Features | |
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Review : Modo 401 |
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Making Of Le Rabbit |
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Focus : Monkey Island |
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Focus : Dinausors on Ice |
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Making Of : But Not Broken |
News Headlines | |
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CG Gallery Awards - June 09 |
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Focus : Le Clip Qui Dechire |
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Preview : G-Force |
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Focus : Level Up Or Die |
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Focus : Rubbuds |
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IT'S ART Membership |
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Spot Focus : Bottled Air |
Other Features | |
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Focus : Cris de Lara |
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Focus : Red Cliff VFX |
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Making Of : The Laughing One |
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Focus : Drag Me To Hell VFX |
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Interview : Alain Brion |
Formed in April 2005 by Hilton Treves, Marco Raposo de Barbosa and Marc Bloch, Blackginger is a Post Production house focused on their craft, workmanship and quality of work submitted to each client. Growing slowly from 10 employees in a small studio to 40 employees occupying two floors in the beautiful city of Cape Town, South Africa, Blackginger currently has three distinct departments—animation, visual effects and compositing. Each department handles their roles within the company and works fluently together to produce quality work to a growing clientele. When approached to create Bakers’ “Precious Biscuits”, Blackginger knew this was going to be different from any project to date. This was going to be a unique collaboration between Blackginger and the creative team of Shy the Sun.
We spoke with Darrin Hofmeyr, Animation Supervisor at Blackginger about his studio and the work the team did on Bakers’ “Precious Biscuits”.
T'S ART: What’s your studio philosophy? Specialty?
Darrin Hofmeyr: Blackginger believes in the craft, we look for jobs that will be a challenge…those that will better or further our skills. We are lucky to have an amazing management team that has the same interests at heart. Of course, money is important, but the tools and artists are more important for Hilton, Marco and Marc. We don’t really specialize in any one particular category but rather thrive on new challenges. Personally, I prefer character driven commercials or shows, but the VFX team obviously gets more excited about any spots that test their abilities. In South Africa, most of our commercial work is effects-based, but luckily we are getting more international work, which feeds my character hunger.
IA: How was your studio chosen to work on "Precious Biscuit"?
DH: We have worked with Ogilvy, Johannesburg (the ad agency), numerous times in the past and they brought the script to us with the intention of having it designed and directed by Shy the Sun. “Precious Biscuits” was going to be our first collaboration project of, hopefully, many more.
IA: How was the collaboration with Shy the Sun?
DH: Jannes Hendrikz previously worked at Blackginger and left to form Shy the Sun with Ree Treweek about 18 months ago. While at Blackginger, he created the “Tale of How”, under the Blackheart Gang, on his own time with the assistance of the artists and hardware available to him. Jannes left to pursue his career with his own company after “Tale of How” did so well at Annecy and hundreds of other awards. Then when Ogilvy approached us to work with Shy the Sun on Bakers’, it was a really easy decision to work with them.
IA: Did the synopsis evolve during the creative process?
DH: The general concept stayed the same, but characters developed, minor characters got bigger roles and previously major characters became secondary. As we got deeper into the story and run of action, we found some of the characters to be more charming and developed their roles further. At one point in the process, the client felt it was getting too busy and there was talk of losing some characters. Luckily, we fought hard and in the end, all the characters made it to the final film.
