Bent Image Lab

BENT IMAGE LAB (or BENT) is a production company and animation studio specializing in content development, television, commercials, music videos, short films, interactive media and visual effects. Located in Portland, Oregon, the company was founded in 2002 by partners David Daniels, Ray Di Carlo, and Chel White.[1]

Beginning in 2010, the studio began the production and development of television projects, most notably in the form of holiday specials for the Hallmark Channel.[2] Joining BENT in 2015, former Development Executive at LAIKA and Production Executive on the R-rated animated feature film Anomalisa,[3] Trever Stewart has been with the studio in the development of long form film and television projects.[4][5] In 2015, BENT directors Joshua Cox and Solomon Burbridge started a division of the company called Design Lab, dedicated specifically to contemporary design work for clients, including branding for Cartoon Network. Since 2014, the studio has also been developing augmented reality.[6][7]

Work

Bent Image Lab is known largely for its stop motion animation, CGI/computer animation and multi-technique projects.[8]

Bent's multi-technique approach can be seen in projects such as the Modest Mouse music video Whale Song (director Nando Costa),[9] the Thom Yorke music video Harrowdown Hill (director Chel White), the Coca-Cola ad Hidden Formula, the Lux soap ad Provocateur, and a 2017-2018 campaign for Honda which utilizes a mix of live action, puppetry, CGI, and stop motion animation.

One early and notable example of a BENT stop motion project is Blue Christmas (a.k.a. Santa and the States)(season 30, episode 8),[10][11] a parody short for Robert Smigel's Saturday TV Funhouse on Saturday Night Live. The short, airing December 18, 2004, was directed by Bent co-founder Chel White, written by Robert Smigel and Michelle Saks Smigel with additional material by Rich Blomquist, Stephen Colbert, Scott Jacobson, and Matt O'Brien; voices by Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler, Erik Bergmann, and Robert Smigel.[12] The short is a parody of the 1964 holiday TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Bent Image Lab has since replicated the same stop-motion style of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in television advertisements for AT&T, AFLAC, Bing and in a series of 2014 holiday promos for CBS commemorating the 50th anniversary of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.[13][14] In 2016, the studio produced a ten-minute remake of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as a 4D attraction film for SimEx-Iwerks.[15] Another significant stop motion project is Jingle All the Way (TV special), a holiday special for Hallmark Channel. In reviewing the 2011 television holiday programs, Mike Hale of The New York Times called Jingle All the Way (TV special) "By far the best of the bunch...honest emotion, and a combination of retro holiday spirit with adventurous animation."[16] Other notable BENT stop-motion productions include director Rob Shaw's ongoing Rats segments for the IFC show Portlandia,[17] with Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, as well as commercials for Honda, Gatorade, Lux, OfficeMax, Kelloggs, Tinactin, and an anti-smoking campaign geared towards children for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services.

BENT's computer animation work can be seen in the 2015 Annie Awards[18] nominated Polariffic, directed by Rob Shaw, as well as in their commercials for Honda, Nike, Coca-Cola, Koodo,[19] and Chips Ahoy.[20]

The company is also known for its visual effects work in motion pictures and television, as seen in Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, Restless and Milk, in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, as well as NBC's Grimm (TV Series).[21] In 2011, Bent created interactive components for the World of Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta.

Founders/Directors

Bent Image Lab co-founder and director David Daniels invented an animation technique he termed Strata-cut,[22] a form of clay animation in which internally packed "loaves" of clay are animated in thin slices, revealing the movement of the pre-sculpted images within. The technique of strata-cut was first used in Daniels' 1985 short film, Buzz Box, then later in animated segments of the Pee Wee's Playhouse series during the mid-90s, and in the music video for Big Time[23] by Peter Gabriel (1986). In September 2016, Daniels gave a demonstration of his unique Strata-cut technique at the Anthology Film Archives[24] in New York City. Before co-founding Bent Image Lab, David Daniels was a director at the Will Vinton Studios, where he helmed commercial projects for M&M's, Levi's, Fanta and broadcast promos Fox NFL.

Bent co-founder Chel White is an independent film director who began making films in the mid-1980s. His 1991 short film, Choreography for Copy Machine (Photocopy Cha Cha), is widely considered the first film to make use of a technique in which people and objects are animated directly on the glass platen of a photocopy machine. White's other short films include, Dirt, Magda and A Painful Glimpse Into My Writing Process (In Less Than 60 Seconds).[25] Among White's notable commissioned projects are his 2006 music video Harrowdown Hill for Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke,[26] which features the first use of the Smallgantics technique, and the 2007 short film, Wind,[27] commissioned by the climate change awareness group, Live Earth,[28] and narrated by Alec Baldwin.[29] Along with eight other Live Earth commissioned films, Wind made its world premiere in the opening night program of the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival with keynote speaker Al Gore.[30][30] Since 1999, three of Chel White's short films have screened as part of the Sundance Film Festival[31] (Dirt, Choreography for Copy Machine, and Passage). His other festival screenings include the Berlin Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, SXSW Festival, Ottawa Animation Festival, Annecy Animation Festival, and the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

Bent Image Lab co-founder and executive producer Ray Di Carlo got his start in the film industry working on special effects in feature films. His first project was The Abyss (1989), where he came on as Lead Man for Donald Pennington. More recently Di Carlo produced visual effects for I'm Not There, Paranoid Park[32] (2007), and (2008) "Milk".[33] He has been Executive Producer for Bent Image Lab since its inception. He has also co-directed several of the company's commercial productions.

Director Rob Shaw has been with the company since 2005. He is known for his ability to mix different forms of media such as stop motion animation, CG, live action and 2-dimensional animation. He has directed several animated television shorts for IFC's Portlandia,[17] television specials for Hallmark, and commercial campaigns for Gatorade,[34] Koodo Mobile, and Kellogg's, as well as music videos for They Might Be Giants, The Uncluded, At The Drive In and several videos for Aesop Rock. His animated short film, The Machine, a modern-day cautionary fable about humans and machines, won Best Animated Short from the 2010 Atlanta Film Festival.[35]

Bent director Solomon Burbridge's work includes short, mature-themed segments for MTV, the Bacon Wars segment on Netflix's Disjointed series, and commercials for Old Navy, Tums, MasterCard, Arrowhead and U.S. Navy. He has been a director at BENT since 2007. His film Phase 5 screened in the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

Director/designer Joshua Cox has been directing at Bent since 2010. His clients include Honda, ArcBest and Nike. His short film Proximity was winner of both the Animation Award in the 2014 New Orleans Film Festival and Best Animated Short in the 2015 Oxford Film Festival.[36]

Argentine-born director Carlos Lascano is an accomplished filmmaker known for his short films, commercials and music videos. He is represented by Bent Image Lab for commercials in North America. One of Lascano's characteristic trademarks is the use of a technique in which the eyes of actors are captured in live action then digitally composited onto animated characters, as seen his short films Shadow of Blue and A Short Love Story in Stop Motion, as well as several of his commercials.

Awards

Bent Image Lab and/or its directors have won awards from the Clio Awards, The One Club, D&AD, Promax BDA awards, Cannes Lions, Daytime Emmy Awards, and several awards from the Chicago International Television Awards.[37] Two commercials directed by Chel White (OfficeMax Santa's Helper, and Fila Mash) were included in the program The Art and Technique of the American Television Commercial The AICP Show at MoMA[38][39] and are included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Film festival awards include 'Best Television Program for Adults' from the 2012 Ottawa International Animation Festival for Bent Image Lab director Rob Shaw's Rats (stop-motion segments for the IFC show Portlandia), Best Short Film from the 1998 Stockholm International Film Festival for Chel White's Dirt, Best Animated Short for Rob Shaw's The Machine from the 2010 Atlanta Film Festival, and the Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short for White's Magda from the 2004 Florida Film Festival. Chel White's music video Harrowdown Hill[40] for Radiohead's lead singer Thom Yorke won Best Music Video in the 2007 SXSW.[41]

Visual effects

Since 2006, Bent Image Lab has created visual effects for feature films, television and more. The company was in charge of visual effects for film director Gus Van Sant's films Paranoid Park[42] (2007), To Each His Own Cinema (segment: First Kiss)" (2007), Restless and the Academy Award winning Milk (2008), as well as title effects and animation on director Todd Haynes' film, I'm Not There (2007). Chel White acted as Visual Effects Supervisor on all four Van Sant films. For its first two seasons, Bent produced visual effects for NBC's Grimm (TV Series).[21]

In 2006, along with his team and co-founders at Bent Image Lab, Chel White pioneered the Smallgantics technique[43] that was used for the first time in the music video he directed for Thom Yorke's song Harrowdown Hill. An incarnation of Smallgantics was also used in the Bent production of Hidden Formula, a commercial for Coca-Cola, directed by David Daniels and Ray Di Carlo).

Television and online content

Music videos by current (or former) Bent Image Lab directors

Noteworthy commercials produced by Bent Image Lab

Bent Image Lab's roster of directors

Notable awards and screenings

See also

  • Official website
  • "Three Artists Get Bent". Animation World Network.
  • "'Portlandia' Gets Bent with 'Zero Rats'". Animation Magazine.
  • "Kicking Off an Animated Holiday Season". The New York Times.
  • "Tilt shift's shrinking technique is a growing effect". Los Angeles Times.
  • "Bent Image Lab Finds New Outlets for its VFX and Animation Skills". SourceEcreative.

References

  1. ↑ "Three Artists Get Bent". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  2. ↑ "'Jingle All the Way' Hallmark special comes from Portland's Bent Image Lab". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  3. ↑ "Trever Stewart". IMDb. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  4. ↑ "Bent Image Lab, Producer Trever Stewart Sign 2-Year Production Pact". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  5. ↑ "Portland's Bent Inks Two-Year Production Pact". 16 July 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  6. ↑ "youAR Unveils Secret Augmented Reality Tech Demo". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  7. ↑ "Post Magazine - Bent Image Lab reveals new AR technology". www.postmagazine.com. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  8. ↑ "HOT HOUSE: Bent Image Lab - Studio Daily". 1 October 2006. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  9. ↑ "Modest Mouse Gets Bent". 12 October 2009. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  10. ↑ ""Saturday Night Live" Robert De Niro/Destiny's Child (TV Episode 2004)". Retrieved 9 June 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
  11. ↑ "Bent Image Makes Rudolph Rock for Saturday Night Live". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  12. ↑ "Robert De Niro/Destiny's Child". 18 December 2004. Retrieved 9 June 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
  13. ↑ "CBS Hopes This Holiday Promotion 'Glows'". 1 December 2014. Retrieved 9 June 2018 – via NYTimes.com.
  14. ↑ Fisher, Cydney (6 December 2014). "BENT does stop-motion promos for 50th Anniversary of "Rudolph"". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  15. ↑ "SimEx-Iwerks - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer coming in 4-D". www.simex-iwerks.com. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  16. ↑ Hale, Mike (23 November 2011). "'Jingle All the Way' and Other Holiday Cartoons - Review". Retrieved 9 June 2018 – via NYTimes.com.
  17. 1 2 "'Portlandia' Gets Bent with 'Zero Rats'". 8 March 2012. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  18. ↑ "42nd Annual Annie Award Nominees". Retrieved December 1, 2014.
  19. ↑ "BENT Creates Lucha Libre Legend with TAXI 2 - Computer Graphics World". www.cgw.com. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  20. ↑ "Bent Image Lab Animates 'Love Story' for Chips Ahoy". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  21. 1 2 "Bent Image Lab Creates VFX for NBC's 'Grimm'". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  22. ↑ "Stop Motion Works, copyright 2000-2004. Retrieved on 2009-03-17". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  23. ↑ "OCS Summer Blogs 2008". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  24. ↑ "Anthology Film Archives : Film Screenings". anthologyfilmarchives.org. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  25. ↑ "Chel White". IMDb. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  26. ↑ "Harrowdown hill". Radiohead.Fr. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  27. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-02-03. Retrieved 2015-02-03.
  28. ↑ "Entertainment News, Celebrity Photos and Videos - MSN Entertainment". entertainment.msn.com. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  29. ↑ "Wind". 9 June 2018. Retrieved 9 June 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
  30. 1 2 "Al Gore Opens Tribeca Film Festival". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  31. ↑ "Bio - Chel White". 6 September 2012. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  32. ↑ "2007-06-25". wweek.com. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
  33. ↑ https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/452305/Milk/credits, NY Times, full credit list, 2008, Retrieved on 2009-03-17
  34. ↑ "Archived Content - Membership Required To Access". SHOOTonline. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  35. ↑ indieflix.com. "IndieFlix - Movies for Independent Thinkers". IndieFlix - Movies for Independent Thinkers. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  36. ↑ "Joshua Cox". IMDb. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  37. ↑ "2007 List of Winners at Chicago International Television Awards". www.chicagofilmfestival.org. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
  38. ↑ http://www.aicpshow.com/show/mash/
  39. 1 2 http://www.aicpshow.com/show/santas-helper/
  40. 1 2 "List of winners at South by Southwest Film Festival". 2007. Archived from the original on March 3, 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
  41. 1 2 "'Itty,' 'Billy' win SXSW jury awards". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  42. ↑ "List of Credits for Paranoid Park". Retrieved 2009-03-17.
  43. ↑ Vankin, Deborah (4 July 2012). "Tilt shift's shrinking technique is a growing effect". Retrieved 9 June 2018 – via LA Times.
  44. ↑ "Bent Image Lab Animates Hallmark Sequel". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  45. ↑ "Portland's Bent Image Lab to do second Hallmark Channel animated special". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  46. ↑ http://freethebid.com/directors/yolanda-centeno/
  47. ↑ https://promaxbda.org/docs/default-source/pdfs/pmx15_na_finalists_02.pdf
  48. ↑ "Florida Film Festival (2004)". IMDb. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
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