For the 9th HalfRez conference the theme was "Mograph is Dead. Long live Mograph". So when we were asked to create the show intro, we thought let's do something you normally wouldn't do in CG. Puppets baby!!
Creative Director Brian McCauley
Associate Creative Directors Brad Backofen, Mack Neaton, & Colby Capes
Executive Producer Kate Smith
Managing Director Neal Cohen
CG Supervisor Brad Backofen
Art Director Mack Neaton
2D animation Supervisor Colby Capes
Storyboards Danielle Otrakji
3D Brad Backofen, Brian McCauley, Ryan Bechtel, Emily Berveiler, JC Tecklenburg, Krzys Pianko, Dan Tiffany
2D Colby Capes, Sam Stucky, Keith Slawinski, Torey Kervick, Aaron Fisher, Sierra Lee, Marly Koven, Jesse Willis
Production Dictionary Films
Director Brian Broeckelman
Technical Director Adam Kohr
Puppets Liz Backofen
Sound Mix and SFX Another Country
Tim Konn
Jordan Stalling
Louise Rider
Cathryn Stark
Brett Rossiter
A hands on job
The HalfRez leadership team approached us early this summer about creating this year's intro animation. We immediately accepted. They clued us in on the show's overall theme of “Mograph is Dead. Long live Mograph.” and we went from there. We felt that Half Rez is a great place to share your creative voice, as luck would have it the HalfRez logo has a speech bubble design. So, Associate Creative Director Brad Backofen had been experimenting with motion capture hand puppets in C4D and we felt like that was a great place to start for our intro. A puppet finding his creative voice. So we set out to write a few narratives that used puppets as the characters. Once we knew the show's theme and we settled on mocap puppets we crafted a story that allowed us to lean into our strengths. We’re quite comfortable with C4D and After Effects, but wanted to push ourselves into new areas. We decided to have the second act of our short story be a mixed media montage. Using AI generative backgrounds, VR painting, cell animation, and even real puppetry as we follow our hero puppet through the trip of a lifetime.
Creative Director Brian McCauley
Associate Creative Directors Brad Backofen, Mack Neaton, & Colby Capes
Executive Producer Kate Smith
Managing Director Neal Cohen
CG Supervisor Brad Backofen
Art Director Mack Neaton
2D animation Supervisor Colby Capes
Storyboards Danielle Otrakji
3D Brad Backofen, Brian McCauley, Ryan Bechtel, Emily Berveiler, JC Tecklenburg, Krzys Pianko, Dan Tiffany
2D Colby Capes, Sam Stucky, Keith Slawinski, Torey Kervick, Aaron Fisher, Sierra Lee, Marly Koven, Jesse Willis
Production Dictionary Films
Director Brian Broeckelman
Technical Director Adam Kohr
Puppets Liz Backofen
Sound Mix and SFX Another Country
Tim Konn
Jordan Stalling
Louise Rider
Cathryn Stark
Brett Rossiter