“Portlandia” recently teamed up with Portland animation house Bent Image Lab to produce a stop-motion animated segment featuring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein as rats attempting to break into a zero packaging grocery store. In “Zero Rats,” the animators at Bent Image Lab did a great job of translating the improvised sketch comedy into animation. As you can see in the picture below, the artists at Bent also created some beautifully intricate set pieces.
For Hinge Digital, creating the visual effects for Brightwood was a chance to bring Hollywood-caliber visual effects to an independent locally produced short film. Combining themes of childhood innocence and the search for home and family, the film juxtaposes a young girl’s real and imaginary lives. The film veterans at Hinge Digital helped bridge the gap between reality and fantasy.
Director L. Gabriel Gonda brought the film’s rough cut to Hinge Digital Executive Producer Roland Gauthier in November 2011 and presented the challenge: to bring to life a believable, feature-film quality digital mouse in eight live-action shots on a short-film budget. Continue reading... “Portland’s Hinge Digital Creates VFX for Brightwood”
If Trever Stewart runs into a room and says to you, “Quick, play dead.” You might just unthinkingly throw yourself on the ground and imagine that there are big, black Xs covering your eye sockets.
He’s that persuasive.
And, since moving to Portland from Los Angeles, Mr. Stewart (Associate Producer of Special Projects, Bent Image Labs) has learned to use his impressive powers for good, specifically, for the good of local animation.
Portland birthed the California Raisins. It schooled the voice of Bugs Bunny and the mind behind The Simpsons. It’s home to “the queen of indie animation.” It’s a rising force in entertainment, producing both TV shows and hit feature films such as Coraline.
On January 27-28, Portland Animation Now! reveals the power source behind these cultural icons: our electric, eclectic, grassroots animation scene.
Organized by the folks who brought us the first-ever NW Animation Festival this past summer, PAN!
Come out for our December 10th event and see what the team at Hinge Digital has been up to recently! From sports cars, footwear and rampaging robots to cheeky space captains, this band of ex-Sony/Disney/Laika/D-Neg stand-outs bring a combination of technical know how and creative imagination that only few companies can claim in their leadership.
Come hear industry stories from Michael, Roland,Alex & Ramiro as they breakdowns projects while you network with Portland’s finest talent in 3d animation and VFX! Continue reading... “Hinge Digital: Un-Hinged!”
Bent Image Lab, the animation studio behind many successful commercials, music videos, shorts, and visual effects projects is now co-producing long format content for television. “Jingle All the Way”, a stop motion animated show for Hallmark Channel is Bent’s first endeavor into long form animation. Airing November 25th as part of Hallmark Channel’s “Countdown to Christmas”, “Jingle All the Way” is based off of an original storybook from Hallmark. The show was directed by Bent partner Chel White, produced by Bent’s Executive Producer Tsui Ling Toomer and executively produced by Bent Partner Ray Di Carlo and Hallmark’s Jodi Schade, Diana Stuart, Chad Harris, and Shawn McClaren. Continue reading... “Bent Image Lab launches into Television Programming with “Jingle All the Way” for the Hallmark Channel”
We often talk about Oregon being a great place for car commercials. Of course usually we mean live action commercials. This youtube video shows the behind the scenes of LAIKA House’s recent commercial for the Honda Pilot. This video really shows off the technical expertise and craftmanship of Oregon’s Animation industry. Continue reading... “LAIKA House – Behind the Scenes of a new Honda commercial”
Jalal Jemison joins Bent Image Lab as Head of Compositing/Lead Colorist
Bent Image Lab recently cemented Visual FX Artist Jalal Jemison as its new head of compositing and lead colorist. Jemison whose previous work includes numerous Hollywood projects such as Pineapple Express, Borat and most currently Get Him to the Greek and the documentary How to Die in Oregon brings his mastery of post production tools and techniques to the world of commercials, television programs, music videos and motion graphics.
Bent Image Lab, the animation studio behind many successful commercials, music videos, shorts, and visual effects projects is now co-producing long format content for television. “Jingle All the Way”, a stop motion animated show for Hallmark Channel is Bent’s first endeavor into long form animation. Airing November 25th as part of Hallmark Channel’s “Countdown to Christmas”, “Jingle All the Way” is based off of an original storybook from Hallmark. The show was directed by Bent partner Chel White, produced by Bent’s Executive Producer Tsui Ling Toomer and executively produced by Bent Partner Ray Di Carlo and Hallmark’s Jodi Schade, Diana Stuart, Chad Harris, and Shawn McClaren. 
