So, as we've mentioned in a previous post, The Unleashed.tv has moved offices...and we're loving it. Nic, Tanner and their crew from Shake Well Industries hooked us up with some wicked tags. Take a look at their master pieces

The Robot wall

Wicked Robot guy!

The Boys enjoying the vibe

The lounge area

Robot Vs Tentacles

The Coffee-anator

Oil Peeing Robot-Behind the Bathroom door

Big ups to Shake Well Industries!

One of the more exciting jobs we have been working on is a pilot show for Iron fist inc. The main idea around it is not to replicate Miami ink, but rather make a show that is a bit more about the lifestyle/character of Iron fist. Extreme sports, bands, clothing, tattoos and all things nice are what Iron Fist are all about.

Take a look at some pics of Chris's dad, known as Mr Anderson to some and the 'Godfather' of Iron Fist to others, getting his 1st bit of Ink done by Jono. He is the proud father of the 3 boys that started up Iron Fist and got an eagle tattoo that is representative of the time he spent in the South African Paratroopers squad.

Chris and The Godfather

The Transfer

Jono making sure he's tattooing the right thing:)

The 1st sting

And still smiling...

Tuis giving his professional opinion

The Final Product

Tadaaaa! Mr Anderson is just one of the people we had the pleasure of filming getting ink. Watch this space to see Khan and the rest of the Parlotones getting their tattoos done as well.

Unleashed and Penquin International were asked to do a small insert for Maggs & Media explaining the uniqueness in their shooting style and camera choice for their most recent TV ad for Suzuki. We, at The Unleashed, shot on our Canon 7D's with minimal crew and lighting, hence reducing our carbon footprint, but not compromising on quality. For the advert, we shot the entire range of Suzuki cars in their various lifestyle locations with the aim of changing the perception that Suzuki is not just a motorbike brand. We filmed in a bunch of different locations ranging from the Zeemans dirt bike track in Kyalami to the stylish Nelson Mandela bridge on the skirts of Johannesburg CBD.  Take a look at video to find out more about the production.

The Unleashed.tv & Penquin International on Maggs & Media from dialate Unleashed on Vimeo.

We here at the Unleashed are always up for a challenge, and sometimes, we go out of our way to raise our bar a little higher!

MK recently started up a competition of sorts where bands and production companies were given the opportunity to pitch an idea for a music video. After submitting treatments and the like to MK, 10 would be chosen to take R50 000 and actually MAKE their pitched video. And that's what we did.

Teaming up with 4am, team Unleashed submitted a total of 3 concepts (the maximum allowed per production company) - and as luck would have it, out of 196 entries, we were amongst the top 10 chosen!

The winning concept? "The flooded room" for 4am's "Steering ships"

At the time of writing this, we are about half-way done with the shooting of the actual video, and we'll definitely blog about the entire process in great detail once everything is done and dusted. This shoot is definitely one of the more complicated and involved concepts we've attempted, but if the final product is anything close to the way we visioned it to be (and it will be) - then we're going to be looking at a really awesome feather to put in our cap! More on this very soon, in the mean time, enjoy some snaps of day 1 of our shoot, as well as a sneaky peek into what we have planned for the rest of the production!

Over the past month or so, we've been pretty hard at work doing our thang for Volcano and their clients Menlyn Maine.

We were given the task to sell Menlyn Maine, South Africa's first green city. But here's the catch - it doesn't exist (yet). So after much back-and-forthing with the creatives, it was decided that the main focus of the video would be to sell a lifestyle; a way of living that depicted a greener, environmentally conscious world, and this would be then used as a tool to get people to invest in this progressive initiative.

Under the leadership of Ryan, we decided to use footage integrated with vector-based animation and bits of green screen to add nice touches to the overall concept.

The Planning

Probably one of the toughest things to sort out before a shoot is location. Especially when you're showcasing conceptual ideas. When it came to Menlyn Main we ran into two problems - firstly, we needed to match the look of the lifestyle and architecture that this initiative is trying to flaunt; but probably bigger than that was the problem of green. The video definitely called for a lot of lush, green foliage; trees, grassy parks and well-kept landscapes - somewhat of a rarity in the dry, arid Johannesburg winter.

After a LOT of location scouting, we managed to squeeze out what little green the city had left to offer in the form of Kyalami Estate parks, interiors from the offices of De La Rue in Fourways, and we got the home shots at the home of Anton, one of the Menlyn Maine investors. As for the mall shots, Clearwater Mall in Krugersdorp graciously allowed us to shoot in their shopping center at no charge, so MASSIVE props to them!

The Shoot

We shot at the four different locations over two days, lugging our lights, cameras and the dolly around all over Joburg and Midrand; as we had anticipated, there wasn't as much green going on as we'd have liked, but with the assistance of the masterful Mark Cooksey, we were able to grab some really awesome, workable footage from the park scenes and Ruth, as usual, reminded us why she's such an asset (holla!). We really didn't run into any problems on the shoot (aside from some stubborn clouds that kept blocking our sunlight), and the end result was totally worth the early mornings and late nights. (Really, I swear.)

The Post

A lot of the post-production process, in terms of the editing, was getting the footage to be greener, without making EVERYTHING super green; because of the bright, sunny nature of the video, we upped the saturation and graded the footage to really bring out the green that we already had to work with.

The animations, once again spear-headed and driven by Ryan, tied together the footage with 2D-vectors as well as various 3D-elements. Heck we even threw in some awesome typography animation and 3D-space compositing. We're just cool like that.

The Results

Needless to say, the guys at Volcano (who were with us every step of the way) loved the final result, and so did the powers-that-be over at Menlyn Maine, who gave their final approval of the video on the 12th of July 2010.

All in all, Menlyn Maine presented us with quite a few challenges (mostly of the seasonal variety) but working with the pros and having the backing of an awesome creative team allowed us here at the Unleashed to get the job done, and to do it as awesomely as we've set out to.

Whoop whoop! Go team Volcano and Unleashed!

Menlyn Maine from dialate Unleashed on Vimeo.

No, this post has nothing to do with llamas (not directly anyway), but everything to do with a few changes happening around the Unleashed Offices! In fact, if you've noticed a bit of silence around the site for a while it's because we actually have NEW offices - but expect a full post on that in the coming weeks as things around here get a bit of spit and polish. We can't wait to show off our new digs!

With the Soccer World Cup gone for a while now, and everyone slowly adapting to life without South Africa in the limelight, what's been going on in the world of Unleashed?

Well, stay tuned to see! Coming right up are posts about what we've done, what we're doing and what we're still going to do! In the mean time, enjoy this picture of llamas. Because llamas are rad!

I seem to have a thing for Professor Green videos at the moment. What can I say? Great concept; well shot; nice remix - and Lily Allen.. fantastic!

Have a look..
Professor Green - Just Be Good To Green ft Lily Allen

The behind the scenes is worth checking out too:

I've always wanted to do a Top Gear parody; the humour, look and feel of the show is something that has always begged to be mimicked and pushed into other projects...and it seems that Hyundai has done just that. And apparently it's for South Africa! Ripping off the show's characters, comments and format, these ads are a ton of fun and should make any avid fan of Top Gear chortle at the very least. It even features a "Stig" competitor called "the Stag".

Utterly brilliant! More of these, please!

Yesterday saw hundreds of thousands of South Africans take to the streets in support of our soccer team, Bafana Bafana, ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The whole idea was thought up and executed by the local radio stations, but eve though could not have predicted the scale the entire thing would go on to achieve. Being stuck at work, we couldn't make it to Sandton itself, but as it turns out, we didn't need to. At noon yesterday, the city practically came to a standstill; as the sound of hooters, cheering and the ever-present vuvuzela drew us out into the streets in celebration. Of course, we had to take the camera along with us to capture this amazing vibe (I mean, we would totally suck as an AV company if we didn't, right?)

It was truly an incredible atmosphere to be a part of, and it really is a great time to be in South Africa and to be a South African!