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Colin Levy's New Logo Animation & Trailer for 'The Secret Number'

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Colin Levy shows a breakdown of his logo animation and shares the trailer of 'The Secret Number'.

Colin writes:

Wanted to post a different sort of VFX breakdown which shows a bit more *process*.

Over a year ago I spent a few weeks on the logo for my not-quite-real production company "Lightning Hill Pictures", which I've branded a few of my films with.

Going through my drives, looking for stuff to clear off, I came across a lot of renders and elements for the logo that showed how this thing evolved. I thought some folks might find it interesting!

Still a few things I would change about the logo, but overall I think it came together quite nicely!

Let me know what you think.

Music: "Cathedral" by Thomas Newman

The Secret Number

Colin writes:

This is the trailer for the short film "The Secret Number", produced at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2011.

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

28 Comments

  1. Luca Napoletano on

    The quality of both the logo and the trailer is nothing short of amazing. And i dont mean the kind of "amazing" you would say to support Blender, but perfectly professional.
    IMO there is just a tiny thing that made me cringe, its when he says "i have to go back to my research" wich just sounds like sloppy writing. But i'm very impressed by both videos.
    Just my 2 cents..

  2. The logo intro is OK...but the over exposed final part do not work!!! ( the windows and door makes it look like a Halloween carving )
    over all you can do better or should do better with all the creative exposure you been getting ( with the blender film and now with pixar  )

    I hope you get this comment as it is, well intended and truthful.in the long run it may be better than just tell you Great work Colin!! like everybody-else.
    good luck and keep on working,
    Martin

  3. The Secret Number is going to be pretty powerful looks like to me.  Too bad Pixar got you instead of you going out on your own though.  Maybe after a few years at Pixar, you can then be your own awesome.  I'm looking forward to that day.

  4. Excellent quality and nice temp music selection on your logo animation. I'm sure this will inspire others to reach a higher level of excellent that you've achieved. Very impressive!
    Also, the film trailer looks great! Both could easily be passed off on the silver screen IMO.
     Thanks for sharing the breakdown of your logo and the trailer!

  5. I do agree that both videos shown here are awesome. I was a bit disappointed though, to see that AE was used for, I guess, Text  or/and video editing. I mean if a guy like Colin is using AE for his vids instead of Blender all the way. It shows that Blender is not ''there''.... yet. Or at the very least it may be easier with AE.
    This makes me wonder if I should use Blender 100% or invest in professional softwares for my own future production. (Blender would be my 3D modeling, rigging, animating, sculpting software of course but for the rest....I don't know)Of course I'm not there yet myself so by the time I'm ready, project Mango will surely be finished so will the cool features related to the making of the said short. I guess I'll wait till then to decide.Maybe Colin could tell us why he decided to use AE!!? Just curious.-TheElwolf

    • Just my opinion here on why some use AE. Working at a professional level you use the best tool available to you that will give you the highest quality in the shortest amount of time (you probably already knew this). Blender is amazing for certain things, but it's not an end-all. I'm betting he could have pulled it off in blender with more time perhaps, but as the saying goes, time is money. I think you nailed it on the head, "may be easier with AE".  

      Most work I've seen that's at a decent quality level uses AE in there pipeline. Perhaps blender will get there someday, or perhaps it's there now and I"m not aware of it. So yes, good question! Maybe Colin or other users could enlighten us! :)

      • It's a good question! At its core, Blender is a 3D tool.  And at it's core, After Effects is a motion graphics and compositing tool.  And therefore, there are some compelling reasons to use After Effects.  Its toolset is just different, and and certainly more developed.  And therefore - exactly: IMHO, certain things are a whole lot "easier with AE".

        But I *could* have stuck with only Blender.  What's exciting is that that's even possible.  I mean, you can edit an entire feature film in Blender if you want to.  The Video Sequence editor could do it.  But of course it may not always be the best tool for the job.

  6. This is terrific. The lighting & lightning have been cleverly used to create the L & H. Well thought out. And an interesting camera move from the interior to exterior. Lots going on!  Would love to see some ground work and variation on the hill :-)

  7. Lawrence D’Oliveiro on

    So this “secret number” is an integer? Maybe it’s not an integer, but it is a computable number. The infinity of computable numbers—and therefore the infinity of the programs to compute them—is only as large as the infinity of the integers, and not as large as the infinity of the reals. So the set of computable numbers is not the set of the real numbers; but they don’t have to be integers.

  8. Awesome logo and trailer... The secret number reminds me of the "not sure this guy is psychotic" elements from the movie Pi...

  9. Love the logo Colin and the breakdown helps us all to believe we can achieve similar results. Your film trailer is cool and you obviously have a keen sense of framing and ciniematic-look-feel-ness.

  10. Hey guys, thanks so much for your feedback!  Hey, both the logo and the trailer (and, in fact, the movie itself) could certainly be better -- so I appreciate the notes as well as the compliments.

    And thanks for posting, Bart!

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