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Jan
20

Nickelodeon – Nickmas Promo

T’was the Night Before Nickmas.

CLIENT:
Nickelodeon

When our new BFFs at Nickelodeon’s social team needed to promote their Slimetime broadcast of an NFL game, they dreamt up a fully animated stop motion spin on The Night Before Christmas. 

While fabricating handmade sets and characters to execute authentic stop motion is one of our favorite things to do– we knew it was too big a task for the timeline and budget at hand.

But we weren’t about to ruin Christmas. 

We suggested a more efficient and cost effective version of stop motion, using CGI. We pared down the ask to instead include just a few animated vignettes, to enhance the story, rather than tell the whole thing. You’d have to ask the big jolly guy, but we think this problem solving definitely landed us on the good list. 

WIREFRAME / RENDER

CREDITS

Creative Director: John Earle
Design & Animation: Paul McMahon, James Hebers
Sound Design & Mix: Nickelodeon
Talent: Nate Burleson
Nickelodeon Social Media Strategist: Liza Herlands

SIMILAR PROJECTS
Nickelodeon – Nickmas Promo
Sesame Street – Mecha Builders – Promo
Scholastic Book Fairs
Nov
09

Sesame Street – Mecha Builders – Promo

Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip.

CLIENT:
Sesame Workshop

Another one for the bucket list… getting to work with the Yip-Yip Martians from Sesame Street! We absolutely love those weirdo space squids… what the heck are they anyway?

Sesame Workshop tapped us to produce a promo for their new HBOMax series, Sesame Street Mechabuilders. Mechabuilders takes places in an alternate universe where Elmo, Cookie, and Abby Cadabby are mechanical robots who help out a small town. The CGI style of the show is distinctly different from the soft and fuzzy muppets we know and love. 

To bridge that gap, Sesame wanted an origin story of sorts, to show how these 2 worlds are connected. Enter the Yip-yip Martians. They get sucked into a wormhole and come out in the Mecha Builders universe!

We also grabbed clips from the show and archival footage of the martians to create this fun :60 promo. Designing the wormhole was the most fun aspect for us. We packed it with quite a few easter eggs for loyal fans. Let us know how many you can spot!

The icing on this cake was the amazing original music by Zak Engel and incredible sound design from Explosion Robinson!

ANIMATIC

CREDITS

Houses in Motion
Director: John Earle
Design: Nick Schoener, John Earle
Animation: Nick Schoener, John Earle
Editor: Dan Jusino
Original Music: Zak Engel
Sound Design & Mix: Explosion Robinson
VO Casting: Explosion Robinson
Storyboards: Abigail Rowe

EXPLORE MORE PROJECTS
Sesame Workshop – Branding Toolkit
Worldbuilding 101 – Web Series
Thunder & Lightning Rap
Nov
08

Scholastic Book Fairs

My New BFFs Are Literary Idols.

CLIENT:
Scholastic Book Fairs

What an absolute JOY it has been to work with Scholastic Book Fairs over the past few years. We all have such fond memories of the Book Fairs from when we were children, so it was an honor to help spread some of that joy with our kids and yours. 

Deep into the pandemic, we were all searching for a return to normalcy. Scholastic partnered with Houses to craft a warm and sincere hype video to get schools excited for the return of the Book Fair. They wanted a reminder of what the Book Fair is for everyone, a reminder of the power of books, and coming together to celebrate them. 

Scholastic has access to a ton of fun IP to work with. However, that IP has a lot of restrictions on usage, especially in animation. Working within the limitations of the original IP holders, we crafted this fun and moving story celebrating the return of the Scholastic Book Fair trucks rolling through various locations. 

Everywhere the truck travels it encounters IP from Scholastic books, visiting city, suburban, and even underwater locales! Finally arriving at your local elementary school, the joy is unleashed with everyone coming together to celebrate books and the power of community!

SHOLASTIC BOOK FAIRS – ANTHEM 2022

For 2022, Scholastic wanted to switch it from from the sentimental, and move back to the sheer fun that the Book Fair brings to all. They wanted something full of energy and it needed to revolve around their tagline of “Bolder, Prouder, Stronger, Reader”.

Our response… let’s write a BANGER song that can serve as an anthem for the 2022-23 Book Fair season. A song celebrating the power of choice the Scholastic Book Fair gives every kid in the country.

We teamed up with once again with the amazing Zak Engel to craft an energetic musical score while expanding and fine tuning the lyrics written by Gianna and John. Once we had the song in place we dove into Scholastics pop-art inspired 2022 Branding.

While we originally wanted to do a live action shoot with kids under our own direction, the coronavirus had a different plan in mind. With cases surging, we nixed the live action plan and dove into existing Scholastic assets from an earlier still photography shoot. From there we were able to craft a story in staccato sequence all while expanding the fun branding and giving it life.

BOOK TRAILERS

In addition to the Anthem videos, we’ve created dozens of Book Trailers for the Scholastic Book Fair. Here’s a sampling of a few of our favorites.

CREDITS

Houses in Motion
Director: John Earle
Design: Caroline Duffy, Nick Schoener, Alex Trimpe, John Earle, Michelle Romo
Animation: Nick Schoener, Alex Trimpe, John Earle, Corey Ryan
Original Music and Mix: Zak Engel
Sound Design: Zak Engel & Dan Jusino
Talent Casting: Zak Engel and Lotas Productions
Anthem Lyrics: Gianna Orzo, Zak Engel, John Earle
Trailers Copywriter: Gianna Orzo

EXPLORE MORE PROJECTS
Sesame Street – Mecha Builders – Promo
Sesame Workshop – Branding Toolkit
Food Network – Wars
Nov
07

Sesame Workshop – Branding Toolkit

On My Way, to Where the Air is Sweet.

CLIENT:
Sesame Workshop

When we think of brands that we trust & admire, who can you think of that better fills those roles better than Sesame Street?! As we all know, they’ve been helping kids (and adults) grow stronger, smarter, and kinder for over 50 years. When they came to us to help refresh the branding for Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop, we were over the moon with excitement!

Houses was charged with creating new Production Tags, 3D versions of the Sesame Street logo, a furry alphabet, Motion Toolkits for both internal usage and HBO Max content, explorations of new uses of the logo, as well as photographing 100s of muppet elements and handcrafted assets in our studio. It was a dream come true. 

Above and below, you’ll see the Production Tags we created for Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop. These were meant to reflect the uplifting nature of Sesame and show off the new 3D logos, something Sesame had never incorporated into their designs before.

Stephen at Explosion Robinson reimagined the Sunny Days anthem with a new original score featuring live horns and a variety of other instruments to create the short stinger. All of this came together in a fun and beautiful production tag that runs after every Sesame Workshop production.

ALTERNATE PRODUCTION TAG

In addition to the Production Tags, we created dozens of other assets, including a full alphabet made of CGI muppet fur. This set of characters was created in a variety of colors and is ultra high-resolution to hold up even to being printed on OOH ads and event signage.

We also explored a variety of other uses for the 3D logo, by placing it in real world situations. This was aimed to inspire Sesame’s internal design team to think beyond the standard usages. Sesame loaned us some super special muppets and hundreds of the iconic muppet eyes and noses which we photographed, so those may be used as their own assets by the Sesame design teams.

BRANDING TOOLKIT ASSETS

Beyond the design toolkits, we created 2 Motion Toolkits. One that was Sesame branded for presentations and exhibits. The other is to bookend short HBO Max exclusive content. These editable motion toolkits allowed the Sesame team to update copy while having a consistent and elevated look.

CREDITS

Houses in Motion
Director: John Earle
Design: Alex Trimpe, Caroline Duffy, John Earle
Animation: Alex Trimpe, John Earle, David Hobizal
Fabrication: John Earle
Original Music and Mix: Explosion Robinson

EXPLORE MORE PROJECTS
Sesame Workshop – Branding Toolkit
Worldbuilding 101 – Web Series
Thunder & Lightning Rap
Jan
31

Octopus Energy – TVC

Where No Octo Has Gone Before.

CLIENT:
Octopus Energy

As  a green energy provider making big waves in Europe and beyond, we were thrilled to collaborate on a few sci-fi inspired TVCs for their entry into the US market. 

With their quirky pink mascot, Constantine, our new pals at Octopus Energy have proven to be so much fun to work with! They came with some great creative to incorporate their friendly octopus into some classic sci-fi to hit the target audience in Texas’ space belt. 

For the video above, we ran with their idea of a Tron inspired spot that could highlight the benefits of a free Amazon Prime membership deal. We took one of our favorite games from Tron, the Lightcycles, and crafted this high speed spot. We loved how the light trails on Tronstantine turned out. The over the top VO was the cherry on top.

Our first collaboration with the brand is featured below. To make their debut, the Octopus team wanted something epic to reveal Constantine. What could be better than an homage to 2021: A Space Odyssey?! 

THE NEW SPACE AGE – TVC

CREDITS

Houses in Motion
Director: John Earle
Design: Nick Schoener, Brad Walter, Alex Trimpe
Animation: Alex Trimpe, Brad Walter
Sound Design & Mix: Explosion Robinson & Dan Jusino
VO Casting: Explosion Robinson

SIMILAR PROJECTS
Nickelodeon – Nickmas Promo
Sesame Street – Mecha Builders – Promo
Scholastic Book Fairs
Jan
31

Osprey Funds – TVC

Gonna Fly Right into the Future.

CLIENT:
Magnet Media

This was a fun an little TVC we created for Osprey Funds via Magnet Media. Osprey Funds offers traditional investors access to select Cryptocurrencies via their innovative products. Being ahead of the flock, they wanted a TVC that sets them apart for the tech heavy looks of other Crypto focused investments. 

Osprey requested something playful and funky, and if we could work in a nod to the artist Peter Max, that would be a big bonus. With that kind of brief, we dove right into these pop art inspired designs, with our stylized osprey bringing color to an otherwise drab world.

CREDITS

Houses in Motion
Director: John Earle
Design & Animation: Alex Trimpe & Nick Schoener
Sound Design: Dan Jusino
VO Casting: Lotas Productions
Audio Mix: Explosion Robinson

SIMILAR PROJECTS
Nickelodeon – Nickmas Promo
Sesame Street – Mecha Builders – Promo
Scholastic Book Fairs
Jan
30

Melissa & Doug – Mnemonic

It Take Two to Make a Thing Go Right.

CLIENT:
Melissa & Doug via Edelman

We love working with kids brands, and there’s no better toy brand out there for little hands and minds than Melissa & Doug. We were stoked when Edelman tasked us with refreshing the iconic brand with a new Logo Mnemonic. Not only would we need a heartfelt visual element, but a compelling audio to create something memorable. Enter our longtime audio partner Explosion Robinson! 

Together we worked on developing both visual and sonic branding that would be true to Melissa & Doug and the multiple generations that have grown up with their toys. We presented dozens of ideas, from hyper narrative to extremely clean. We landed somewhere in between with M&D’s iconic toy wooden train as the hero of the animation. ExRob came with sonic play-up of the Melissa & Doug name that we all loved.  In the end, the client wanted to pare it back a bit and lean into the original sonic branding, but we were trilled with results we got along the way.

EARLY DESIGNS

CREDITS

Houses in Motion
Creative Director: John Earle
Design & Animation: Alex Trimpe, Caroline Duffy, John Earle
Music & Sound Design: Explosion Robinson

SIMILAR PROJECTS
Nickelodeon – Nickmas Promo
Sesame Street – Mecha Builders – Promo
Scholastic Book Fairs
Nov
17

Worldbuilding 101 – Web Series

Is This the Real Life?
Is This Just Fantasy?

CLIENT:
Harper Collins

When Jenn Shaw, writer-director extraordinaire and good friend to us at Houses, came to us with a new proposition, we didn’t have to think twice. She needed our help to produce an 8 episode web series for Harper Collins on Fantasy Worldbuilding, something all of us fantasy and sci-fi nerds instantly geeked out over with the possibilities.

The series is based on esteemed author interviews produced by Jenn and Harper Collins. Our task was to edit those down and bring each topic to life through visuals which enhance and expand upon the author’s words.

We wanted to tackle this on 2 different fronts. While the author is on screen, we will emphasize their points with hand-drawn graphics that reveal and float in the space. These are reminiscent of the author’s own notes as they work out an idea, evolve a specific aspect, or even eliminate elements that aren’t working. We see these like pencil drawings on screen… loose and free, able to be emphasized, changed or erased. We liked this, as it helps show how messy the creative process can be, but it’s the path you have to follow to find a better idea.

As the discussions require further explanation, we jump into our Full Screen graphics. We continue to lean into the world of books and authors, relying on paper-craft and stylized CGI to tell the story. We like the tactile nature of paper- craft and its gentle nod back to books. The look of layered, cut paper to build reflects how stories are built up one piece at a time. Characters, iconography, illustrations, & maps can be created with this technique to provide a bold and unique look for the explainer sections of the video.
 
For all elements, we began with a tactile approach and then brought them into the computer for further manipulation.
 
The hand-drawn elements will started with pencil to paper. We draw out the typography, arrows, accents and illustrations. Those were then photographed so they could be isolated and animated individually. We even made a custom hand drawn font to speed up our production process. A similar process was used for the paper craft elements. Those illustrations began on the computer though, as digital vector illustrations. Those vector illustrations were then cut out of paper by our versatile plotter-cutter. Each individual element was then photographed and brought back into the computer to be rigged, animated, and create entire scenes from.We love this approach as it retains the essence of hand crafted elements but still allows for great flexibility in production.

WORLDBUILDING 101 – EP 106 – TRAILER

In addition to the creating the 8 full length episodes, Houses created teaser trailers for each. Above you can find one of our favorite cutdowns. 

Click on the image below to view all 8 episodes on Facebook Watch. They’re a lot of fun and some good nuggets of info for those aspiring Fantasy authors!

VIEW THE FULL SERIES ON FACEBOOK WATCH

CREDITS

Houses in Motion
Director: John Earle
Design & Animation: Alex Trimpe, Caroline Duffy, Katie Falk, Julie Morris, John Earle
Fabrication: Katie Falk, Caroline Duffy, John Earle
Edit & Sound Design: Dan Jusino
Copywriter: Gianna Orzo
Audio Mix: Explosion Robinson
Series Producer: Jennifer Shaw

EXPLORE MORE PROJECTS
Sesame Street – Mecha Builders – Promo
Sesame Workshop – Branding Toolkit
Food Network – Wars
Feb
13

Food Network – Wars

And That’s the Way the Cookies Crumble.

CLIENT:
Food Network

We’re a big fan of Food Network’s ongoing series of war based pastry competitions. There’s Cake Wars, Cupcake Wars, Halloween Wars, & Holiday Wars. You can now add Cookie Wars and Holiday Wars: Champion Cake Off to this compendium!

Over the past few years we’ve been updating the show packages for each of the establish series and the creating the new ones to boot. It’s been a sweet challenge that we’re always happy to sink our teeth into.

While previous incarnations of the Wars franchise featured modern warfare, we wanted to establish a consistent look across the entire franchise. All of the elements are rendered in a similar playful look, that highlights the unique holiday or theme, and reflects back on the show set design in some way. For Holiday Wars, they’re on a X-mas tree farm, while Halloween Wars takes place in a spooky graveyard…

In addition to the Main Title, we developed a robust toolkit which featured L3s, Mortices, Menus, Timers, and animated Backgrounds.

 

SAMPLE TOOLKIT GUIDE
Timelapse of a typical show package toolkit guide that shows users how to work with the customizable After Effects projects we create. Realtime runtime 13:30

CREDITS

Houses in Motion
CCO: John Earle
Design & Animation: Alex Trimpe, Nick Schoener, John Earle
Music & Sound Design: Dan Jusino

SIMILAR PROJECTS
Sesame Street – Mecha Builders – Promo
Sesame Workshop – Branding Toolkit
Food Network – Wars
Nov
26

Axe The Label – Case Study

The Scent of Success.

CLIENT:
Edelman

We knew our friends at Edelman are really on to something. They were actually able to transform the comments section into a positive and creative place. Who in the world knew that could be possible?! Those big brains at Edelman, that’s who.

They were also wise enough to bring us on to create some glitchy effects and motion graphics to enhance their campaign. 

The video above is an early version of the case study we developed with the Edelman team to tell the story of the Axe the Label.  We collaborated on design and lead animation for both the case study and quite a bit of the actual campaign content. We like the motion design in this version the best. Though, in the end, we went with a some clearer messaging in many of the sections, which you can see in the Agency Final video.   

We’re happy to play a small part in this campaign. This project even earned Edelman a Shorty Award. Go shorty! Go Shorty!

SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT FOR CAMPAIGN

AGENCY FINAL

CREDITS

Houses in Motion
Design & Animation: John Earle, Alex Trimpe, Brad Walter

SIMILAR PROJECTS
Nickelodeon – Nickmas Promo
Sesame Street – Mecha Builders – Promo
Scholastic Book Fairs
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