MNFX

05/02/2022

06/04/2013

We at MNFX recently created everything you see in this commercial in less than two weeks! Great Production Design by David Weiberg! Built the entire circus in the old Theatre de le Jeune Leune space in one feverish night, the entire circus existed for less than 24 hours. BOOM!

We'll give everything we've got to get you to ditch your bank for Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union. When you become a member, you'll see we really do help ...

04/30/2013

Here's one of the commercials we recently shot in L.A.!
MNFX created the three Animatronic creatures, and the surrounding setpieces.

Ready for something NEW? You can now experience a more fun way of playing slots. We've organized our floor so you can find what you really want to play when ...

02/15/2013

No matter what you may have heard, MNFX had nothing to do with this. We've been too busy making giant Easter candy.

Russia was just hit by an undetected meteorite

02/01/2013

Driving in Downtown Minneapolis on Hawthorne, between 10th and 11th Street? Of course you are! Look up! MNFX just installed another billboard! Giant cardboard boxes. It's harder than it looks, we wouldn't want these to become soggy when spring hits!

How many boxes from your last move are still unpacked?

01/15/2013

Here are links to the MN Original segment on MNFX artist Michael Berglund. The first is what aired on TV last night, and the second is a "web extra", with everything you'd possibly want to know about dinosaur ears. Take a look!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wHS5OEDCTjE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvlP8T8Qles

Michael Berglund's day job as owner of a Minneapolis special effects company has him creating everything from scale-model airplanes and baseball fields, to f...

01/12/2013

Ever have one of those days, where you feel like . . . . ?

01/10/2013

Friends of MNFX, we'd like to announce that there’s a TV show about MNFX co-founder Michael Berglund, that will air starting this Sunday on TPT!

The series, MN Original, profiles local artists from every walk of life.

This half-hour episode focuses on the creation of a piece of sculpture, through conception, research, sculpting, molding, casting, painting and finishing. It’s a piece of ‘Paleo-Art’, a somewhat forensic reconstruction of a bust of the T. rex specimen, STAN. Along the way, we talk about the company Michael founded with David Weiberg, MNFX, and some of the recent fun we've had with Surly Brewing Company.

We haven’t seen the show yet, but we'd be grateful if you gave it a look!

We are indebted to the courtesy and professionalism of Amy Melin and her crew from TPT, and of course, the talents and patience of everyone at MNFX helped with the project and put up with the filming.

The episode, and additional content and video, will also be available on www.mnoriginal.org, after the initial showing of the piece.

Here’s the airing schedule for the show.

Date Time Channel

1/13/2013 6:00 PM 2
1/13/2013 10:00 PM 2
1/14/2013 4:00 AM 2
1/14/2013 1:00 AM SW MN
1/14/2013 7:00 AM SW MN
1/14/2013 7:00 PM SW MN
1/17/2013 9:30 PM Life
1/18/2013 3:30 AM Life

Thanks for tuning in, folks!

Michael

Visual artist Dougie Padilla’s work reflects his Norwegian Mexican heritage and the ideals of the 1960’s. Hand carved wooden sculptures and moving parts come together in Cecilia Schiller’s interactive automata. Native American bead artist Greg Bellanger is dedicated to keeping Native American craft ...

12/06/2012

Hey, all! MNFX artist Michael Berglund is featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today for his artwork created
for Surly Brewing Company! Look for more from the MNFX/Surly
alliance in the future . . . .

Local craft breweries spend plenty of time crafting the right recipe: the flavor and texture they want, how much brightness and depth, how far they can push boundaries

12/05/2012

We're moving.

Honestly don't remember when we moved into our building. It's been something like 20 years . . . until now. Big changes, new space. We'll post pics of the snazzy new digs when the giant pile has been somewhat sorted. Everything's a mess right now!

Even with all that two big projects going out the door from the old shop later this week. These will be the last at that location . . . . .

Stay tuned next week for info on where the future will be built . . . .

11/12/2012

RAW BACON SHAMPOO and more! For a series of commercials for the chain Kwik Trip, Production Designer David Weiberg transformed a neighborhood grocery store into a "big box" behemoth. Along the way, we had some fun with product mockups.

11/09/2012

Yeah, we'll pretty much create anything. :)

11/05/2012

http://growlermag.com/kind-of-a-big-deal/

Hey all, MNFX artist Michael Berglund has been nominated by Growler magazine as "best Beer artist"! We'd love it if you'd head on over there, and vote for Michael! Thanks!

Vote for your favorites on the Twin Cities beer scene

11/01/2012

From the archives . . . MNFX created a number of miniature environments for Honeywell's Comfortville in EPCOT Center at Walt Disney World. Each house featured integrated mechanical, lighting, and video effects. Actors in the embedded video screens would do things that would cause the miniatures to react, lights to go on and off, doors to open and close. Each house, environment, and interior painstakingly crafted from scratch. The exhibit is no longer there, but we were proud to contribute to EPCOT!

10/16/2012

How does this grab ya? MNFX custom sculpted and detailed this Rollerblade lovin' Octopus!

No real Octopi were harmed in the making of this shot!

What do you think? Too slimy to look at, or super cool?

09/21/2012

BAM! Politics is not the point of this post, though pretty much everyone has felt this way at some point in their life, probably.

What this is all about, is good old-fashioned pie-throwing. No Computer Graphics used! MNFX built a precision pie throwing rig. The pie was thrown through a motion detection beam to set off the flash and take the picture at the exact moment of impact.

There is no retouching in this photo!

Even with the hi-tech apparatus, it took upwards of 30 pie-hurls to get this shot. The pie is basically just whipped cream in a graham cracker crust. The pie pan was made from an actual pie pan laminated with a custom embossed silver paper sticker.

BAM! The talent was very cooperative and didn't seem to mind this, much.

09/14/2012

We spend a lot of time making one thing look like another, it seems. This trophy, for UPS, is cast urethane. Sculpted in our shop, it took an elaborate 5-step paint process to get the gold plated look!

09/07/2012

Hey, all. MNFX is finally on Twitter! Follow us, for cool props, models, and FX in 140 characters or less. More behind the scenes shots and quirks over there in the Twitterverse to be had! Tweet!

09/07/2012

MNFX artist David Weiberg created this beautiful giant Japanese Longhorn Beetle as part of a PSA for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Watch for the commercial soon!

09/05/2012

Halloween comes early here at MNFX. Just a part of an upcoming mystery project.

08/31/2012

Up in the air! By the dome! It's a giant MNFX football, bursting through a billboard!

08/22/2012

MNFX was tapped to create an exhibit for the Minnesota Craft Brewer's Guild at the State Fair! The "Land of 10,000 Beers" is over 70 feet long and takes up an entire wing of the Agriculture building at the fair. It features beer tasting, education, and programs about brewing, food, and industry. Stop by and check out some great locally made brews!

07/25/2012

OK, so if you look at the TV you'll know that this one was done a while ago as well. It's still a cool prop, and a chance for us to play around in the "Terminator-verse", but don't tell the lawyers that. Totally coincidental. The concept still works, just needs a flatscreen! We survived August 29, 1997, so that stuff is all bunk, anyway. Skynet is not aware!

07/19/2012

Here's a blast from the past! When we were first starting out, we were asked to create a character for the 3M Corporation, called "The Inspiration Elf". He was a curmudgeonly character that was to appear in a series of videos to show 3M employees how to get their ideas developed there. Well, after some development, they cancelled the idea, but we liked him so much we finished him. He's a mechanical rod puppet with arm, finger, head, eye, mouth articulation made from urethane foam and hand punched hair. Fantastic sculpt by David Weiberg!

06/04/2012

New billboards for the Independent Film Channel, up in two locations in Los Angeles! Each week, the letters will change out to promote a different show, and the boxes are all illuminated add-ons. So, yes, we had four huge Zack Galiafanakises in our shop last week. And four huge Amy Poehlers as well. They're much larger in person than they are in the movies. The letters, we mean.

05/21/2012

Here are pictures of our recent installation in Los Angeles.

05/10/2012

We just installed a SuperCool sculptural installation for the 2012 SuperValu Store Directors Meeting at the Minneapolis Convention Center. We were commissioned by Fame Retail to create this 25 foot long, 17 foot high wire, aluminum and acrylic sculpture.

SuperGroovy Spatial Cube Sculpture!

04/30/2012

Check out the video about the making of our latest California Lottery promotion--walls of black four-leaf clovers driving all around Los Angeles!

http://www.calottery.com/LotteryHome/happenings/lottery-tv/?v=mobile-billboard =Zpdm5lNDqXTKY3cDbj73dSN_thIZukeZ

Official site for California Lottery

04/06/2012

MNFX Veteran Gordon Smuder commandeered these very cool spots for the Minnesota Lottery. He and his crack team of puppeteers from Transylvania Television created and operated all of the puppets. Miniatures and bric-a-brac created at MNFX.

Check the spots out, plus there are some fun behind-the scenes and other goofy stuff, here!

http://www.mnlottery.com/where_the_money_goes/

Every time you play the Minnesota State Lottery, you give back to Minnesota. It’s true! For every $1 spent on lottery tickets, approximately 24¢ goes to our great state. Over the years, players have helped the Lottery raise more than $2,000,000,000 — and this number grows every day!

03/02/2012

Remember when phones were big? And had cords?
We don't.

02/16/2012

MNFX outfits a cool new burger restaurant! Stop by for awesome eats and cool atmosphere--with design by FAME retail.

02/10/2012

Don't you wish YOUR dad was this cool? David Weiberg, co-owner of MNFX, built this scale Enterprise bridge for his son Jack's Playmates scale Star Trek figures. Jack likes the original Enterprise best, so that's what he got. Its MODULAR like wooden blocks so he can take it apart and put it back together. This is about 99% finished. But its already awesome sauced to the max.

02/10/2012

D&G, the agency that we created the bus shelter cash effect for has put up this cool video showing the installation, and the people's reaction! Check it out!

David&Goliath is a creative agency who helps challenger brands fight their way to market leadership. We seek aggressive clients looking to outmaneuver market leaders with innovative advertising and marketing solutions that get results.

01/25/2012

DUDE, WHERE'S MY FLYING CAR? I mean, really. It's time, don't you think? And, of course, when we do get there, it's good to know that Ruffies, trash bag of the future, will be there. And Dippin' Dots.