I am pleased to announce that I have opened up a full service design, animation & vfx production studio, with longtime friend and colleague Dan DeGloria. We are Houses in Motion. Please visit our website to see our latest work. We’d love to help you out on your next project!

Houses in Motion
68 Summit St.
Suite 2C
Brooklyn, NY  11231

Created for the Australian TV show, Hamish & Andy. After visiting an LA film studio who specialize in producing low-budget versions of hit movies, Hamish & Andy were inspired to create their own “Mockbuster”. In a mash-up of James Cameron’s Avatar and the arcade game console Atari. RK Productions commissioned me to bring Hamish’s vision to life. This was so much fun to work on, thanks to Hamish’s hilarious creative brief. I have to include it, because it is genius and really captures the essence of the original movie.

Hamish’s brief:

Avatari: A professional looking movie title card, followed by a simple 8 bit graphics (Atari-like) one shot animation that runs for approximately 15 seconds.

We see a topless man (so we can see his peach skin, but wearing pants) standing on a plain flat landscape, with normal blue sky.  Almost Mario Brothers world, but even shitter.  He is not big on screen, perhaps only about 1/6 of screen height.  He then walks to the right into a cupboard. Some shit magic happens through the technique of a quick flash of colours, he emerges 150% taller and is now blue skinned.  He walks a few steps, and a female blue counterpart enters from the right and faces him.  She says (we can use speech bubbles here) “You should not be here”.  He says “I love you”.  She says “I love you too”.  Another human then enters, our hero shoots him, human dies, they both cheer (very simply and quickly).

“The End” flashes up in the middle of the screen, over the triumphant couple.

Nailed it. Great job, Hamish.

From this short write up, I began designing the characters and set. Once approved, I moved on to the Atari style animation. Big inspiration for me was the classic game Pit Fall. All poses of each character were created in Illustrator and animated in After Effects. Finally, I created the modern cinematic title animation in Maya and After Effects.

I hope you enjoy watching as much as I did creating this. Jump to the bottom of the  page for the full show segment.

Character Design, Animation & VFX: John Earle
Brief/Concept: Hamish Blake
Executive Producer: Sophia Mogford
Sound Design: RK Productions

Watch the full Hamish & Andy show segment below. Skip to 2:18 for the Avatari setup. Or watch the whole thing… these guys are pretty funny.

I was approached by Hrabal Creative to execute these 2 brand essence videos for the technology company Avanade. Working closely with the creatives at Hrabal, we were able to breathe some new life into Avanade’s image, all while working within the confines of their existing branding package. Our aim was to expand on the possible uses of their iconic rectangle. Making great use of stock video, custom graphics, and our own spin on the branding package lead to the final results. We created something dynamic, contemporary and, dare I say it, hip for the IT giant.

The above video is to be played at trade shows and broadcast on the Avanade website.

The below video was created as a recruitment aide and for internal use for the ever expanding company.

Credits:
Produced at: John Earle, Inc
Design: Dan DeGloria, John Earle
Animation: John Earle, Dan DeGloria
Creative: Hrabal Creative
Copywriter: Francis Sullivan
Producer: Lisa Baldwin, Dana Cole
Music: Explosion Robinson

Created for MAC Cosmetics to promote their new line of Wonder Woman inspired cosmetics. Using only 5 illustrations, penned by Michael Allred,I was able to tell an energetic and engaging story. I wanted to take the retro comic feel and bring it into a contemporary realm; incorporating 3D comic elements that burst of the page, separating the illustrations in order to create a world with depth, dynamic camera moves, and other visual trickery to keep the action going. The icing on the cake is the cinematic original score by Beta Petrol. This was a lot of fun to work on, from concept to delivery. Thanks again MAC!

Credits:

Direction, Design, Animation, & Compositing: John Earle
Original Illustrations: Michael Allred
Art Director: Loann Lam for MAC Cosmetics
Producers: Cindy Carrandi for MAC Cosmetics; Julian Duff for Beta Petrol
Music & Sound Design: Nathan Ehrenfeld for Beta Petrol

I also created a quick demo of a ring that was to be given away to fans as part of a viral marketing campaign. You can view that animation below.

My role for this project was Visual Effect Supervisor / Lead Compositor. I provided on-set vfx supervision & data acquisition during shooting. In addition to compositing all shots, I oversaw the highly skilled 3D and roto teams.

Produced at Digital Kitchen
Director: Bryce Wymer
Producer: Jessica Le
Executive Producer: Abbe Daniel
Head Of Production: Gabriel Marquez
Visual Effects Supervisor: John Earle
Line Producer: Nancy Marks
Editorial: Sam Getz, Moss Levenson, Zach Kilroy
Technical Director: John Earle, Gavin Guerra
Compositors: John Earle, Helene Park
3D: Gavin Guerra, Parthiban Swaminathan Elangovan, Carlos Sandoval
Rotoscope Artists: David Marte, Alejandro Monzon
Client: Uproar

This is the compositors cut of The History of Light, created for TED Conference audiences. Directed by m ss ng p eces, we travel through time to witness the role lighting has played in our lives through out the centuries.

Stop-motion paper worlds created by Po-Town Pictures brought this piece to life. My roles were as visual effects supervisor and compositor. I worked on set through out shooting, advising shot setups and managing data. From there all sequences were brought back to John Earle, Inc sudios for post production. Working closely with director, Josh Nussbaum, we added secondary camera moves, refined the edit and added additional animation. Compositing was quite elaborate even though many scenes were 100% in camera. We shot everything at multiple exposures in order take full advantage of the qualities of lighting in each scene. I was then able to extract the desired elements from any of the exposures to achieve the final look. Overall a great project to work on with wonderful results.

DIRECTED BY: Josh Nussbaum
EXEC PRODUCER : Ari Kuschnir
ILLUSTRATIONS BY: Dave Franzese – Dark Igloo
WRITTEN BY: Josh Nussbaum
STORY BY: Scott Thrift
PRODUCER: Michael Eder
DP: Ivan Abel
VFX SUPERVISOR: John Earle
ANIMATION DIRECTOR: Matthew Somma
ANIMATOR: Abbey Luck
GAFFER: Michael Yetter
KEY BRIP Meno Payne
EDITED BY: Adam Mclelland
ART: Bianca Siu Davies, Colette Fu, Will Pike, Nathalia Murray
COMPOSITE: John Earle
MUSIC & SOUND DESIGN: Explosion Robinson

m ss ng p eces
Po-Town Pictures

My role for this was Visual Effects Supervisor / Lead Compositor. I worked closely with the directors from pre-production (story boarding, location scouting, shot planning) to production (on-set/on-location supervision, data acquisition) through post-production (lead team of compositors and 3D artists, RED workflow, etc). It was a smooth project that I am proud to be a part of.

Produced At Digital Kitchen NY
Directors: Bryce Wymer, Rama Allen, and Ryan Mckenna
Editorial: Ryan Mckenna
Producer: Jon Hassell
Executive Producer: Abbe Daniel
Head of Production: Gabriel Marquez
Line Producer: Jon Messner
Director of Photography: Shawn Kim
Wardrobe: Mark Holmes
Production Designer: Kai Lee
Visual Effects Supervisor / Lead Compositor: John Earle
Compositors: Dan DeGloria, Danny Koenig, Michael Queen
3D: Justin Zurrow, John Kalagian, Gavin Guerra, John Earle
Rotoscope Artists: David Marte, Alejandro Monzon
Color Artists: Damien Van Der Cruyssen (The Mill NY)
Client: Harmonix

Music: “Break on Through” The Doors
Sound Design: Expat Labs (expatlabs.com)

Check out the case study, edited by Ryan McKenna:

We were approached by the fine people at Deutsch, Inc to create a graphics package for the Alzheimer’s medication, Exelon Patch. Deutsch wanted something to compliment the lovely footage of an actual patient and her daughter who cares for her. In addition, they wanted to create a timeline metaphor to help illustrate how the product works throughout the day. Taking cues from the tranquil environment, we proposed several options that had a handmade and organic feel. You can see several of our designs below, as well as the final paper and ink influenced design in the animation above.

CREDITS:
Agency: Deutsch, Inc
Design, Animation, Composite: John Earle
Editorial: The Now Corporation

Oil Paint Design:

Yarn Design:

Paper Design Alt:

Final Design:

Above: 2008 Demo Reel

McDonald’s UK
Produced at Hornet, Inc
Role: Visual Effects Supervisor, Lead Compositor

2005 Demo Reel
Produced at various, 2002-2005
Role: Visual Effects Supervisor, Lead Animator, Compositor

Music video for White Rabbits “They Done Wrong, We Done Wrong” from “It’s Frightening” on tbd Records.

Directed by John Earle

Design & Animation: John Earle
Character Design & Animation: Jason Wolley
Compositing: John Earle, Dan DeGloria
Additional Modeling: Aaron McMasters, Kyle Anderson
Story Boards: Kim Gill