The atmospheric voiceover is actually Richard E Grant speaking the opening lyrics of the song, which is also the opening tune on the album. There is also a little sneak preview of a robot, but we’re not going to say much about that yet. Tch, we’re such teasers! Ah, right,  that’s why they call it a teaser…….

Our technical director Gareth has recently had some of his work (including the image above) accepted into ‘Ispirato – A Collection of Fine Visualization Artists of the World – Volume I’ which is published soon. So now he is a Fine Artist. He has begun to wear black exclusively and hang out in cafes smoking Gitanes. This has been a little inconvenient, but we are proud of him adding another accolade to his C.V. so we’re letting it pass.

While we’re talking architectural CGI, we have recently finished some images for The Co-operative Group. This spectacular building is set to become the focus of the Co-op’s masterplan for their corner of Manchester city centre. Click on the thumbs to see them all big and nice.

We have also recently created some simple animations for a TV ad for JML’s Bandarf. Yes, their Bandarf. What? You don’t know what a Bandarf is? Tch, where have you been? The Bandarf is part Bandana, part scarf, part hat, part tube, part wolf. Go on, google it.

We have just shot a music video. How very Rock n Roll. (See what we did there). The Chemists are signed to Distiller Records, and their single ‘This City’ is due for release early in 2010. Distiller approached us after seeing our little robot viral. The brief was to create a dark, moody piece of film, with a robot character adding a bit of intrigue. Collaborating with freelance Director Mark Jewitt, several treatments were written, then burnt, then re-written, then tweaked, then written backwards, before eventually the final treatment was agreed upon.

It then fell to Tom and the canny production team at Red Button Films to assemble a crew to help us produce our video. And without being too gushing, the assembled team was a great example of the expertise that Manchester can pull out of it’s hat with limited time and budget.

The video is now going to take a few months to edit and add the required smoke and mirrors, but the footage already in the Red Cam can (or should that be drive?) is looking very exciting, so a big thank you to Tom, Tighe, Mark, Bekkie, and Mercedes and everyone else who really grafted to help pull everything together.

Oh, and thanks to Richard E Grant for taking the lead role. Did we not mention Richard E Grant? Really? Oh, tch. Yeah, you know, big Hollywood Star, our new best friend. We’re all off to his house for dinner later. Possibly.

We would love to spill some gossip – expose the truth about him being an ego maniac with a ridiculous set of demands, but fairly boringly all we can report is that he was the perfect English Gent. Professionally dealing with everything we demanded of him.

These two quick shots in this post give a little taster of what is to come in the final video, and obviously we’ll make a big deal of it here when it’s ready to be released. (Thanks To Big Mark at MJ&H for coming along to take stills of the day).

Arriving at about 10am to the Midland Hotel we discover two things about the In The City music conference. Number one: 10am is not a busy time at a music conference, and number two: we seem to be the only delegates who haven’t got a red-eyed hang-dog look about them.

After the humiliation that is the procuring of our photo id cards we rush to the first of the days panels. The haste was unneccessary. The panel has been moved to later in the afternoon – presumably to allow the panelists to sober up, or get back to the hotel from what ever after gig party they have woken up at.

The second panel we try to attend is on time. ‘Break on through’ is a discussion about getting into the industry.  The panel is an interesting cross section of agents, record company managers, Film & Tv people, agency heads of entertainment, and someone who made her money from prophylactics (another story). They are all very awake, and a little scary – the old question of money versus creativity is quickly despatched with some venom and a Medici reference. Interestingly they all have the same frustrations with job applicants that we hear from people in the marketing industry; poorly written C.Vs, bad grammar, and unrealistic salary expectations. It was good to see quite a few students in the audience, but only one university – where were the rest?

Returning to the hotel foyer we did our best to tout about for some work and contacts. Our showreel went down well – people seemed to be able to see by this stage in the day.  The mix of people was fascinating; suits, artists, agents, all sorts – they look a little odd against the Midland’s grandeur.

Our second panel, which should have been our first, was about putting music in computer games. We were expecting the audience to be a geekfest, but not so. Games are obviously now huge. Artists now actively try to get their music on games, this is a change even from a couple of years ago. The panel covered a vast range of exciting technologies and subjects: cloud systems, sync rates, voice control interaction, almost too much for the hour – gaming is no longer the next big thing. It is the thing.

Next to a panel titled ‘No time to think – making the music video’.  After our recent video production experiences it was reassuring to learn that the highs and lows we went through are fairly universal. The discussion raised some interesting points; some of the panel claimed that fear was killing creativity – the ‘man in the suit’ basically pre-programmed not to take risks. Again, a common theme in the creative industries. However, some panelists cited YouTube and the rise and rise of the viral in defence of the creative possibilities that are out there – a day and a video camera can make you world famous.

Unfortunately it was then time to get back to the studio and catch up on the day’s work. As we walked out of the Midland it felt as if the conference was really staring to warm up – Mark Ronson was about give a keynote interview, and the bar was really filling up.

We’d have liked to get a proper flavour of the conference, get to some of the hundreds of gigs, stay a little later, we only briefly scratched the surface. I have a feeling that most of the days’ real business takes place after midnight. As a quick summary here is a list of 8 things that were said lots of times by panelists, organisers and delegates:

Things are changing very, very fast
P2P and illegal downloading is a ‘centre of the sun’ hot potato
The music industry isn’t using social media as much as it should be
Interesting projects are about collaboration
The music industry isn’t glamorous
There is too much pitching for projects
People with money are now terrified – people who take risks are rare
The games industry is now the daddy

Our Technical Director Gareth recently wrote a debrief article for 3D World Magazine. The feature describes the highs and lows of creating the credits for the BBC Children’s show ‘Get Set Go’. Gareth deals with all aspects of the process, from creative to production and the full article is well worth a read. Which is why a pdf of the whole thing is available for download here.

Mi has also recently been featured in Advanced Photoshop magazine, with a big feature on our architectural work. Read the full profile here, in another pdf.

The Cricket Club briefed us to produce a marketing film showing off these benefits. So, we developed a concept which closely aligned with the already developed brand and line: “Events from a different angle“. Our animation pushes this thought further, twisting and turning through the space.

We find it enhances the viewing experience if you shout “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” roller coaster style through the spiral staircase. (Viewers must be over 4′5″ to fully enjoy this film).

We’re changing. Well, evolving is probably a better word. We are now Mi. The work we do now is different to what we were doing five years ago. The evolution has happened naturally – we’ve just given it a name.

Digital imagemaking, animation and visual effects are still at the heart of what we do, but how we do it has changed. Now everything starts with ideas; ideas that we generate, or ideas that our clients bring to us to produce.

To reflect this we have had a bit of a cabinet shuffle: we have a new Creative Director, Ian Hogg, and Gareth Thatcher is now our Technical Director.

So far Mi is off to a pretty good start, and you can find out more about us in September’s Advanced Photoshop Magazine, which features a bit of a profile. With full colour pictures, imagine that.