Galaxy 61 Updates Manic Basketball Character for Price Chopper

For the Slam Dunk Savings campaign, Galaxy 61 was asked to reinvent Price Chopper's manic spokesball, Ricky B. We updated his look and gave him a full facial animation rig, for maximum expressiveness. We also gave him a slick new basketball court to bounce around in. Word on the street is that the new Ricky is much more likable, encouraging shoppers to let the madness begin!

"Bags 2 Riches" for Price Chopper features CGI shopping cart and piles of prizes

Price Chopper wanted to pull out all the stops to promote its "Bags 2 Riches" sweepstakes. To do so, we helped them create a shopping cart character that guides the viewer past the cars, piles of cash, and mountains of groceries that participants can win. We pulled together the previz and the editorial from the client's sketches and created the journey that culminates in a canyon made of grocery items. A last minute script change added the dancing prize tickets to an already action-packed spot.

Many, many groceries and other prizes had to be modeled. The Galaxy 61 modeling  team included Roger An  and Jasper Johnson (who built  some rather tasty looking donuts and bagels). Roger also rigged the shopping cart, enabling the bags of groceries to tumble and sway as the cart speeds along.

Galaxy 61 creates charming holiday pop-up books for Price Chopper

For this year's Price Chopper seasonal spots, we went with a concept that we'd been tossing around for a couple of years: the holiday-themed pop-up book, featuring the various ways in which Price Chopper can help you create holiday memories. The staff designers at Price Chopper sorted through mountains of stock imagery while the team here at G61 converted it all into a book that  unveils holiday vignettes and promotions as the pages turn.

We made two complete versions- fall-themed for Thanksgiving, and winter-themed for the late December festivities. Falling leaves and snow add to the magical charm.

The Galaxy 61 team included Andrew Ortiz (rigging and visual effects) and Jasper Johnson (modeling).

Galaxy 61 created the title sequence for VH1's "The Fabulous Life"

It's the featured lead story on Fired By Design's home page this week.

We're celebrating Galaxy 61's 10th anniversary this month:

Here's what Creative Planet had to say

The new Galaxy 61 Show Reel:

Season's Greetings 2013

Our holiday card this year features a New York Central Dreyfuss streamlined Hudson Locomotive barreling past several 1950's-era kids building a snowman. Here is a 3D version (if you have anaglyph stereo glasses):

It was created by Doug and Jasper Johnson here at Galaxy 61 studios in December 2013. It is loosely based on several holiday-themed works of the iconic american railroad painter Howard Fogg:

Happy Happy Holidays Holidays

It's been quite the busy year at G61, but we've managed to squeeze out a Christmas card. You need to scare up a pair of red/cyan anaglyph 3D glasses to view it, but it's totally worth it.

Izod "Genette" Macy's Brand Tree

We were asked by Izod to design and produce this elegant title sequence on an extremely tight schedule. It illustrated their brand strategy for Macy's.

Our first iPhone app: Status Blabber!

Galaxy 61, together with Animetwork.tv, is one of the developers of StatusBlabber, an app for iOS4 that allows you to post your Facebook Status or Twitter tweet as an animated character with a funny voice. The app attained "new & Noteworthy" status at the iTunes app store upon its release. Download it here and have fun!

Eisai LED Marquee

This LED billboard animation was created for Manhattan-based 1919 films. It features simulated splashes and columns of water that had to match the "Oncology With Soul" logo, yet keep moving and have life. We created most of the splashing using Next Limits' RealFlow 4, with additional elements added in Maya 2011 and After Effects CS5.

Crew: Doug Johnson, Fola Akinola

Izod/Verizon Penske End Tag

We've worked on a variety of spots this year that Izod created to highlight its sponsorship of IndyCar racing. This end tag included a simulated Verizon iPhone app, which we tracked and composited into a live action phone. We then exploded it to form the Izod Indy Car racing logo. The spots also featured the band Weezer, who provides the soundtrack here.

Van Heusen Institute of Style

This hilarious Van Heusen spot was first shown during the Pro Football Hall of Fame awards show preceding the 2011 Super Bowl and stars Steve Young and Jerry Rice. If features many animated data screens and transitions designed and animated by Galaxy 61. There's even a 21st century digital update of Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

Crew: Doug Johnson, Fola Akinola, Willie Torres

Arrow at Pitti Uomo

In January we created a 6 minute looping video for Arrow shirts, showcasing the brand and its history for Pitti Uomo, a biannual men’s trade show held in Florence, Italy. "The Contemporaries" is but one section of the piece, highlighting one of several Arrow lines. A huge library of source material, both contemporary and historical, was provided by Arrow and we at G61 were tasked with distilling it into a beautiful and coherent narrative.

Crew: Doug Johnson, Joe Herman, Willie Torres, Fola Akinola
Music: Justin Timberlake

See. Love. Buy.

Galaxy 61 designed this shiny and distinctive heart icon for SeeLoveBuy, an iPhone app by Zazum, Inc. When a user sees a video with this icon, they can sync their iPhone to the video and directly purchase clothing worn by the actors and other featured items. This is our first foray into the world of iOS applications, but it won't be our last!

Lavazza Coffee Calendar

Lavazza, the Italian coffee company, releases an annual calendar for which they commission well-known photographers to shoot coffee-related fantasies. This is one of the images that Mark Seliger shot for this years' calendar. He contacted us to create a swarm of fireflies rising from the coffee and forming a demitasse in the air, a job too complicated for a traditional photo retoucher to do realistically. We used Maya particles to generate the swarms of fireflies and position them. We also took smoke elements shot by the photographers and treated them to create the steam rising from the cups.

Disney XD "Phineas and Ferb" Flex IDs

Disney XD "Glass Bottom Boat" FlexID.

Disney XD "Kites" FlexID.

Disney XD "Treasure Hunt" FlexID .

Disney XD "Shadow Puppets" FlexID .

Our friends at Loyal Kaspar tapped us once again to create Flex IDs for the Disney XD channel. The theme of these four IDs is summer vacation, and they feature 2D characters from the show "Phineas and Ferb". The interesting challenge was that all the 2D character animation was pulled from existing show footage, so we had to come up with storylines and environments to work with the retrofitted characters. We also devised shading techniques to integrate the 2D clips into the 3D lighting. The technique is particularly effective in the "Shadow Puppets" ID. We also got to flex our visual effects chops, with sand, cloth simulations, explosions, bubbles, blowing leaves, and more.

Galaxy 61 Crew:

Fola Akinola- modeling and effects animation

Amy Hay- Modeling and effects animation

Doug Johnson, previz, animation, lighting, and compositing

Superbowl XLIV Halftime Show Logo

This is definitely our most-seen piece of work. The team at Loyal Kaspar was responsible for all the visual aspects of The Who's halftime show performance, including the groundbreaking circular LED stage. G61 was invited to choreograph the animation and produce the Bridgestone logo that heralds the band's arrival. The animation combines elements from the stage show- the banks of LEDs and the chevron patterns, with Bridgestone tires and the Superbowl XLIV logo. Thanks to LK for the tremendous opportunity!

Disney XD "Hockey" Flex ID

This was the first Disney XD Flex ID we produced for Loyal Kaspar. Director David Herbruck is an avid hockey player, so he had very specific ideas about the look and action. We also had to tell a story in 10 seconds using only skates, sticks, and a puck. One of the innovative ways around this was the under-the-ice shots, looking up at the blurry shadows of the players as they fight for control of the puck. We're proud of how good this piece looks- one of the most photo-real we have done.

Galaxy 61 Crew:

Kyle Anderson: Modeling, texturing, effects animation.

Doug Johnson: Previz, animation, lighting, compositing.

Miguel Zavala: Modeling

Insight Communications

Insight "New Fashioned"

Insight "Mailman"

Insight "Graduation"

A true collaboration between Galaxy 61 and Loyal Kaspar, we pitched and concepted the campaign for Insight, a Kentucky-based cable TV provider. We then produced 5 of the 10 30-second 100 % CG spots in just over 4 months. All of the spots feature various objects and environments constructed entirely of constantly changing bundles of fiber optic cables.

We wrote custom software to generate the cables, extrude them along curves and animate them. As each spot was effectively one continuous camera move from the intro to the Insight logo conclusion, we often had to devise hidden transitions to move seamlessly from one vignette to the next. Here are some of the style frames we designed to pitch the project and define the look and feel of the cables:

Demonstrating how our scalable approach to production allows us to take on larger projects, we had a full house for the Insight spots:

Seon Crawford: Modeling and animation.

Akira Thompson: Previz, modeling, and animation.

Bobby Roe: Software development, animation.

Eugen Sasu: Software development, animation.

Roger An: Modeling.

Doug Johnson: Previz, animation, lighting, compositing, director.