Obscure Object Films “Sketch City” Series

more about “Sketch City Series Promo 1 min. on Vimeo“, posted with vodpod

Obscure Object Films is proud to present the “Sketch City” series. Welcome to “Sketch City” where a diverse community of people get to tell their own stories in an animated urban world. Fresh stories, to be served up twice weekly in 2-3min episodes. Enter a 3d graphic novel in paper, populated by graffiti artists, djs, models, fashionistas, hipsters and urbanites. Experience their raw, personal, unscripted stories from the Sketch City.

We created a unique environment to function as a platform for user generated stories and storytellers, keeping the best of unscripted “Reality” and adding an extra large dose of production flavor. The “Sketch City” set, originally based on a typical Brooklyn neighborhood, becomes the universal urban backdrop for urbanites around the globe in its graphic black and white simplicity.

The paper set expands to include apartment interiors, cafes, new neighborhoods and scenes as the stories evolve.

So tired of the low production quality of most web-based media, I tried to put together a production with a uniquely stylized look that allows for fast, economical production work flow with video content that comes from anything from a web cam to a big budget “green screen” shoot. Shot the storytellers in this promo with an old Hi-8 analogue video camera and “Flip” video camera just to prove that point.

more about “Methods Spring Ad on Vimeo“, posted with vodpod

This project began by taking inspiration working with visual artists Amierinkz and Bodie Chewning from the greater Methods NYC family of artists while creating an animated promo video to music by Tzuthe3rd a couple of seasons back.

Just loved the look of the black and white city in Bodie Chewning’s, “City Life” design and wanted to evolve a 3D world with that look.

I started to develop the “Sketch City” project as an “After Effects” virtual 3D project with Peter Bill in Venice Beach, LA. It was looking a bit like an online game and not quite the flavour I was going for. Decided that “Old Skool” animation of actual models might be the way to go and had already been researching paper models for a while for another project. After confirming some tech issues I contacted Amierinkz to take on the design challenge of creating a paper city set with me.

After creating the basic box forms for the shooting scale and some design ideas, Amierinkz took it away to return to the Greenpoint studio with the madness you see now. Taking inspiration from graphic novels, artist Amierinkz, brought to life an urban world from the minimalist resources of white paper and black “sharpie” markers foamcore and hot glue.

The first test shoots were connected to an ill-fated music vid ( that ultimately imploded ). Tal Shpantzer shot stop-motion animation sequences with Amierinkz and myself as animators.

I still love the animated sequences we got, but the camera motion made it a nightmare to motion track green screen figures to the backgrounds ( keyframes EVERY frame @ 30fps. YUK! ).

more about “Paper City Sound mix 2 on Vimeo“, posted with vodpod

Rodrigo Galvan, a sound designer from HSR studios in Manhattan, stepped in to breathe some audio life into the animation ( Rod also created the SFX track for the final version ). I wanted to get an “urban” feeling with the music I wrote for the piece, but tried to keep it a bit neutral and not too hard in tone.

A super-duper production solution came from DP/ cameraman Raymond Flynn and CPT rentals in the form of a T Rex boroscope lens/ RED camera rig. The city backgrounds in the promo are just some of what we got.

The T. Rex system made the 1 centimeter focus-pulls and horizon spins possible. Ray built up some amazing camera sequences with Tal Shpantzer and I on assist and dolly in our Greenpoint studio. The 4K RED image was great to work with in post and helped pull ( less than good ) green screen from the background.

Peter Bill massaged the footage in post, created the animated sky backgrounds and set up the NYC Skyline time lapse at the opening and comped it together. The Skyline shot at the beginning and end is fun for me because we got the shot by dragging a couple of paper models to the roof of our building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn which has a great Manhattan skyline view and just set them up on the edge of the roof and snapped away.

Currently, shopping the project on both coasts and hope to report the good news soon.

Produced, Directed – Stephen Dirkes
Post Production, time lapse – Peter Bill
Paper City – Amierinkz
Music, Edit – Stephen Dirkes
RED Camera – Raymond Flynn
Still Camera – Tal Shpantzer
Intro Graphics – Bodie Chewning
Sound Design – Rodrigo Galvan
Tags – dj Vandal
Storytellers from Brooklyn, NYC
images, video and “Sketch City” treatment – copyright 2009 Obscure Object Films
This work has been registered with the Writers’ Copyright Association

Find out more about the Sketch City from related posts:
Shooting with T Rex lens and RED Camera
Making the Paper Model Set
Tal Shpantzer Shooting with Zylights
Vandal Tags NYC

Tags: amierinkz, bodie chewning, paper model, peter bill, raymond flynn, red camera, Rodrigo Galvan, sketch city, stephen dirkes, t rex lens, table top shoot, tal shpantzer