SHORT CUTS
Renegade Animation has launched a new service to provide cel-style animation for advertising on the Internet. In the first application of the service, the Burbank, Calif.-headquartered firm was contracted by FMT Advertising, New York, to produce an animated Internet cartoon series for its client BulkRegister.com. The series, consisting of five :90 episodes, parodies dot-com culture, while promoting BulkRegister.com’s ability to register large quantities of domain names "faster, better, cheaper and easier." BulkRegister.com intends to provide the cartoons to its resellers for use in promoting its service to business clients. Renegade is headed by director Darrell Van Citters and executive producer Ashley Postlewaite.
Spontaneous Combustion, New York, teamed with creative director Brian Diecks of The Diecks Group, New York, to complete the conform and build the titles for two :30s promoting TNT’s Christmas in Washington and A Very Special Christmas. To advertise the specials, which feature artists performing their favorite holiday songs, Spontaneous’ executive creative director, Tony Robins, went to the Flame for assistance, texture mapping still frames onto Washington landmarks with displacement mapping and additive keying. The images were made more realistic by adding several layers onto different parts of each landmark to break up the distortion. The backgrounds for the titles were created by layering some live-action footage and stills, with titles then slid on top of the footage. Layers of light were passed across the text by pushing a moving light source through the type and glowing it with the help of a Sapphire Glow plug-in. Additional Spontaneous credits included executive producer Marc Schwartz, assistant Flame artist Greg Lewis, producer DeDe Sullivan and assistant producer Tricia Chatterton.
Los Angeles-based Tigar Hare Studios, Sherman Oaks, Calif., completed computer animation and graphics for six spots highlighting Mattel’s Hot Wheels 2000-’01 toy campaign. For each :30, Tigar Hare produced :10 of CG imagery using 3-D Studio Max and Maya software for modeling and motion blurring, and Renderman for rendering and compositing. The campaign included the spots "Shark Park," "Mechanix Monster Jam," "Tornado Twister," "Spider Slam," "Super Launcher" and "Stealth X-17." Tigar Hare’s team comprised visual effects director Michael Tigar; art director David Hare; senior technical director/programmer Thomas Briggs; technical directors Keith Jeffery and Shana Koenig; effects animator Jason Crosby; animator Dani Rosen; technical director/programmer Alan Cheney; modelers Brandon Perlow, Daniel Ljunggren and Ed Shurla. The agency was FCB Southern California, Costa Mesa, Calif.
MUSIC NOTES
Musikvergnuegen, Hollywood, created original music and sound design for a 2:00 video promoting the New York Rangers’ 75th anniversary. The piece was originally presented on the scoreboard at Madison Square Garden, New York, before the team’s first home game, in October. The video will be airing throughout the entire 2000-’01 NHL season. Musikvergnuegen’s Walter Werzowa and Bernie Locker were composers/sound designers, with Jen Miller as executive producer.
