Melbourne Future Wheel

February 9th, 2010

In collaboration with Buro North and Peter Bennetts we’ve visualised an alternative use for Melbourne’s conceptually flawed Southern Star Big Wheel which is now non operational due to heat damage. We imagine a Wind Driven Solar Sail Powered Wheel that will act as the central docking station for a new fleet of Flying Steam Powered Punk Trams, invented to alleviate traffic congestion in a newly greened Melbourne.



Squint/Opera are looking for an Assistant Director

February 2nd, 2010

Assistant Director

Squint/Opera Limited make animations, films and visualizations, primarily for architects, planners and developers.

The company is growing steadily and requires someone to be responsible for assisting the Directors in relation to their various animation, film and stills projects.

Job Description

Overall :

You will be assistant to Project Directors, helping to ensure the smooth running of their projects. You will be extremely organized and be able to communicate well as they will work closely with each Project Director, as well as working with the Operations Manager and individual project teams. You will be the point of contact for clients and will help assist the Director’s lead and manage the projects to delivery.

Duties:

  • Attend all client meetings with Project Director’s either in the office or off site
  • Take minutes of all meetings and distribute to relevant parties (client contact, Operations Manager, Project Director, Finance Director)
  • Highlighting action points and ensuring these are followed up assisting the director?s in planning and set up of storyboard working with the Operations Manager
  • To ensure team and review meetings take place collecting & sorting information from the various parties involved and distributing these to the relevant individuals on the team liaising with the client and project teams
  • To obtain necessary information on time and to answers any queries that may arise from either parties
  • Ensuring that the relevant client sign offs have been obtained in writing from the client before work progresses to the next stage
  • Planning and coordinating shoots for various projects ? includes equipment hire, location hire, castings, sourcing of props etc.

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Squint/Opera are looking for a Studio Manager

February 2nd, 2010

Squint/ Opera, a diverse and dynamic young film and media production company in Battersea, is seeking a full-time Studio Manager to look after the administrative and secretarial aspects of the office, and ensure its smooth day-to-day running.

We are looking for a capable Studio Manager to take charge of (among other things):

Secretarial duties.
Studio organisation- everything from helping out with technical problems to ensuring everything is kept tidy and systematic.
Managing budgets for general studio spend (furniture, maintenance, cleaning etc).
Diary Management.
Travel Arrangements.
Couriers/post/stationary requirements.
Dealing with some press inquiries and filing press cuttings.
Keeping everyone in check, tidy, on time and accounted for!
Other ad hoc duties.

Requirements include:
Excellent organizational and communication skills.
Fully conversant with Mac and PC operating systems, including basic knowledge of word processing programs and digital media.
Fluent English.

The applicant should have bags of common sense, as well as be full of energy, enthusiasm and ideas. Above all the applicant needs to be a team leader, a master of organisation and be able to work under their own initiative.

Experience in a similar role, perhaps with an experience in film and or architecture would help.

Squint/ Opera’s broad parameters have won the company a myriad of clients (as well as awards), from cultural colossus The Design Museum to the BBC, Channel 4, a host of architectural practices and local authorities. The studio works with animators, architects, designers, visual effects artists, writers and music composers to produce its innovative short films.
To find out more about the company and watch some of its films, visit www.squintopera.com

If you think you are the person for the job, please send a cv and covering letter to andrew@squintopera.com



Flooded London in the new Art Not Oil diary

January 28th, 2010

As featured on both the RSA’s Arts & Ecology website and The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts’ website, Squint Opera’s image ‘An afternoon Plunge’ from the Flooded London series, is part of the new Art Not Oil 2010 desk diary. Art Not Oil, the organisation that encourages people to create artworks which explore the dangers posed to the climate by the oil and gas industries, has brought out this diary to celebrate its seventh year in existence. The diary is available to buy here.



Squint Opera are recruiting

January 11th, 2010

Creative Visual Artist - 3D Studio Max

We are still looking for applicants to fill this role. Candidates need to have at least three years experience using 3D Studio Max and be confident in Photoshop, with knowledge of Vray and of compositing programs such as Fusion/Nuke.

Motion Graphics Artist

Applicants need to have at least three years experience using Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects. We are looking for artists with a good eye who can bring their own ideas to the work. An interest in film and architecture is essential, whilst an ability to read architectural plans would be of great benefit.

Digital Matte Painter/Photoshop Artist

We require a Digital Matte Painter responsible for painting/creating photorealistic digital images then applying those images to geometry in a 2D or 3D environment with consistent and seamless results. The responsibilities of the Digital Matte Painter include: reviewing the storyboard to determine the type, placement and number of matte painting elements required; examining the film or tape plates, clips and stills of the background and/or principal action, as available; examining and evaluating the look of computer graphics and animation, 3D modeling and technical effects and in an effort to integrate the digital matte painting; preparing tests of proposed matte painting to show to the Creative director and finalising and integrating the final elements.
The Matte Painter must be highly experienced in Photoshop, and of the various proprietary software programs utilised in CG work and principally, Photoshop image manipulation. Working knowledge of compositing packages are a welcome addition.

For all positions please send examples of your work via email to:

andrew@squintopera.com

Please send the files as one or all of the following:
PDF/Images attached to the email no bigger than 20mb or a link to your website/showreel
Alternatively you can post your portfolio of work to:

Squint Opera
33 Parkgate Road
London
SW11 4NP



Squint and Doodlearth in Rotterdam

November 24th, 2009

Squint Opera and Doodlearth were invited to the Rotterdam Architecture Film Festival last month. Several of Squint’s films were screened and festival goers got creative with the ongoing Doodlearth installation in the foyer. Serge Seidlitz was interviewed on Vrijdag Gesprek TV show about Doodlearth and Squint’s work and Jules’ interview appears on the festival’s website.



Squint/Opera at the UN Climate Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen

November 2nd, 2009

The recently completed Green Lighthouse, the first public CO2 neutral building in Denmark, will be showcased at the forthcoming UN Climate Conference (COP15) being held in Copenhagen in December. Our film, commissioned by Velux, will be played to demonstrate the building’s excellent intelligent and sustainable design.



Our Stonehenge images go public

October 12th, 2009

Released today in the Architects Journal and Building Design were three images that we created for DCM Architects showing the proposed new visitor centre at Stonehenge. Although the controversy over this project has been great, DCM have acknowledged the challenge, and the responsibility, and have endeavoured to design a modest building that blends with its surroundings, avoiding as much disturbance of the ancient site as possible.

The images show the one-story visitors centre with its ‘forest’ of columns and ‘undulating canopy’, subtly perched away from the stone circle, sitting lightly amongst its surrounding landscape.



Character Animator/Animator 3DS Max

October 12th, 2009

We are looking for a competent animator to produce bespoke full body cycles for a architectural film.
You will be using a basic biped in 3D Studio Max.

All CV’s to andrew@squintopera.com



Squint on the Moon

September 25th, 2009

Behind the scenes on a shoot for a lunar film we made.

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FINAL REMINDER from BRITISH GRAVITY

September 22nd, 2009

A series of stills currently being exhibited at the Medcalf Gallery, London, EC1R 4QE

Gravity has become a commodity. The power to harness,
control, compartmentalise and subsequently charge the
public for their use of a force previously taken for granted
is in the hands of British Gravity.

The effect is the extreme polarisation of society. The gap
between the rich and the poor has grown greater than
ever. British Gravity is immensely powerful and able to
influence government policy. Citizens unable to pay their
gravity bills are cut off and resort to desperate measures.
The longer they are subjected to zero gravity, the weaker
they become. Their muscles atrophy and their bones
wither. Gravity has become an effective tool for social engineering.

In a series of five stills, Squint/Opera explores a parallel
world of extremes. Cutting through social classes, the images
are snapshots into a world in which even the natural
forces have become traidable commodities.



PROCESS @Loop / Melbourne, Australia

July 24th, 2009

In the midst of MIFF (Melbourne International Film Festival), film and architecture collide. At this month’s Process we present the offspring of these disparate, but strangely congruent, disciplines. From polished project show-reels to designs informed by cinematographic processes to the intangible worlds of the virtual, Process plumbs the depths of the confluence of Architecture + The Moving Image.

Squint Aust’s Fooch will be giving a short lecture and presenting squint films for the night.

Process: 6.30 PM / Monday 3rd August 2009
LOOP, 23 Meyers Place, Melbourne, VIC, 3000
Website: www.looponline.com.au

Loop is located in the Melbourne CBD off Bourke Street at the Parliament end of the city. Read the rest of this entry »



CINECITY: Architecture & the Moving Image

June 15th, 2009


This July, Melbourne’s CINECITY group will present a series of workshops exploring the relationship between architecture and cinema. As part of that group, Squint/Opera/Australia’s very own Fooch will be also be giving a presentation and exhibiting our squint films.

Cinecity

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Squint on the radio - Triple RRR 102.7FM - Melbourne, Australia

June 9th, 2009

Fellow squintie down under , Fooch was interviewed on “The Architects” , 9th June 2009 on the topic of Digital Representation.

The Architects is a weekly discussion show on Triple RRR 102.7 FM (7-8pm Tuesday) talking about Architecture, Sustainabilty and Design. It is presented by Simon Knott, Stuart Harrison & Christine Phillips with Rory Hyde as the International Correspondent in Europe.

The Podcast is available online at:
http://rrrfm.libsyn.com/rss/The%20Architects

You can download the show here :
The Architects - Show 198 - Digital Representations.mp3



Summer days at Squint

June 4th, 2009