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St Petersburg Yacht Club

The White Balance recently created a 3 minute full CG animation and set of 8 Still images for IDG and The Bush Consultancy’s redevelopment of the St Petersburg Yacht Club.

IDG in collaboration with The Bush Consultancy presented proposals in Russia for the new scheme. 

The principle aim of this development is to enhance the existing facilities to allow delivery of an international standard Sailing Centre and also create an exclusive ‘boutique’ hotel that whilst operating independently, will harmoniously relate to each other on the site. Aesthetic expression of the buildings and facilities across the site are represented through angular / linear forms in the functional areas of the sailing centre facilities, with more organic forms reflect the emotive aura of the hotel.

The presentations included physical models and also a dynamic fly through movie prepared by The White Balance. Martin Kendall from The Bush Consultancy spoke of the workflow between the Architects and Animation team at The White Balance as seamless and professional in executing all of our design details. The CGI’s and Animation were able to help portray the essence of the scheme aiding a hugely successful presentation of the proposals and resulting in an instruction to progress the scheme to the detailed design stage.

Spec Montage Head Office Interiors and CGI's

The White Balance recently completed 12 Interior CGI's for the Russian management company SpecMontage24's headquarters in St Petersburg. As well as completing the visuals, The White Balance also co-created the interior design package for the new St Petersburg building with Paintworks neighbours IDG.


The brief was for a contemporary modern office space and reception/lobby using quality finishes and materials. The 6 companies that will occupy the office floors each have individual identities under the umbrella of SpecMontage24. We wanted to give each floor a feature wall subtly showcasing that specific companies logo using precast plaster and led lighting techniques. The logo's create abstract shapes throughout the building including cuts in the office carpets and viynls through the connecting stair cores.

Fit out has already started on the building and the team in Russia will be using the CGI’s for marketing over the next couple of months.

Welcome to 2111

The White Balance recently produced 8 CGI's for BBC Focus Magazine; visualising what life would be like in the year 2111.The 7 page feature included a front page cover and an ipad app animation! Look out soon for the image breakdowns showing how we created the the world in 2111!

 

Toy Soldiers

Big news from the team here at The White Balance studio! We recently completed a series of animations for a new CBBC and BBC HD TV show called Toy Soldiers.

Toy Soldiers is a documentary series following the highs and lows of a group of youngsters. Tackling a different subject each episode, the strand provides an insight into the lives of different children across the UK, each with a unique story to tell.
  
The White Balance produced 3 short animations plus the title sequence to the show. Using original drawings created by the children featured in the show we animated a story to each drawing - which resulted in the drawings coming to life.

Catch up on BBC iplayer here  

Toy Soldiers talks to four children from army families and finds out what it is like to have a parent away, for long stretches of time, serving a tour of duty in a war-torn country. How do they feel when they see stories on the news on an almost daily basis and what happens when the unthinkable happens and their worst fears come true?

Callum and Jade really miss their dad when he is away and keep in contact by writing letters, sometimes up to four a week. Taya cannot wait for her dad to come home in December, in time for Christmas, and details all the preparations and plans she has to celebrate his return. While Aiden reflects on how life has changed and how he copes after his father was killed in action.

The topic was quite sensitive and in some cases the drawings the children had created were very emotional. We had to really get into the mind set of the child and interpret what he/she was imagining when drawing - especially as we had to "Draw" additional content in the style of the original drawing.

"Having worked with The White Balance on my BBC series Sofa Surfers I was confident that they could handle the animations required for my next project. Toy Soldiers (BBC) was a sensitive and emotive film based around children’s real life accounts of being in an armed services family. The children created drawings of their Dad’s at work in Afghanistan. Animating these whilst maintaining the integrity of the Child’s original work was a delicate balance of technology and styles something The White Balance excel at." - John Walsh Walsh Bros

 The show was directed by the Award winning and Bafta Nominated John Walsh.

http://www.walshbros.co.uk/

Edited by Green Rock
www.greenrock.tv

Toy Soldiers will be aired;

Monday 6th December 6.15pm – CBBC Channel 
Wednesday 8th December at 5.00pm– CBBC Channel
Thursday 16^th December at 4.30pm – BBC 1 

The White Balance Case Studies

The Perfect......Sandwich

This month The White Balance have created a fully CGI sarnie!!! are we just peckish for pixels? nope this was for our monthly feature slot in BBC Focus Mag - writer Daniel Bennett reveals the rigorously researched methods of making a sandwich fit for scientists.

Resort of Fire and Water

After a few months of top secret projects (noticeably last post was xmas!) we can finally release one into the world of websites, twitter and blogs. At The White Balance we love a good old show and tell so here we go - Back in early 2010 The White Balance were approached to work along side IDG on a conceptual master planning proposal. The Brief - The Resort of Fire and Water. Pretty exciting times! we produced 6 marketing stills along side a 3 min Full CG animation. The resort comprises of a 350 bedroom 5* hotel, 48 Bedroom Boutique Hotel, Sports Pitches and Watersports Centre. The design of the resort focuses on two of the four elements, fire and water, which are reflected not only in the two wings of the 5* hotel but also across the site with multiple water features and flame pits. The resort aims to indulge its clientele providing relaxation, leisure and conference facilities for the local commercial enterprises.

How we did it?.........Happy Christmas

2009 is coming to a end, and here at the White Balance we wanted to show you how we do what we do! We have broken down the stages we went through to create our 2009 Christmas Card! Enjoy, and we welcome your comments.


When brain storming ideas for this years christmas card we saw this image of a standard light bulb. We kept coming back to the bulbs simplistic form and thought wouldn't it be nice if we could have the shape of a christmas tree glowing inside the bulb! using 3d and post production its possible ...

Stage 01.
First we create the 3D Environment, and model the details on the bulbs.

Stage 02.

Render a Ambient Occlusion Pass. We use this to add realistic grounding in Post Production.

Stage 03.

Next step Texture and light it up! and press Render (sounds so simple doesn't it!) 

Stage 05.

Post Production - We colour grade and add that extra Sparkle.

Stage 06.

Render a depth of field pass. We use this as a mask when we blur the image. This gives the illusion of a Macro lens camera.

Stage 07.

Using the depth of field mask we blur the final image.

Stage 08.

Finally a Happy Christmas and we are done :-)

My lifes a Jigsaw

See the Making of the "Jigsaw". We entered this table in this years Bristol Design Festival. This short film was shown at the festival, as part of the Grafikea competition! Make sure you have the sound on for this! although beware, the tune might be in your head all day!

Sunshine and Podcasts

Last month The White Balance were asked to take part in the new Bristol Media Podcast, the podcast was to be the first in a three part series discussing Business Start-up, Growth and Exit, in association with Business Link

Bristol Media invited five business start ups and six advisers from the world of business to discuss the issues around starting up a business. The Podcast covers everything from coming up with the big idea, business plans, money, marketing, bootstrapping, networking, entrepreneurship and everything in between. Download the podcast here to have a listen as Matt debut's on the airwaves.

We have been busy with a highly anticipated architectural project for the Award winning Dan Brill Architects. Last week we were thrilled to see the project featuring as BD magazines project of the day! The White Balance produced 3 CGI's for the proposed chalk extension. Click here to read about this great little project.

The White Balance are enjoying working closely with BBC Focus Magazine on a series of 3d illustrations. In this months issue see the images we created explaining the new surf reef in Bournemouth, and stealth wind farms. Here's a sneaky peek at a few of the images.

Having just got back from the beautiful island of Kefalonia we are fully recharged and ready for the next few busy weeks here @ The White Balance.

Jam Packed July and a Football or two

I have a spare 20mins so i thought i shall update the old white balance blog! its been a while! Cant believe we are half way through July already! last month was crazy and it seems July has carried on the trend! We have been busy on a couple more illustrations for BBC Focus Magazine (issue released 30th July!)Last week we finished 12 Exhibition stand CGI's for our Paintworks neighbors at Ignition DG, Unfortunately Ignition have whisked the views off to the USA for a series of presentations. Hopefully we can show them off soon!

The White balance entered the Annual Bristol Media 5 aside football tournament last Sunday (12th July)! After some very poor preparation Team White Balance rolled up in matching football shirts (no time to print logos) and a team put together the night before due to injuries and last min drop outs. Oh dear it wasn't looking good for our boys, never kicked a football together and entering a tournament! The guys did good! but not good enough! if it wasn't for those pesky kids! Theres always next year. Here's some lovely photo's of the day by Neil Young.Photography (capturing Team White Balance Versus Team Aardman (Blue) Result 2-2 - Pahhh so what if they have an Oscar!)

Thats all for this month busy busy i better get back to it - what ever it is! just better do it.......

Banksy, Grafikea and Milan

What a month here at the white balance!

Busy busy busy end to May getting everything ready for the Bristol Design Festival. As well as being proud supporters of the festival we were not only exhibiting, but entering 2 entries into the Grafikea competition! big love for the BDF!

The exhibition was on from the 5th - 11th June at the old fire station here in the heart of Bristol. We had a really good response so thanks to all of you who wrote in the comment book and enjoyed the constant supply of MAOAM sweets!
So next up our Grafikea entries! firstly the "jigsaw" inspired by a, well jigsaw. This was a tongue and cheek spin on ikea's famous flat - pack - furniture. my lifes a jigsaw........ tune is now haunting all those poor BDF folk! that was the theme tune to the film we put together of the making of the table. somebody must have liked the film so much they decided to steal the laptop playing it! bad form thief.
Second entry was "tablego" an ikea table with a pixel art splattering of lego. lots of lego, lots of glue, and lots of patience.
Here's a few piccies of the Grafikea tables.

Last week we woke up to find our favourite local artist that pesky Banksy had taken over the Bristol Museum. His largest ever UK exhibition had been unveiled as a top secret plot on the usually conventional museum. At the white balance we are massive Banksy fans - especially our northern leanne! Banksy was actually one the reasons "for" moving to Bristol - some say fan, some might say stalker. As u can imagine we were very excited to get down and see what all the fuss was about! we queued for an hour behind a family in chordory and "explore Bristol maps" - not the expected Banksy fan, but hey who are we to judge! there was a massive turn out of all sorts of art lovers - just shows what diversity Banksy has pulled in!
We were not disappointed! amazing - over 100 new Banksy pieces.
here are a few snaps from the exhibition.....

And Finally we are off to Milan in September for the Italian Grand Prix. Very excited here for a couple of days in the Italian city of culture! bit of art, hint of grand prix bling and maybe a spot of shopping!

Its non stop! work wise we are busy working with our friends at preconstruct on a big architectural project, a couple of illustrations for BBC FOCUS magazine.