3djamie

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year from the Sliced Bread team. Download your own PDF of the marker here, then try out the augmented reality Christmas message for yourself using the instructions below!

1. Make sure your webcam is connected and ready for use and go to www.thebestthingsince.com/crimbo_ar

2. Make sure your webcam is allowed access to Flash content by right-clicking on the Flash window and selecting the webcam icon tab in the settings, and selecting your webcam from the drop-down list.

3. When asked, using the front-side of this card, point the Christmas tree symbol at your webcam and your Sliced Bread Augmented Reality Christmas animation will appear!

Note: You may also need right-click and go to Flash Global Settings then authorise this domain.

Another one fresh from the toaster – a new showcase sequence relating to our client and in-house projects on character animation. The piece highlights the capacity in which we work with agencies and direct brands.

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day and what a great way to spend it by chatting about all things animation and its value in the digital media space. A few weeks ago Jamie was invited to Berghind Joseph’s studio to do a round table talk on such things…

Here at BergHind Joseph we like to broaden our knowledge on all things design related. That’s why we hold a quarterly ‘Creative Breakfast’, where a guest comes in to the studio to discuss their line of work, and how it fits within the design world.

This month, Jamie Denham from the video animation company ‘Sliced Bread’ came into the studio; showcasing the companies work and explaining how exactly it fits in to the world of branding, corporate communications and employee engagement.

Read the full blogpost here.

If you are interested in chatting about stuff over breakfast, then please don’t hesitate to drop us a line, we’ll even bring the croissants! Email info@sbanimation.com

Fresh from the toaster – we have just put together two, one and a half minute showcase sequences relating to our client projects on online games and brand communications. The pieces highlight the capacity in which we work with agencies and direct brands. We have some more sequences coming up in the future – so watch this space.

Coca Cola announce the launch of their new ‘Neverending Dance of Happiness’ games for Facebook and Android devices. The games coincide with Coke’s experiential festival campaign  across European countries in 2011.

They encourage players to connect and win prizes via Facebook. The more you score against the 120 dance move options, the higher you rank. The Facebook game uses 3D character renders and is fully customizable across 6 genres with male/ female clothing options for that unique avatar style.

Coca-Cola is spreading some summer happiness with a new game on Facebook. The ‘Neverending dance of happiness’ will get you interacting with friends as you test your dance moves in rock, disco, salsa, electro, hip-hop and metal. By earning points during the game, you can save up for cool summer prizes – from Coca-Cola headphones to festival tickets.

You can also share your summer memories through videos and images you upload to the Facebook fan page. Why not get your summer groove on too with Coke and Facebook and spread a little happiness?

To refresh the festival season in the Benelux, Coca-Cola has launched the ‘Make Your Move’ campaign, spreading summery vibes on- and offline from June to September.

The beverage brand is present at festivals like Pinkpop, and can be found on the beach, where a Coca-Cola beach hut not only offers refreshing drinks, but also fine tunes to dance on. And those moves can be shared live via the ‘FaceLook’ face-recognition app.

Coca Cola also spreads some summer happiness through another app called ‘The Never-ending dance of happiness’, with which you can test your dance moves on several music-genres. Unlock new moves by ‘bump’ technology when bumping with other app users. This game lets you earn points and save up for musical summer prizes like festival tickets.

Sliced Bread are very proud to be partnering with The Green Marine (TGM) team on their new venture. The project is a proposed animation series for digital broadcast. We worked with the TGM team on character development/ design and an animatic trailer. We were drawn into the project by its original concept idea and existing interest by leading industry figures. Visit the site to get a full understanding of the properties fantastic potential.

David Pye is an award winning Transport Planner, campaign Director and CSR specialist. Continually striving for success he is recognised for his creativity, innovation and CSR project impact.

Committed to providing solutions to some of the most challenging economic, ethical, social, health, transportation and environmental issues individuals and organisations face – he is a man on a mission. That’s what motivates him. Combining passion with business aptitude he is an effective influencer at all levels. Advising organisations how to become more sustainable, socially and environmentally responsible, applying common sense and without any flannel!

At a time when there is genuine concern about the future of children in our society, he believes that we should be demonstrating the positive role that media can play: the impact it can have on culture, social values and learning as well as providing relaxation and entertainment.

He has developed a new children’s sci fi action adventure animation series…A BROTHER AND SISTER, AFRO CARIBBEAN JUDO MASTER, A FROG FROM OUTER SPACE AND A HANDFULL OF ECO VILLIANS. The series follows The Green Marine and the team as they act locally and battle globally to protect Planet Earth not only from its inhabitants but also from a succession of evil alien eco-villains.

New technologies and new patterns of use provide us with opportunities to re-invent our relationship and connections with our kids. Using a clearly defined set of environmental, health and social values The Green Marine animation series and accompanying applications will entertain, empower and help keep children on track. As The Green Marine says ‘The time is always right to do what is right.’ Nothing is impossible!

They are currently looking for commercial investment to bring the property forward and fulfil its objectives. If you are interested please contact David Pye direct via the TGM website, LinkedIn or Twitter.

After last years triumphant effort we agreed to offer another helping hand to this years global event – Twestival Local. Given that ‘local’ has connotations of collaboration, we decided that 30-second stop-frame animation sting would be the perfect medium. Stop-frame is my first passion, as some of you will know, as I spent the first 5 years of my professional career animating on children’s series for TV.

Working with Amanda, Crystal and Leynete is always such a joy, this year we had the added spin of having to find someone who could make us an original origami ‘Twestival’ bird and Sam Tsang kindly stepped in to help us, (his website is here). First of all he went off and fine tuned the type of bird we were looking for and then he helped us understand the process on how it is made.

Because of our client commitments at Sliced Bread, it was very hard for us to give as much time as stop-frame needs. We provided the equipment/ materials and enlisted the help of some current students and graduates, to get the production done. Georgie, Charlie, Hannah and David all kindly gave up a week of their time to come to our studio and animate. Georgie and Charlie have provided an insight into the experience below. Special thanks to those who gave a ‘hand(s)’ during the weekend shoot too – Adam (@wrongcrowd), Jo (@joellybaby), Carmen, Natalie and Christina.

This year Twestival is going ‘Local’ in cities around the world on Thursday 24 March 2011. Events for Twestival Local will raise funds and awareness for local nonprofits that organizers identify for having an incredible impact within their own community.

The events can be as big or small as the city wants to make it. We have had Twestivals in a local pub, a bowling alley, a trapeze studio, and even a giant yacht, all thanks to the generosity of local donors and sponsors who come forward to support the volunteer efforts. It is about using your time, talent and resources to come together on one night to make a difference. Think global, act local.

Georgie Cobbs

Working on this Twestival project for Sliced Bread throughout the past 7 days has been exhausting yet definitely exciting. The prospect of a creating a stop-frame animation from start to finish in just a week definitely had its problems but putting together all of our resources and creative minds (and some sweets) everything got resolved calmly. It was incredibly inspiring to be spending the week in a place, bursting with creativity, like Shoreditch is. Animating paper and origami birds definitely had its hurdles and restrictions due to how fragile they are but we found a way to simply rig them and animate their movements convincingly.

Big thanks to Jamie Denham for giving four students/graduates the opportunity to be involved in such a wide-spread project and giving us the freedom to be creatively responsible and also to all the participants who were kind enough to give up their Saturday afternoon to volunteer their hands for the project.

Charlie

Oh my goodness! Where do I start?! I’d sum up the total experience as something like concept to animation in 6 days,fighting with blue tack, making and fixing mistakes we didn’t have time to make, pecking at grapes and MAMOM sweets while waiting for camera batteries to charge. For myself, the beginning started with high levels of excitement to be involved in a live project within the creative industry. The icing on the cake was that I’d be spending a week in the amazingly creative Shoreditch area. Nerves were normal as usual, as I was curious about how animating with 3 other individuals was going to turn out! It ended with a well deserved 30minute break on Sliced Breads amazing roof garden terrace, laughing joyously & hysterically (probably a result of sleep deprivation) at ourselves & the whole entire week with the amazing David Steed & Georgie Wright (Hannah you were there in spirit).

Awesome shout out to Sliced Bread’s head honcho, Jamie Denham, for giving students/ recent graduates the opportunity to get involved!

We are proud to be supporting @twestival again this year with some more animated content to help them promote the event, this years theme is ‘local’. Its great to back with team (Amanda Rose, Crystal English and Leynete Cariapa) and this years creative will have a stop-frame feel, which is all very exciting! The event is on the 24th March 2011 – maybe we’ll see you there?

In the meantime, here’s a short piece about Twestival’s local impact using Miriam’s Kitchen as case study (created by ShineOn Storytelling), its definitely worth a view if you want to know more about the event and the help it provides for some extremely worthy causes.

3D Printer Share Proposal – Fiddian Warman 3.1.11

The proposal is for around 10 people to share the purchase cost of a Makerbot-Thing-o-Matic http://robosavvy.com/store/product_info.php/manufacturers_id/37/products_id/1216 £846 +VAT. The purpose would be for the Thing-o-Matic to be used for small scale creative projects, experimentation etc rather than heavy duty production.

Contact Fiddian @fiddian or fiddian {AT} soda.co.uk for more info, contribute thoughts etc. Shared Google Doc here:

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1rEH4i5CNgjcySD3gaRS8hW0Eoal67xW_ovvT0x6PsSg

Ideas for how share could work:

• Each partner to share ownership, shares could be transferable (with permission from group)
• Thing-o-Matic could be kept at Fiddian’s studio in Waterloo, conveniently central for those who live or work in South London?
• Thing-o-Matic is pretty small and portable so could be moved around.
• Members could have monthly evening Thing-o-Matic get togethers, make stuff share knowledge etc
• We could share cost of filament. Its reasonably cheap about £42 +VAT for 2.25 kilos which would make a lot of small parts. If a partner uses a lot they replace the roll.

Potential Interested Partners

@Fiddian – Fiddian Warman (proposer)
@3djamie Jamie Denham
@digitalmaverick Digital Maverick
@Adilabrar Adil Abrar
@moongolfer Tim Wright
@paulharter Paul Harter
Nick England (architect shares studio with Fiddian)
@orgicus George Profenza

If you are interested yourself please get in touch asap, either through our website or Fiddian direct. Ta.