TWO AWARD-WINNING ARTISTS. 40+ YEARS EXPERIENCE. ONE STOP SHOP FOR ALL YOUR CREATIVE NEEDS.

DIRECTION:

We offer complete direction from beginning to end, including art direction, concept design, storyboards, animatics and previs.

As well as having worked extensively as a concept artist and an art director for several decades, Stephan Martiniere has also worked as a director in the animation industry for over 10 years, directing animated series for DIC, Saban, Story Entertainment and CINAR, including Dinosaucers, The Busy World of Richard Scary, Where’s Waldo, King Arthur and the Knights of Justice, and the Emmy-nominated Madeline. 

Aaron Sowd has worked as an animatics director and art director with Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment, and Stan Lee Media, as well as founding his own production company, Aaron Sowd Productions. Clients include Disney, Dreamworks, DC Comics, Fox, HBO, Warner Bros, Sony, Cartoon Network, Marvel Entertainment, NFL Network, Coca Cola, Nike, Lexus, Toyota and Universal Studios. Films include Transformers, Solaris, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Woman’s Work, Kid Bang, Annie, After Earth and Riddick.

ART DIRECTION:

With our combined experience in the entertainment field we can offer our creative vision, expertise and technical skills for a more cohesive and efficient pipeline. As art directors we can:

• Manage a team of concept artists (this can be the clients in-house team or our own team.
• Establish a compelling and strong artistic vision for each project.  Work and communicate with technical art directors or leads to maintain and unify the aesthetics over the lifespan of the project.
• Define a visual development process in an adaptive manner that best fits the needs and situation of the team. Strive to standardize a pipeline to deliver the highest quality end result.
• Review processes and schedules, providing management with visibility into the progress of visual benchmarks. Take the necessary steps required to ensure those benchmarks are achieved.
• Assist art, design, UI, cinematic and marketing groups, communicate and share efforts to create a cohesive and consistent presentation for the final product.

Aaron Sowd has been Art Director for the groundbreaking Stan Lee Media on animated series such as 7th Portal, The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse, and The Accuser. Other projects include The Wrath of Conan and 7th Portal (feature films), The WWE’s Triple H and Chyna, The Backstreet Boys, Mary J. Blige, Drifter, Slam Girl, Hollywood Christmas Parade, and more.

Stephan Martiniere’s Art Director credits include Cyan Worlds’ Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, Myst 5, Midway Games’ Stranglehold, and ID Games’ Rage.

CONCEPT DESIGN:

Concept design is where visual ideas come to life. From characters, creatures, vehicles, weapons or environments, we bring more than 20 years of experience to creating compelling concepts for all the major entertainment studios in the film, animation and theme park and video game industries.

Choose from a wide variety of concept design services for every stage of production, from preliminary sketches to detailed paintings and 3D assets and environments. Our extensive concept design backgrounds allow for versatile styles for your visual ideas, whether cartoon or realistic.

 STORYBOARDS: 

Storyboards are sketches, similar to a large comic book of the film or select scenes produced beforehand to help directors, cinematographers, and advertising clients visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur— in short, a complete blueprint for the entire production to work from.

Storyboards get everyone on the same page while giving you the flexibility to explore options and make changes for a fraction of the cost of doing so on set, resulting in a cheaper and more efficient production while reducing the need for reshoots.

ANIMATICS:

Animatics are animated storyboards. Animatics have their roots in animation and are used extensively at Pixar. They are the first pass at the movie or scene. They take the storyboarding stage one step further and become a rough cut of your movie adding movement, timing, cuts, voiceover and temp scores.

Animatics are a creative sandbox, providing the freedom and ease to make changes quickly and cheaply. They streamline the production and solidify the story at every step. We offer 3 levels of animatics depending on your budget and your needs:

• PAN & SCAN ANIMATICS: basic slide-show type animatics, provides timing, temp score and SFX, voiceover and temp dialogue.
• 2D ANIMATICS: add limited multi-plane animation, special effects and After Effects work.
• 3D ANIMATICS: add full animation and 3D elements.

PRE-VISUALIZATION

Pre-visualization, or previs for short, takes the process of visualizing complex scenes in a movie before filming a step further with 3D environments and asset creation. The advantage of previs is that it allows directors to experiment with different staging and art direction options—such as lighting, camera placement and movement, stage direction and editing—without having to incur the costs of actual production.

On larger budget projects, directors can work with actors in visual effects departments or dedicated motion capture (mo-cap) rooms. Previs can add music, sound effects and dialogue to closely emulate the look of fully produced and edited sequences, especially for scenes that involves stunts and special effects.