Emerald City Design and The Star welcome Year of the Dragon

Today marks the first day of the New Year in the Chinese calendar and Emerald City are excited to share with you our latest project celebrating this special event.

Following the delivery of impressive screen content for The Star casino’s new large screen foyer installation, the venue asked Emerald City Design to create additional content for Chinese New Year – ‘Year of the Dragon.’

Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday celebrated among Chinese people and is a time when families and friends come together to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new.

Our design took into consideration key activities that take place during Chinese New Year such as the exchanging of gifts and fireworks. Visual inspiration was taken from iconic cultural symbolism and style as well as the auspicious Chinese colours .

The final creative, went live this week and will play multiple times until Chinese New Year on the 23rd of January. The piece  completely captures the optimistic and festive spirit of this momentous Chinese celebration.

Sam Kekovich is back with Lamb Barbie

Sam Kekovich is back promoting Australian Lamb and Emerald City joined forces with Jungleboys director David Curry and BMF to produce this years TVC which went to air on 10th Jan just in time for 2012 Australia Day.

After years travelling the world on his one-man crusade against unAustralianism, Sam Kekovich has realised the job is too big for him and his dodgy knees alone. Old-fashioned diplambacy just isn’t cutting it in this day and age. So it’s time to change his tune and embrace popular culture. If UnAustralianism has gone viral, Sam’s only antidote is to do the same.

Emerald City Design were involved with the Studio shoot component of the TVC to post, creating a seamless office to large pop concert arena scene, producing all VFX and colour grading.

A grand end to 2011- The Star large foyer screen

The pre-holiday season was full steam ahead for the Emerald City team with us winning the pitch to create all content for the large screen installation in the newly refurnished Star casino foyer. The 4 x 5 metre high screen is a focus point as you enter Sydney’s iconic entertainment venue.

Our talented Creative Director Olivia Watson developed a stunning visual concept based on our planet’s evolution; from the organic building blocks of life to the wonders of the modern age and beyond. The end result was four unique and captivating content pieces with the venue then requesting additional Christmas and Chinese New Year content.

A variety of surreal elements including marine life, blossoming flowers, musical instruments and contemporary dancers were incorporated into an animated world full of unexpected surprises, movement and transformation.

The final work embodies a sense of romance, escape and playfulness that is sure to be a memorable experience for visitors of The Star.

All content was launched just prior to New Year, Chinese New Year will be launched this week.

Creative Director: Olivia Watson, VFX Supervisor: David Mosqueda, Senior Producer: Sandy Madden, Designer: Luke Carvell, 3D Artist/Compositor:   Michael Blanche, 3D Artist: Chris Harris; Compositor: Chris Hugget

End of year awards show: The annual News Limited Awards at the Horden Pavillion

One of the jobs we finished up the year with was all content for the annual  2011 News Limited awards.

Emerald City worked for DG3 Events to produce all screen content for this prestigious event. Content was viewed on a 360 degree wrap around 8 x 6 m screens during a black tie presentation dinner held at the Horden Pavillion attended by News Corporation chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch, all finalists and News Limited editors.

Showcasing the work of Australia’s best journalists, photographers, designers and artists, the News Limited Awards are widely recognised as among the most significant journalism awards in the region.
The Emerald team produced stunning audio visual content encapsulating the work of nominees in various award categories and a vibrant overview of the the major news stories of 2011.

The event was a great success!

Emerald City collaborates with Camilla for Sydney Fashion Festival 2011

For Sydney Fashion Festival 2011, Emerald City teamed up with the wonderful team at fashion label Camilla and Somewhere Events for their catwalk show in Town Hall. We worked closely with Camilla and her team, and utilised many of her designs for the Labyrinth Collection to create a vibrant projection backdrop for the show. It was a great night, and the visuals looked great, providing a textured and kinetic backdrop to Camilla’s beautiful and vibrant designs.

Mother Awesome Energy

(Smart) – Mother Commercial – ‘The Power of 8 Posse’ from Jungleboys on Vimeo.

We recently worked with Jungleboys on their new campaign for Mother energy drink. Emerald City worked closely with Director Trent O’Donnell to achieve the illusion of 8 spontaneously appearing characters transforming a regular car into a revolutionised Mother mobile, much to the chagrin of the elderly owners.

Emerald City turns a city into a giant pinball machine for Anchor Beer and Rain.

A new spot for Anchor Beer has gone to air across Asia this week, starring Korean pop and film superstar Rain (Ninja Assassin, Speed Racer). Production and post was undertaken in house at Emerald City.

After working on the Force of a Lion campaign for ABC Stout, Emerald City and it’s Director Chris Godfrey teamed up with Singapore agency Alchemy Partnership for this major campaign.

The brief was to turn a city into a giant pinball machine, with Rain putting on a spectacular show of stunts, truck crashes, and a cityscape that lights up the night sky, in a larger than life game. Filming was undertaken in Seoul, Korea in June of this year, with design and post completed in Sydney.

The spot is a combination of live action scenes and a fantasy metropolis built in CG. Emerald worked very closely with the creative team at Alchemy Partnership to realize the vision, and bring the dynamic and colourful city to life.

Emerald City teams with The Projects* for Audi 3D Projection

The Australian Launch of the AUDI A6 from the projects* on Vimeo.

For the launch of the new Audi A6 recently held at the Royal Hall of Industries in Moore Park, Sydney, The Projects came to Emerald City for a projection that would showcase the massive 68m wide surface inside. Emerald’s brief was to synchronise a custom mapped projection with the live reveal of the new A6 and bring the entire event space to life, giving the audience of 500 something they would remember. We used depth, illusion, sophisticated 3D imagery, visual effects and digital cinema surround sound to drive home the progressive Audi message in a truly world class event. Music was composed by Paul Mac and Johnny Seymour in conjunction with Silencio.

Credits:
Designer/Director – Olivia Watson
Producers – Tim Kreibig and Sandy Madden
Artists – Evan Hancock, Michael Blanche, Matt Brunner, Juri Fripp and David Mosqueda.

Agency Creative – Jack Bedwani
Agency Producer – Tom Hunter

More action from the event can be seen here…

ABC Stout – Force of a Lion

Alchemy Partnership in Singapore came to Emerald City with an epic concept for ABC Stout – to follow the journey of a golden mercury lion, from its birthplace in a volcano, down through the valleys and onto sweeping plains of barley, before crossing a black ocean of Stout to the sun on the horizon, all in CGI. Of course we were up to the challenge of bringing this ambitious and eccentric idea to life. All the live action and CGI was Directed and Produced in house at Emerald City and employed a combination of 3D, fluid simulation and matte painting techniques. The result captured the primal energy and grand scenery Alchemy and ABC were looking for.

“I had a great time working with the Emerald City crew. It was great to see that the top guys were also the very guys working the magic themselves. Our ABC commercial would not have turned out as beautiful if we didn’t have you guys on board with us.”
Alvin Wong
Partner, Alchemy Partnership.

Mardi Gras 2011

A night of glitz, glamour and pride was had by all at the most exclusive Mardi Gras party in town, hosted by Emerald City. With one of the best views of the parade around from our rooftop above Oxford Street, the Emerald City Mardi Gras parties are renowned as a highlight of the annual event calender.

This year saw a great turn out, with almost 200 people braving the crowds on Oxford St. to beat a path to our door. A memorable night was kicked off by a spectacular view of the biggest ever turnout of the Parade, and continued long into the night with DJ Lovertits and a killer private performance on our rooftop by Posh the Motherf@#$ing Prince, from the House of Gaga.

This years event was conceived and art directed by Emerald City, with light effects, projections and colour flooding the rooftop. Even the rain couldn’t dampen the Parade…