Troika Design Group, a strategic branding and design agency for media and entertainment companies, has been tapped by Polsky Films, an independent feature film production company, to produce its signature logo animation. The production tag debuted at the LA premiere of Werner Herzog's "The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans," starring Nicolas Cage.
Polsky Films is an independent production company specializing in feature film development based on profound and edgy literary material. The studio turned to Troika Design Group for its expertise in developing memorable and compelling visual brand identities for entertainment companies. Troika was given a very tight turnaround - only one week - to conceptualize, design and produce an original production tag for theatrical release. Troika handled everything from storyboarding multiple concepts and designing and animating the production tag, as well as creating the signature sound design.
"The Polsky brothers, Alan and Gabe, wanted a production tag that broke from the cliches and spoke to their creative process of nurturing projects through all the stages of production," said Dale Everett, creative director, Troika Design Group. "The concept produced took the idea of a growing seed and turned it into a blend of the real and unreal. The seed starts as a drop of ink on paper which fluidly grows into a mysterious, dimensional, tree-like shape that resolves into the Polsky Films logo."
The Troika team seamlessly blended multiple filmmaking techniques, incorporating live-action, 3D and 2D. Troika's workflow involved a live-action shoot to capture organic ink elements. The flowing tree and branches were animated in Maya. Finally, the captured ink elements and the Maya tree were composited together in After Effects to achieve an effect that blurs the line between techniques.