Jim Bohn, a Fire artist, and Ben Gibbs, an Inferno artist, create magic—but it can be a frustrating affair. "Potential clients frequently ask, ‘What is it you did on this spot?’ It’s so seamless, people don’t notice what we did," states Bohn.
From a skateboarding teenager eluding a sword-wielding gladiator to a house collapsing piece by piece, Bohn and Gibbs make the impossible seem possible. And they do it through compositing, color-correcting, and other tricks that they’ve honed as visual effects artists and co-founders of two-year-old Sea Level, Venice Beach, Calif. The company has recently worked on several high-profile spots, including ads for Levi’s, Nike, Miller Genuine Draft and Lexus. The shop also contributed to the recent series of short films airing on the BMW Web site that were created by Fallon Minneapolis (SHOOT, 5/11, p. 1). For the latter, Sea Level worked on assembly and titles for Follow, the short helmed by Wong Kar-Wai, as well as assemblies for the teaser TV spots promoting the films helmed by John Frankenheimer and Ang Lee. The composites for the shorts were done by Radium, San Francisco and Santa Monica.
The Sea Level variety of magic is on full display in "Gladiator" for Nike, out of Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., and helmed by Tarsem of bicoastal/international @radical.media. In the ad, a skateboarding teen avoids the gladiator who pursues him. Fast-paced and frenetic in the manner of a live-action cartoon, the piece features wild skateboard jumps, a leaping horse, flashing swords, and other incredible stunts too fantastic to believe. Shot in London, "Gladiator" was complicated because of the number of composites and retouches necessary. Bohn, who works on Fire, recalls that Sea Level was brought in to fix poor weather conditions (a cloudy sky became blue), add metallic sparks to the swordplay, speed up certain sequences, and bring the skateboarder into close encounters with the gladiator. "There were a lot of cuts in that sixty-second commercial," observes Bohn. "It was a lot of work, quantity-wise."
But it was also just the kind of job the duo relishes. "What I really like is photo-real work," Gibbs explains. "I like CGI, but I don’t like it when you’re aware of it. The greatest work is when you’re doing something incredible, but the viewer isn’t aware of it."
As a team, Bohn and Gibbs complement each other. Explains Gibbs, who works on an Inferno: "We bounce off backwards and forwards from Inferno to Fire, and tailor our tasks to our strengths. It’s something we instinctively work on."
Gibbs’ fascination with the magic of visual communication was sparked by his interest in audio, having started out by working in sound studios in his native Australia, at age 13. He moved into visual effects work at AAV, Melbourne, Australia. Later, he worked on documentaries, traveling to China, Tahiti, and other far-flung locations, ultimately settling in North America. He did a stint in Vancouver, B.C., working at Northwest Imaging & Effects there, before finally ending up at POP, Santa Monica. (POP has since merged with sister companies Riot and Digital Magic to form full-service studio R!OT.) While at POP, he met Bohn.
From an early age, Bohn had dreamed of acting and directing. He earned a degree in film from Ohio University in 1984, and landed a job as a director in Hollywood, Fla. Eventually making his way to Hollywood, Calif., he started editing his own work. His interest in technology and editing sent him in a new direction to learn and gain access to the newest effects and editing tools available. He had jobs in various post houses, among them: The Post Group, Hollywood; Hollywood Digital, Hollywood, and POP.
In November ’98, Bohn and Gibbs founded Sea Level. Their idea was to open a boutique that would emphasize quality of service and artistic involvement that they felt was missing in the large facility environment.
"It is about being able to work on projects we want to work on," explains Gibbs. "We also wanted to create a good environment for the community of creative people we work well with."
The two now work closely with directors such as Tarsem, and the directing collective Traktor of bicoastal/international Partizan, who often request their services; and with such editors as Robert Duffy and others at Spot Welders, Venice, Calif., and cutters at Nomad Editing Company, Santa Monica. It was Duffy who brought Sea Level onto "Gladiator." Sometimes the agency is the contact point.
Whatever the job, the pair Bohn and Gibbs relish the challenge. On eBay’s "New House," for instance—a spot out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, and directed by David Shane of bicoastal/international hungry man—Gibbs and Bohn shared the work. The ad features a new house collapsing piece by piece as its new owners discover it is a lemon: a bathtub fills up with water, for example, only to collapse under its own weight and fall through the faulty floor. "Ben did a lot of compositing, and I did a lot of work," says Bohn. "I worked an eight-hour evening on that. There were huge issues of color corrections on how the bathtub fell through the floor; I had to color-correct the foam. We did a lot of work on the exterior scenes."
They finished a pair of Super Bowl spots: "Chow Down" for Bud Light, out of DDB Chicago, helmed by David Kellogg of bicoastal Anonymous Content; and "Jeans Donor" for Levi’s Re-Issued 569 Jeans, out of TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco, directed by Traktor. Bohn says the latter ad "required a lot of titling and certain cosmetic fixes on blue jeans, as well as a couple of different composites from different takes." Other recent credits out of Sea Level include: Miller Genuine Draft’s "Haircut," directed by Tarsem; Sony Electronics’ "Basketball" and "Date," helmed by Jeff Preiss of bicoastal Epoch Films; and Discover Card’s "Love Rocket," directed by Kuntz & Maguire of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films.
In that they’ve been deluged with work, Sea Level’s founders recently hired Inferno/visual effects artist Jean-Luc Azzis, who had previously been freelancing. Some of his spot credits include one of the Pentium III ads featuring the Blue Man Group, and directed by Kellogg. (The Pentium ads were a co-production between bicoastal Anonymous and London-headquartered Academy Commercials.) "We can double the amount of work [via the addition]," notes Bohn of Azzis’ arrival at the firm. Since joining Sea Level, Azzis has contributed to several projects, including the aforementioned Sony spots and the BMW work, as well as Jeep’s "Red Light, Green Light," via PentaMark, Southfield, Mich., and directed by David Cornell of bicoastal Headquarters.
In addition to Azzis, the company has added executive producer Rick Hassen. Do the new staffers mean that Sea Level is rising to become a bigger shop? "No," Bohn replies, "we’ve always wanted to keep it tight. If we do grow, it will be a slow process. We’re happy to keep it at a manageable level."
The secret of the team’s success? Like a good magician, it is all about keeping the magic secret. "I really enjoy the picture manipulation—the fact that you can create something on screen that you couldn’t create in reality, and make it look like reality," explains Bohn. "I love that the viewers do not know they are being tricked. That’s the test. If they know what you did, then you haven’t passed the test."r
