Directed // produced at Passion Pictures
Directed // produced at Warner Bros & Animal Logic
personal work // more updates can be found on my blog
Archived Designs
collaborative frame with Sam Ballardini
collab with Pete McDonald
About
Bethesda and Rokkan approached Psyop with the task to create 3 prequels to the AAA videogame, Dishonored, to help promote the game prior to it's launch. Each piece was meant to give a bit of backstory to the world of Dishonored, but Rokkan and Bethesda wanted to create a completely unique visual language for these shorts. We took inspiration from Egon Schiele and many stark black and white illustrations for our look and embraced the hand crafted feel for the piece as a whole. We felt the imperfections lent well to the concept of these stories being folk lore for the city of Dunwall. In the end we generated around 3,000 unique frames in photoshop in order to animate this piece.
Awards
ADC 2012 (bronze), Game Marketing Awards (Best Long Format featuring Promotional Content 2013), Clio Gold for ch01, ch02 and ch03, AICP 2013 Shortlist (chapter 1)
Credits
Creative Director: Jon Saunders
Lead Technical Director: Borja Peña
Executive Producer: Lucia Grillo
Producer: Ryan Mack
Associate Producer: Delaney O'Brien
Design: Jon Saunders, Sam Ballardini
Illustration/Animation: Jon Saunders, Borja Peña, Sam Ballardini, Marika Cowen, Blake Patrick, Angelica Alzona, Lizzie Akana, Stephanie Davidson, Stephanie Russell
Storyboard Artist: Robin Nishio
3d Modeling: Sue Jang, Dave Chen, Oliver Castle, Bryan Eck
Rigging: Zed Bennett
3d Animation: Ryan Moran, David Barosin, Michael Shin
Compositing: Borja Peña, Helen Park, Jason Conradt, Danny Kamhaji
Composer: Daniel Licht
Sound Design: Defacto Sound
About
FedEx: Enchanted Forest was directed by Marie Hyon and Marco Spiers for Psyop NY. The original pitch was lead by myself and Lauren Indovina and we both eventually led the design for the world. We wanted to create a forest hidden from man that had grown to become the ideal union between fantasy, animal and mother earth. It became an exciting exploration in character and environment design, as each designer brought their own unique look and vision to the piece which we combined to create a melting pot of fantastic creatures and vegetation.
Awards
AICP 2012 (Won: Animation, Permanent MOMA Collection), AICP Short list 2012: Animation, Visual Effects, Agency Art Direction, Clio2012 (Gold)
Credits
Client: FedEx
Spot title: Enchanted Forest
Agency: BBDO, New York
Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars
Executive Creative Directors: Greg Hahn, Mike Smith
Executive Producers: Amy Wertheimer, Diane Hill
Sr. Creative Director/Art Director: Nick Klinkert
Sr. Creative Director/Copywriter: Tom Kraemer
Creative Director/Copywriter: Chris Beresford-Hill
Executive Music Producer: Rani Vaz
Production Company: Psyop/Smuggler
Director: Psyop
Psyop Creative Directors: Marie Hyon, Marco Spier
Psyop Executive Producer: Lucia Grillo
Psyop Line Producer: Donald Taylor
Psyop Senior Producer: Crystal Campbell
Smuggler Executive Producer/Partner Patrick Milling Smith
Smuggler Executive Producer/Partner Brian Carmody
Smuggler Executive Producer/COO: Lisa Rich
Smuggler Executive Producers: Allison Kunzman, Laura Thoel
Smuggler Live Action Producer: Donald Taylor
Lead Designers: Lauren Indovina, Jon Saunders
Designers: Naomi Chen
Editor: Cass Vanini
Director of Photography: Fredrick Elmes
Storyboard Artist: Ben Chan
Lead Technical Director: Alvin Bae
Lead Compositor: Nick Tanner
Lighting Pipeline Technical Director/Still Photographer: Jonah Friedman
Modeling: Helen Choi, Soo Hee Han, Dave Chen
Rigging: Zed Bennett, Amy Hay
Previz: Pat Porter, Kitty Lin, Chris Meek, Minor Gayton
Animation: Pat Porter, Amy Hay, Roman Kobryn, MinSeok Jeon and Stephanie Russell, Michael Shin
VFX Supervisor: Joerg Liebold
VFX: Dave Barosin, Miguel Salek
Lighting Team: Alvin Bae, Helen Choi, Soo Hee Han, Chris Wilson
Hair: Jonah Friedman, Andy Hara
Lead Tracking: Joerg Liebold
Tracking: Mark Lipsmeyer
Matte Painting: Denis Kozyrev
Lead Compositor: Nick Tanner
Compositors: Jason Conradt, Adam Flynn, Thomas Panayiotou and Jonathan Podwill
Flame: Nick Tanner
Roto: Trace
Footage Transfer: Katabatic
Music House: Human
Audio Mix: Sound Lounge Mixer Tom Jucarone
About
Taxi NY approached Psyop with the desire to create a campaign based around a group of friends that meet at their local watering hole to relax, chat and drink. The catch was that these weren't normal people, but bizarre hybrids between animals and 30 something humans. We decided to approach the pieces as if we were filming a live action sitcom. With that in mind, we knew that dialogue would be king so we worked with improv comedians as our VO, but also captured their performances to inspire our character physical performances. We also allowed the comedians to improv the scripts and create their own scenarios, many of which ended up in the final spot.
Instead of shooting live action video plates on set, we decided to shoot high resolution stills. These still images were then projected onto 3D geometry, creating a virtual set into which the 3D characters were later composited. This gave us the freedom to move the camera based on our character's performances, instead of the usual approach which would restrict us to tracking our characters into locked live action plates. Psyop's modeling, furring, lighting and compositing teams did a phenomenal job combining the two elements together to create a very believable look that let the viewer focus on the comedy instead of the 3d elements.
Awards
AICP 2013 Shortlist (Nosejob)
Credits
Client: MiO Energy
Agency: TAXI, New York
Executive Creative Director: Dave Clemans
Creative Director: Stephen Leps, Michael Pierantozzi
Copywriter: Tim Wassler
Art Director: Phillip Cho
Producer: Joyce Lee, Holly Flaisher
Director: Psyop
Production Company: Psyop/Smuggler
Psyop Creative Directors: Eben Mears and Jon Saunders
Executive Producer: Lydia Holness
Producer: Michael Neithardt
Assistant Producer: Anu Nagaraj
Designer: Naomi Chen, Ram Bhat, Annalisa Swank
Lead 3D Artist: Pakorn Bupphavesa, Alvin Bae
Lighting Lead: Jonah Friedman
Lead Animator: Pat Porter
Lead Nuke Artist: Nick Tanner
3D Artists: Zed Bennett jr., Bryan Eck, Dave Chen, Joerg Liebold, Shant Ergenian, Andy Hara, Will Robertson, John Payne, Phill Avanzato, Denis Kozyrev, Larry (Ngai Man) Leung, Dan Fine
3D Animators: Stephanie Russell, Anthony Travieso, Kevin Scott, Douglas Litos, Danny Speck, William Frazier
Nuke Artist: Thomas Panayiotou, Jason Conradt
Editor: Cass Vanini
Storyboard Artist: Robin Nishio
About
As the launch for At&t's "Rethink Possible" campaign, we were tasked to create a large scale cinematic animation telling the story about discovering what possibilities the world holds when we break out of our comfort zone. The first spot create in stereoscopic 3d for Psyop, this became a challenging exploration in character design and story telling. The little fish is possibly the first (and definetely not the last) character completely based on my dog Maisie.
Awards
London Internation Awards 2010 (silver), AICP 2011 (honored),
Credits
Director: Psyop
Creative Director: Jon Saunders
Creative Director: Eben Mears
Executive Producer: Lucia Grillo
Producer: Nancy Nina Hwang
Associate Producer: Sean Sillivan
CG: Pakorn Bupphavesa, Dave Barrosin, Todd Akita, Damon Ciarelli, Alvin Bae, Andy Jones, Ciaran Moloney, Miguel Salek, Ed Manning, Jimmy Gass, Lee Wolland, Rie Ito, Tom Cushwa, Dan Fine, Jae Ham, Michael Shin, Larry Ruppel, Anderson Ko, Jason Goodman, Xuan Siefert, Keith Kim
Compositing: Jason Conradt, Borja Pena, Nick Tanner, Gabriel Regentin, Julian Ford, Jeen Lee, Fred Kim
Design: Jon Saunders, Ben Chan, Daphne Yap, Gordon Waltho, Lutz Vogel, Scott Brisbane
Music Company: Emoto, Los Angeles
Music Composer: John Adair
About
Directed by Eben Mears, Dante's Inferno was my first venture into game trailers as a designer. I was tasked as design director, basically overseeing the look of the film and leading a team of designers and matte painters for the job's production. Eben and I nerded out pretty hard on this one and maybe tried to pack a few too many things into the trailer, but in the end it was a fulfilling experience and a great entry into the world of game trailers.
Awards
AICP 2010, Shortlist (graphic design)
Credits
Project: Dante’s Inferno
Client Company: Electronic Arts
Agency: G-Net
Executive Producers: David Getson, David Moodie, John Rosenberg
Creative Director: David Moodie
Writer: David Moodie
Original Score: Garry Schyman
Sound Design: Paul Gorman, David Swenson
Additional Titles: Devan Simunovich
Production Supervisor: Shelby Hill
Media Editor: Alik Griffinf
Production Company: Psyop
Director: Psyop
Psyop Creative Director: Eben Mears
Executive Producer: Lucia Grillo
Producer: Carol Collins
Design Director: Jon Saunders
Designer: Anh Vu
Storyboard Artist: Ben Chan
3D Look and Development: Marco Iozzi
Matte Painter: Pete Sickbert-Bennett
Technical Directors: Tony Barbieri, Damon Ciarelli, Miguel A. Salek (FX), Lee Wolland (Character & Rigging)
3D Team: Helen Choi, Tom Cushwa, Pete Devlin, Rei Ito, Kitty Lin, Consuelo Macri, Rich Magan, Pat Porter, Heiko Schneck, Miles Southan, Gooshun Wang, Russ Wooton
Compositing: Molly Schwartz, Jason Conradt, Fred Kim
About
Bethesda returned to us with a new trailer after Dishonored; this time they wanted to create the teaser for the reboot of uber-game Wolfenstein. Needless to say I was on board and willing to do anything to win the job! Between us, AKQA, and Bethesda the creative was very clear right from the beginning. We wanted to create a teaser that had more qualities of a car commercial than the over the top game trailers we have all become accustomed to. As a narrative we wanted to create a sense of David vs Goliath purely through vignettes of a Nazi assembly line. As the project rolled on it became an exploration in fake industrial design (the reality of these designs really do fail immensely when you break them down), as well as next level lighting and texturing thanks to the incredibly talented team at Psyop.
Credits
Client Company Bethesda Softworks
Production Company: Psyop
Director: Jon Saunders
Psyop Executive Producer: Lucia Grillo
Producer: Jen Cadic
Designers: Jon Saunders, Edward Laag, Kenesha Sneed, Ram Bhat
Editor: Cass Vanini
Storyboard Artist: Robin Nishio
Lead Technical Director: Eban Byrne
Animation: Pat Porter, Kitty Lin, Eric Chou
Modelling: Dan Fine, Bryan Eck, Jordan Harvey
Rigging: Zed Bennett
VFX: Eban Byrne, Fabio Piparo Lighting: Jonah Friedman, Andy Gilbert, Keith Kim, Oliver Castle, Andy Hara, Brandi Diminio, Michelle Ko
Lead Compositor: Nick Tanner
Compositing: Bo Kim, Tim Regan, Tobey Lindback
Flame Artist: Nick Tanner
Agency: AKQA
Creative Director: Akira Takahashi
Producers: Ed Davis, Paul Chang, Adam Abbruzzese
Sound Design Company: Defacto
Sound Designer: Dallas Taylor, Ken McGill & Samson Neslund
Sound Mix Company: Defacto
Mixer: Dallas Taylor
About
When TED came to us to redesign their show open we all jumped on board the opportunity. Usually bumpers are something to shrug off, but we at Psyop are all huge fans of TED talks and wanted to create something we would be proud of whenever we watched their online speeches. We ended up going with a simple concept; at it's most basic level it was that a point of light equals an idea. We took that and explored how the pedestal that TED gives to their speakers can invoke and inspire new ideas. Thus a single dot in the sky ripples into a nebula of light...and strange thought orb things.
Credits
Director: Psyop
Creative Directors: Jon Saunders, Laurent Barthelemy, Borja Pena
Executive Producer: Michael Neithardt
Producer: Ryan Mack
Design: Jon Saunders, Sam Ballardini
3D Lead: Christian Bach
3D Artists: Fabio Piparo, Todd Akita, Jonah Friedman, Jonathan Lee, Chris Wilson, Bradley Gabe
2D Composition: Tobey Lindback, Robert Henry