Tommaso Lanza

Based in London, Tommaso is currently working on his MA in Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art.
Alongside his work on the College's programme, he freelances for various clients, including Nokia Design UK where he previously worked full-time, specializing in advanced product visualization technologies and user experience design.
Since before starting his design career, Tommaso always pursued his great passion for visual effects ad motion graphics which led him to work on various projects including the short film "Armando", for which he produced all the effect scenes together with Stefano Cieri (Laboratorio Linfa). The two started a prolific collaboration since 2006.
He ernaed a BA (hons) in Industrial Design from the renowned school ISIA in Rome, where he graduated with a research thesis on Augmented Reality and product development.
When no deadline is keeping him busy, he dreams of a future convergence of product, interaction design and visual effects.

Stefano Cieri

Designer and digital content creator, Stefano lives and works in Rome.
Since 2006 he teaches Fashion Design and Design Illustration at the Academy of Fine Arts, Frosinone.
Since that same year, he works with Tommaso Lanza (DesignUnits), with whom he produced the visual effects for the short Armando. He also researches on sustainable informatics development; on this topic he started the blog green pc (http://linfa.designunits.com).
In 2004 he earned his Degree in industrial design, with a research thesis on sustainable design, at Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche (I.S.I.A.), Rome. During the same year he was tutor for the workshop Re-materialized at Zollverein School for Design and Management, Essen (Germany) and, in 2005, for the thesis and research workshop Sustainable Design at I.S.I.A., Rome.
He founded laboratorio Linfa together with Luigi Cuppone, Raul Sciurpa and Mario Lamberti. The group works and researches on the topic of sustainable development and its applications in the design field.

Nokia Design UK, rapid visuals

The London based Nokia design studio relies heavily on state of the art visualization technologies during all production phases. The tool set spans across top of the line hardware-based raytracing, advanced GPU based real-time shading and off the shelf rendering software.
Accurate visuals are crucial at all times, particularly once the product is fully developed and only minor tweaks are expected; the image sets produced in this last phase are used for marketing, packaging and sometimes advertising.
In this context 3D rendering is now the preferred route because of timing, costs and flexibility.
This method involves collecting final surface data skimmed of all engineering details and partially reworking NURBS geometry to make it suitable for high-definition rendering. In this last step, which can often take as long as the shading / lighting process, the surfaces have to be interpreted to simulate how certain details will appear after manufacturing. This technique greatly helps selling the shot and striking a perfect balance between photography and illustration.
The actual rendering is performed via software, with commercial tools. Lighting is controlled with HDR greyscale ramps to avoid colour distortion while maintaining HDRI-like contrast. The flexibility of the shading system is also extremely important, since product tiering often involves different materials to be used, while maintaining a shared visual quality.
Subdivision surfaces are also often used to replace certain bits of geometry that require advanced texturing.
The final resulting data set is a curious interplay of many different techniques to obtain what can be described as photorealistic 3D illustration.

Armando, post-production. Title sequences and whispered effects in Cineon 2K

The short film Armando is sensibly different than most Italian short productions for a series of reasons; above all, the strong desire of director Massimiliano Camaiti to produce his short with the exact same process and tools as a full-length feature.
The production started in 2005 and included professional actors and operators. The short was shot on super 35mm film and also extensively used both practical and digital effects.
This type of work on a low cost production needed, in some cases, a unique approach to certain problems.
Visual effects need to take into account not only the plotline but also the style of narration. In a short film the story develops quickly and effects scenes have a short duration, often resulting in a single cut.
In 'Armando' it was necessary to keep these scenes as short as possible, due to the high cost of film transfers. Moreover photographic quality effects aim at blending seamlessly into the live action to support a particular moment of the narration. For this reason the choice was to keep the effects as subdued as possible.
During post-production, editing was the most time consuming task, leaving little time to complete the effects sequences: only four days from receiving the film scans to the final delivery. Additionally, the workflow had to be simplified to be able to work in high resolution with standard hardware.
One of the most challenging scenes required the simulation of a wood floor breaking under the weight of Armando. The nine second scene involved rotoscoping, 3D camera tracking, modeling and 16bit texturing part of the floor, rendering, compositing and colour grading in 2K Cineon (10bit log).
The title sequence was designed to underline the feeling of heaviness which is present across the entire film; type had subtle variations betwen cuts to convey a stronger feeling of integration and graphic choerence during the sequence.