over.

    • ccherrett

      Joe,

      I like your rant :)

    • daredemo

      to Joe

      oh shut up yourself.
      That’s the thing with videos that they are shown to normal people. and they have every right to say if they like it or not. Videos/animations/movies are not for the technically skilled only.
      The attitude that anything made with blender has to be praised is, frankly, stupid.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      Everyone, stay on topic please.

    • mookie

      Frankly I don’t like the idea of the story (although I thought that that was the final stage – my mistake, sorry, Martin!). But I must agree with daredemo – this site is not just for adoring everything only because it was made usin’ Blender… Let’s just try to be objective.

    • ccherrett

      mookie:

      I can’t believe you just sided with daredemo :)

      An animatic is a very rough outline of …….. Never mind :)

    • mookie

      ccherrett – relax. Fortunately the video will be judged by more competent people than me :)

    • http://www.youtube.com/alexdecampi Alex de Campi

      Hey hey hey! In the words of Bill S Preston Esquire and Ted “Theodore” Logan, “Be excellent to each other”.

      We’re OK with people not liking our stuff! Frankly, I’d be worried if everyone did like it. Joe has a point that it would be nice if people treated each other online with the same consideration they would if they were face to face, but I suppose I’ve gotten somewhat hardened to the slings and arrows of online discourse over the years.

      So if anyone wants to give criticism, please do. Whether or not we “officially” make it to the next round (and I really hope we do, so Martin can get a little cash for his efforts) we’re going to keep working on the video so if you have critiques or suggestions about how to improve the story / what you don’t like about it, we’d like to hear them.

      The Radiohead contest was announced with barely a week for animators to get their work together before voting started, and then they opened voting early. So it was a case of do 30 seconds really properly developed and rendered, or show the entire story with blocky, basic figures. We went for the latter. As it was, Martin and I got almost no sleep for a week doing this thing.

    • ArtIsLight

      Wow, nice. Somewhat ambiguous, but artistic! God bless…

    • Jon

      Good concept and a great animatic which is even more impressive when you consider the turnaround time.

      The three critics, mookie, durden and daredemo, are clearly failing to be excellent. Hows about a new rule that requires one to read the whole post AND understand it before making a comment.

      Concept suggestions…

      I would have the sun blow the seeds out of his mouth rather than just shake them off. Or maybe get the moon and wind involved. The wind blows at the moon which dissolves into seeds.

      I’m not keen on the war plane poking its toungue out etc. The air base scene is a bit static and similar to the oil field scene so maybe have the war planes in the air on a mission and the seeds get sucked into the jets and more seeds or flowers then form vapour trails. And as the planes realease their bombs they disolve into more seeds which then fall onto the oil fields and turn the desert into a lush forest.

    • http://www.martylog.com Martin

      Thanks for the constructive criticism, Jon. Love the idea of the flower vapour trails coming out of the engines, that would look very cool indeed!

      As regards the sun, I haven’t really told that part of the story very well – the director’s idea was that the seeds kind of form out the sunbeams, and I kind of misunderstood but didn’t make the time to re-do it. Blowing them out of his mouth would be fun too, like a child blowing on a dandelion :-)

    • http://www.youtube.com/alexdecampi Alex de Campi

      Yeah, I was just re-watching the video today and the airbase scene is too long. The story definitely lags there. Our next step is a frame by frame shot list – Martin likes your engines idea and Flowerbombs are always a cool concept – so thanks! We do also need to refine the “seed release” – there just wasn’t time to model it correctly so the seeds were differentiated enough from the smoke and radiated out in a cool/impressive way.

      It is really good to hear what people pick up on as being too slow/confusing/a bit dull vs what they really like. You al probably know what it’s like when your head’s too far into an animation…

      - Alex

    • Jon

      “Blowing them out of his mouth would be fun too, like a child blowing on a dandelion”

      …yeah, that’s what I was getting at with the wind (or the sun) blowing on the moon… a dandelion moon.

      I was (to my shame) surprised to discover that Alex is a lady. A very creative lady. And a fan of Shynola. She’s a flowerbomb. I think I love her.

    • http://www.youtube.com/alexdecampi Alex de Campi

      @Jon: Whatever I did to you, ah, if I could only bottle it for use on music video commissioners… then maybe they’d actually give me the time of day.

    • Jon

      @ Alex…

      If I ever meet a girl that has even heard of Shynola I would never let her go. It may be geek love, but that doesn’t make it any less real, does it?

      BTW fxxk the music video commissioners and aim straight for the musicians. We’re living in a new age of independents, apparently.

      Who’s up for starting the Flowerbomb video and animation collective?