Colin Levy’s New Logo Animation & Trailer for ‘The Secret Number’
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.
I love the film logo break down .. very professional looking.
As for “The Secret Number” … no sure what the short film is, etc. I can’t place bleem on it until them.
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..
I agree, I thought the same kind of “amazing” :), although I’m not a professional
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
Nah the logo intro is perfect imo.
Looks uber professional and has some individual style.
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.
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!
“passed off on the silver screen” = played on the silver screen…
Super jealous of your logo animation, Colin! It looks fantastic.
Good job on the trailer, too. :-)
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! :)
I heard many times AE it’s like amateur software in the VFX industry (it depends on your needs of course, like the discussion maya vs 3ds etc), but don’t believe me, listen to this guy, lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEkuHBpvJw0#t=1m27s
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.
Thanks for the update!
Damn… that’s good…
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 :-)
That is really awesome.
Your work inspires me! Wow!
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.
Awesome logo and trailer… The secret number reminds me of the “not sure this guy is psychotic” elements from the movie Pi…
just professional…. and it’s great to see the blender logo at the end !
Very very nice.
I’m very jelous of both. Fantastic work!
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.
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!
Epic!
Incredible!!
Great stuff, very nice.