In software company SAS Institute’s "Flood" and "Harvest," via Howard, Merrell & Partners, Raleigh, N.C., data is a force of nature, to be tamed by solutions from the client. Richard Taylor of Tropix Films, a satellite of Atlas Pictures—both firms are in Santa Monica—directed the graphics-driven :60 and :30 versions. The spots show people sheltering themselves from a barrage of data rain in a gloomy city ("Flood"), and reaping an endless crop of wheat data ("Harvest").
Much of the spots’ extensive post and visual effects work was completed by Cary, N.C.-based Alternate Route Studios, a wholly owned subsidiary of SAS. Alternate Route is a commercial production and post house specializing in CG, scenic design, model/props construction, film shooting and editing. Its predecessor, South Peak Interactive, was an SAS-owned gaming technology company whose founders had previously worked at SAS. Alternate Route officially opened in January, rising from the ashes of South Peak Interactive.
According to Alternate Route executive director Susan Ellis, South Peak’s proprietary gaming technology was sold in early 2000, "leaving us with a pretty extensive staff of about seventy-five production people with a lot of capabilities in CG and scenic design, as well as in postproduction. … Once the technology was sold, we said, ‘It’s time to regroup: We and our facility are ideal for commercial production.’ "
So when SAS began preparing for its first national television campaign in early ’00, the company that would eventually be known as Alternate Route wanted to be a part of it. Ellis explained, "We really felt that we had all the resources in-house. In February 2000, Ellis approached SAS and asked if her staff could contribute to the campaign." SAS was bidding the job out to visual effects houses in California, but agreed to Ellis’ request to submit a bid.
Ellis promptly sought a live-action/animation director to oversee the production, and found Taylor through industry Web site wheresspot.com. "It was a challenge to really
convince the agency and SAS that we could do this," Ellis offered. "We started running
some tests and used Richard as an ally to help convince both sides that this was doable and would be a lot less expensive than doing it through [a big name California house] … [The cost] has lot to do with the fact that we have so much under one roof." Ellis did not give the exact numbers, but said Alternate Route’s budget was half of those submitted by the other contenders.
Taylor and Alternate Route won the job in May, with the proviso that the Los Angeles office of established visual effects house SimEx Digital Studiosfla company Taylor had worked with beforefldevelop the data rain and wheat. Alternate Route would be responsible for the CG backdrops (the city in "Flood" and the field in "Harvest") and the models of the silo and thresher in the latter spot. Taylor had just left spot roost Rhythm & Hues Studios, Los Angeles, and joined the newly opened Tropix, which would produce the live-action portion of the spots.
Taylor shot the live-action elements in Vancouver, B.C., over a three-day period in June. But it was after the shoot that much of the work began. Taylor explained, "SimEx began modeling objects and making 3-D mattes of live-action characters for the interaction of the particle animation, and Alternate Route began modeling the city and tracking moves to replace skies. Nick Bates, the head of production at SimEx, built scenes as we went along. This way there was no real posting session, so to speak; instead, there was a continual building of scenes as elements were completed. … [SimEx editor] Jamie Norton and I did the offline :30s, and I worked with Tom Seufert [creative director/composer with Visual Music Artists, Woodland Hills Calif.] to rough in some audio tracks."
In July, SAS commissioned :60 versions of the spots, and that was when Alternate Route’s staffers got a chance to flex their CG muscles. As Ellis recalled, "We used some of the SimEx ideas and techniques, and took it a little bit further in terms of the liquidity of the words [the data rain] in ‘Flood.’ We gave the rain a more dimensional, organic look." In "Harvest," "We extended the shots, and reworked the look and feel of the wheat. We added shots, which required extensive tracking and layers that weren’t in the :30s."
Despite the geographical distance separating everyone concerned, Taylor, who is based in the Los Angeles area, was able to oversee the work from his computer: "I’d receive dailies of the CG work from both SimEx and Alternate Route as QuickTime or MPEG movies. I’d do overlays, add skies or create matte paintings in Photoshop, then send them back with corrections."
At the time Howard, Merrell & Partners creatives started developing the television ads in February ’00, they’d been working on the SAS campaign for several months, and according to creative director/copywriter Scott Crawford, the agency’s research showed that people feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data they receive. Crawford reported, "We kept hearing, ‘I’ve got so much data coming in, all I can do is store it. I don’t have any way to access it or capitalize on it.’ " As SAS, in fact, provides data solutions that address these problems, "We figured that the easiest way to get people to take notice of what SAS is about was to tap into the feeling of being overwhelmed. The analogy of the flood and the never-ending harvest was a natural extension," Crawford said. "The beauty of the simple metaphor is that it lifts you out of the real world and takes you to a bit of a surreal situation, where you can still take away the meaning and the message."
Although originally the agency han’t planned to use CG to such an extent, Crawford and senior art director Scott Ballew were prepared to take the high-tech approach. As Ballew commented, "We knew the spots were going to have to be graphics and effects heavy. We wanted viewers to relate; we didn’t want them to be looking at a cartoon." And because "SAS sells a technical product, we sell this [idea] in a technical wayflthrough CG animation."
Observed Crawford, "Because of the proliferation of dot-com advertising, we knew that if we were going to talk about software and e-intelligence, we were going to have to do something big. … Also, SAS has been around for a quarter of a century and it’s a billion-dollar company; but, honestly, not that many people outside of the analytical software arena are all that familiar with it. We needed to do something that would make people sit up and take notice."
The creatives were Howard, Merrell & Partners’ Crawford, Ballew and producer Jennifer McFarland. At Tropix Films, work was done by Taylor; Conrad Hall Jr., DP; Bill Le Blanc, art director; David Coulter, executive producer; Patti Coulter, co-executive producer; and Deven LeTendre, producer. At SimEx Digital Studios, staff included Bates; Jeff Chung, Kieron Lo, Chris MacKinnon, Nick Panagos and Mark Shoaf, animators; and editor Norton. The Alternate Route staff consisted of Ellis; Beth High, general manager, production; Gary Peterson, production manager; Ray Ellis, producer; and Belinda Kern and Cabot Dixon, assistant producers. Graphics and visual effects were done by Jeff McFall, art director for visual effects; Greg Shank, CGI manager; Paul Graham, John Gardner, Louis Dupree, Raj Patel, Ed Harriss, Enrico Leoni, Kyle Wilson, Tim Matney, and Vincent Vaccaro, 3-D modeling/animation; Lydell Jackson, matte painting; Harriss and Wilson, graphics compositors; Vaccaro and Wilson, mattes.
Alternate Route’s model/set design staff included Roxanne Hicklin, scenics director; Jim Utley, operations manager; John Plymale, art director, models; Blaine Jeffreys, head model-builder/animitronics; Mike Fry, CAD designer/model-maker; Mike Weiss, animitronics/assistant model maker; Thomas Richardson, electronics/machinist; Chad Bush, silo lead builder; Paul Gerstenfeld, statue gag builder; Bill Rodgers, lead scenic artist; Todd Fjelsted, sculptor/ scenic artist; and Belva Parker, logistics.
Postproduction staff at Alternate Route included Barry Nichols, editor; Laura Angell, video assist recording/assistant editor; David Lloyd, audio mix engineer; Travis Hicks and Truly Bruce, videotape operators; and Gloria Dineen, chief engineer.
Company 3, Santa Monica’s Michael Pethel was the colorist; James Dilonardo was the assistant colorist. Music/sound design was provided by Visual Music’s Seufert, creative director/composer, with Dean Grinsfelder, composer ("Harvest") and Steve Morrell, arranger ("Flood"). Rick Ruggieri mixed the spots.
