Here's our long-delayed new reel for 2012. It includes commercial and independent pieces completed both in-house and as a collaboration with various production companies.

For more details:
imago reel 2012 page on imago's website.

AE64 is a tribute to the demoscene and to the legacy of world's most popular microcomputer: Commodore 64.

While this video was created using the typical contemporary arsenal of tools (mainly After Effects and Cinema 4D), it conforms to most of the basic graphical limitations of the C64 such as a limited 16-color palette, low resolution, use of the overscan area etc. To maintain the spirit of the demo, I also created most of the effects using various scripts and code snippets, procedurally automating many of the tasks typically animated using keyframes.

If you ever owned a C64, I am sure you will enjoy this piece. Happy new year!

For more details:
AE64 page on imago's website.

In this project, we were asked to create a series of three TV ads for an Internet shopping site Morhipo.com.

Working with an extremely tight deadline, this project's main challenge was to create a modular, script-driven animation that could easily adapt to ever-changing product line-up. We achieved that with some clever After Effects expressions, used both for the camera control as well as for the placement of the product photos on the 3D elements.

Big thanks go to Motionworks for their fantastic MovieType rig for Cinema 4D - it definitely was one of the key factors allowing the entire project to be produced and completed on time.

For more details:
Morhipo page on imago's website.

For this gnctrkcll ad, we've been asked to refresh the motion graphics style used in the older ads of the campaign. We went with a shiny, tech approach featuring clear lens flares, cool particle effects and some neat lens fringing towards the edges.

For more details:
gnctrkcll: Blackberry page on imago's website.

Here is Quba Michalski's personal reel for June 2011, featuring commercial and independent pieces directed, edited, animated and designed by him in the recent years.

For more details:
Quba Michalski: Reel 2011 page on imago's website.

Macula Lutea started as a happy accident – we’ve been working on one of the projects and wrote a small script to control the movement of the lens flare. Due to the calculation error the light source ended up in completely wrong spot, resulting in highly exaggerated flare on the screen. Rather than discard the mistake, we decided to pursue intentionally misusing flares and discovered an entire world of cool abstract imagery that can be created in this style.

At the same time we stumbled upon an audio track U Smile (800% Slower) in which composer Nick Pittsinger stretched and slowed down Justin Bieber‘s song U Smile, resulting in amazing half-hour ambient piece. It was also a perfect match for the visuals.

For more details:
Macula Lueta page on imago's website.

Liquid Lifeforms is a short experiment in Cinema 4D softbody dynamics. Visuals were inspired and edited to the audio track Beazt, created by disconnectuser (Alan Pring).

After countless commercial productions, where the result needs to feel pretty and appealing to the viewer, we felt an urge to create something a bit more disturbing. We wanted to approach the animation in the same way we would approach a live animatronic shoot. To achieve that, Quba constructed two rigid body robots, controlled by a bunch of randomized motors and set them lose in C4D’s dynamics engine. He then wrapped the resulting animation in a softbody, latex-like skin and run a second level simulation.

The process resulted in a creepy, realistic motion – part mechanical and part organic. We cut everything together in After Effects with some extra color correction and distortions. Enjoy!

For more details:
Liquid Lifeforms page on imago's website.

This project started its life as a simple storyboard for a 2D piece based on photographs, delivered to us by the agency. The main brief was to show off different customization options for Fiat 500 using series of cuts. Right from the beginning we knew that the key to making the car look attractive in the commercial was in adding that one extra dimension, so we decided to upgrade the ad to a full 3D.

While the team was working on the car models, Quba rigged up yet another of his patented After Effects expression rigs (basically his own version of Trapcode Echospace) in order to easily create and animate the flower designs originally designed by the agency. The rest was a pretty standard editing, compositing and beautifying process, resulting in the ad you can see above.

For more details:
Fiat 500 page on imago's website.

This project was our first venture into the world of slow motion demo shots, and a pretty successful one at that. It’s been shot over the course of 24hrs on Phantom HD and edited in imago's standard After Effects environment.

We're particularly happy with this commercial, since we had full creative control over all of its aspects. From concept and creative direction through directing the shoot, to post, vfx and music – we were able to execute the project precisely as we imagined it. In fact the final result is nearly 100% identical to the first storyboard-based animatic, originally pitched to the client.

Quite a bit of heavy-duty compositing went into creating the final look of the ad – some of the scenes are composed out of 3 or 4 separate shots. If you cannot see it – it means we did our job well :)

For more details:
SunIch: Purely Fruit page on imago's website.

At the beginning of this project the agency provided us with a ton of financial data and a previz image featuring submarine-style radar graphic. We were asked to present the graphs, numbers and stock indexes in a single, evolving interface.

Since the actual stock numbers were meant to be accurate, Quba created an After Effects expression-driven visualizing engine that when fed the data, produced the final animation. After countless hours of debugging, we wished we have picked the more standard, keyframe-based approach.

Once we got it to work though, it was a pure pleasure to sit back, relax and have the software do all the animation!

For more details:
Trade Master page on imago's website.