New faces
Congrats to the London Advertisers behind the new Starlink trailer for Ubisoft – a cinematic epic about a boy with a dream, that’s been six months in the making and gave us a chance to show off all of our spacey best bits. Watch the director’s cut right here, and read all about it online 🚀
Ok so you might recognise this guy, but he’s had some work done and is looking foxier than ever. Bravo team Carfax, whose face of the brand Car Fox is now live on televisions across America. Full release here
Prime it
Congrats to the Art Department, whose work features in The Art of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald tome, released 16 November. You can get a glimpse of their magic in the preview pages via Amazon
Throwing shades
Utter gorgeousness from Chicago for Marriott Content Studio’s STORYBOOKED Season 2: the tale of Julie Gautier, underwater artist, told with Framestore VFX and Colour by Maria Carretero. More where this beauty came from, stay tuned
And well done to Adam Stannard, who worked with directorial legends Warren and Nick on a photo story for Dazed Beauty, click through for the story and short
Selects
Huge congratulations to Fiona Walkinshaw, who appears in quite some company on the Elle magazine Women in Hollywood 💥 POWER LIST 💥 for 2018
Gavin Fox has also been telling the world what it takes to cross the uncanny valley, courtesy of Creative Review (yes it’s paywalled, soz)
Fresh from the Shots Awards: no actual cigars, but a fair few golden nods for that FKA Twigs film (being celebrated below with our friends at MJZ) and a Bronze in Music Video of the Year for Young Fathers ‘Holy Ghost’, graded by London’s Jessica Vile
And the intrepid Chris Cook is back on the #ACCESSVFX beat, this time in Norwich – Chris, you’re a trooper, hats off
Midwest
Reel Chicago revisited our youngest US base, one year on – click through to read all of our achievements in the Windy City thus far
Further west
Johannes Saam was representing at Digital Hollywood this week, speaking on a panel of devilish disruptors, namely Pixvana, Magnopus, 8th Wall and Activision
Meanwhile, Mike McGee took the stage in the LA office, presenting the company history to all of our most recent additions 🙋
The great Houdini
In London, we proudly hosted the Houdini User Group, attended by 100+ members of the Houdini community in addition to a large number from Framestore. Ahmed Gharraph and Ed Ferrysienanda both gave presentations, as did Jeff Wagner from SideFX. Fun was had, t-shirts were thrown, thanks to all for attending
Thrill seekers
In Montréal, we went one wilder: Systems bonded over a little go-karting, though ultimately went head-to-head in a race won by Maxime Dubuc, with Frederic Fournier in second, and Gregory Eraste third 🏁 Congratulations, gentlemen
Our animators also let loose, in an improv comedy starter session led by Montréal Improv Creative Director, James McGee. The aim of the game was to further develop storytelling skills, to translate into the animal forms we ultimately see on screen. Lols aplenty, we’re excited to see where this goes
New, maybe noteworthy
In Internet things: podcast pros, I’m recommending Gladiator, by the actual Spotlight team at the actual Boston Globe
Beautiful or Brut-iful, this is a golden little short on London’s Barbican Estate
On the topic of London history, papering our phone boxes since 1956: tart cards! #NSFW
And finally, ICYMI, the director’s half-cut behind the sale that shooketh the art world
And that’s a wrap, all. Now, I’m not saying I see the future, but I can tell you that next week’s edition of this here Round-up is set to be a special edition HUMDINGER 💥 See you back here in seven