كلاكيش

Marcedes - Poster

Marcedes, is the new film for Hady Zaccak.

I am a fan of Hady's documentaries and i m lucky to work on this one.

I designed the poster and the opening title that i animated along with Ashley Choukeir.

Marcedes is the story of a car, the story of a family and the story of a country. Therefore, the poster visual must reflect those elements so we decided to create a postage stamp for Mercedes, the car so it becomes an icon in the history of Lebanon.

This is one of the most exciting tasks i've ever worked on, and i hope one day, i ll be able to design some stamps for real :)

Here is the final poster that is now printed in 4 different colors like any other stamp.

I added some photos of the prints, and a photo of the lovely Hady Zaccak :)

Marcedes world premiere will be in Dubai International Film Festival, December 9th.

For more info, check this link

A Place To Go

A place to go is a short movie directed by Wajdi Elian.

The genre of this short is psychodrama mixed with animation, and i was lucky to work on the animated part of this movie that was full of challenging tasks. The main 2 characters of the movie are Ziad & the cat. Ziad was shot in real footage and the cat in stop motion in a real environment, different from the usual Stop motion set; we had no wooden board elevated from the ground to fix the cat, so we had to research another technique to control the contact of the cat with the ground of the set.

Nadim Saoma, a great DOP and friend was working with me to find a solution to fix the legs to the ground and we finally decided to work with magnets and metals, so we had magnet legs for the cat and a metal ground for the set covered with a very thin moquette. The technique worked very well but we had few issues with finding the right magnets, and later having sticky hands and legs in some positions of the cat.

All this came after creating the actual puppet which was not an easy task. I had to create a puppet that will appear in most of the movie, so it has to be flexible in order to perform all the requested acts. therefore, we had to design a strong armature to handle all these tasks and movements. We had the choice of ordering a cat armature from abroad since we don't have armature here in Lebanon, but i wanted a customized armature to fit the design of the cat.

So we decided to do everything in Lebanon and we designed the armature, prepared the technical drawings and asked people working with metal to execute the designed pieces and the result was super satisfying. We were extremely happy to achieve this quality of armature here in Lebanon with the help of many people. We tested the armature after connecting all the parts into one armature, and we shot a very short video of the armature moving.

Later, I covered the armature with a fabric that suits the cat fur and i had to paint it in light grey to avoid overexposed parts of the final image as requested from the DOP Bassem Fayyad.

Here are some photos from the shooting and a video of the armature test.

We had as well outdoor shoots and this was a crazy process, as we stayed till 4 am in the morning shooting and animating and avoiding the cars' light reflection.

This was indeed an amazingly beautiful experience that i m ready to repeat specially with the amazing crew that surrounded me with all the beautiful energy to be able to finish the animation in 10 intensive days.

Thanks everyone and all the best Wajdi with the movie :)

Here are some shots of the film and hope you will have the chance to watch it in the film festivals.

Mar2it Tari2 - Invitation

After three weeks of workshops and street life, i would love to share with you the outcome of the project TABADOL. The event will happen this thursday and friday in zico house at 8 pm.

Check the attached invitation to know more about the project.

See you ... :)

Animate 11 - Creative Lab Interview

and here is a sexy report about my presentation with Ashley Choukeir in Animate 11.

A big thanks for the creative lab :)

Lungs

to Reem ...

EFL competition - Audience Prize

And i won the audience prize in the EFL competition :) Thanks for all the amazing people who supported me, and voted till the last minute of the competition ! :)

Nature clash at the border line

A week ago i went for a road trip to the south of Lebanon. It was my first visit to the south and all happened after the imagination studio, a workshop created by Joanna Choukeir. check this video that describes more her project.

The three days trip was full of surprises; i was amazed that we have such beauty in our country. The landscapes, the nature, the sea, the people are still so fresh and vibrant. It s so sad that we rarely visit the beautiful south, but i m definitely going back soon !

Another sad thing i encountered was the clash of nature on the border line with the occupied land. Same land but different nature ! One the right, the lebanese part and the left is the israeli part. Lebanese farmers aren't allowed so close to the line due to the buffer zone.

These photos are now part of EFL competition, so if you like the project , please vote for me by pressing the green heart on this page :

http://therefordesign.net/EFL/contest/submission.php?id=49

Thank you :)

Animate 11 - Photos

Last week, I was invited to Dubai to participate in Animate 11, a full day event organized by Wamda that gathered entrepreneurs, animators and illustrators coming from the arab world. The event started in the morning in a beautiful venue, The Pavillion Downtown Dubai, where i met again some friends from past workshops and book fairs.

The schedule included a group of lectures to discuss four main points :

- How can animation truly inspire, empower and connect the region

- What can media platform do to better support Animation

- How can animators support each other

- What can the Arab animation industry learn from the practices in the rest of the world

The main panel featured representers of Google, Yahoo, Freej, MBC and Wamda.

The event focused as well on creative showcases to feature a selection of the best arab animators and animation projects.

Ashley Choukeir and I were lucky to be one of the presenters where we shard our experience with an amazing audience that kept us motivated to talk for more than an hour and a half about our project and experience in the field.

Thanks for all your beautiful energy :)

I hope we will have the chance in the future to share more our work hoping to inspire someone ...

TEDx Beirut Sketches

TEDx Beirut was happening yesterday, and it was a great day ! I was asked to do live sketches for the talks on set. That was not easy; but the inspiring talks made the whole process faster than i expected. I had to chose only one idea per talk or else, I would have illustrated the whole day. Now enjoy the Sketches, Check TEDx Beirut great website designed by ThereforeDesign and their Blog :)

Sabine and I in the event :) I used to sketch inside the theater and between the sessions scan everything to post the sketches online.

Joanna Choukeir

Halim Madi

Andrew Bossone

Hala Fadel

Gilbert Doumit

Bassam Jalgha

Arne Dietrich

Hassan Aziz

Ziad Abichakar

Mazen Hajjar

Najat Rizk

Reine Abbas

Farid Younes

Mahmoud Natout

Ali M. Jaber

Katia Saleh

Michael Kouly

TEDx Staff

Farid Younes

Yorgui Teyrouz

Daniel Habib & Tony Oudaim

Animate 11 - Lecture

Wamda will be hosting an energy-filled gathering in Dubai that Inspires, Empowers and Connects the region's best animation talent. "CoE Animate 11" will bring together animators and illustrators and connect the investor community to the top Arab creative talent.

Ashley Choukeir and I will be giving a lecture on September 22nd at 2 pm so hope you can attend :) See you .....

Egg - Brecht

Freez - Refresh, Restart.

and here is the first AD i direct that includes real footage, actors, studios, and animation; it is the new corporate TVC for Freez drink.

Credits:
Client: Kassatly Chtaura
Creative Director: Nathalie Masri
Director: David Habchy
Animation Director: David Habchy
Strategic Planner: Khalil Khatib
Executive Producer: Nathalie Masri
Production Manager: Sofia Moussa
Art Director & Layout Designer: David Habchy
DOP: Nadim Sawma
Animation & Modeling: Emile Jalkh, Avak Avakian, Ashley Choukeir
Colorist: Roy Loutfallah
Editing: Wajdi Elian, David Habchy
Music: Karim Khneisser

This was indeed a big challenge for me. I knew before all aspects of real footage and compositing using chroma but i never tried it all together. working with a group of professional talented people made everything easier than i expected; and again gave me the energy and the will to handle bigger projects with lots of risks.

Thanks for all the lovely people who worked on this project; all the technicians, actors, animators, and all the rest of the crew...

I hope you ll enjoy it and i m ready to hear your feedback.

This s my first project of its kind and i want to learn more :)