SHORT CUTS
In the first commercial application of its newly launched Hyperformance Media service, Click 3X, New York, has produced a series of interactive ads for Anco tied to and employing content from the wiper blade maker’s current TV ad campaign. The animated pop-up and in-page ads, appearing exclusively on the Weather.com Web site, involve a windshield wiper that wipes clean a portion of the Web frame. One pop-up ad appears over the Local Forecast portion of the Weather.com main page with the moving wiper blade clearing the view of weather conditions. Different forecasts trigger various events in the ad: a rainy forecast causes water droplets to pelt the screen; an interstate forecast causes graphics to appear that read, in part, "all roads lead to Anco." Consumers who click on the spots are directed to a landing page with a five-dollar coupon toward the purchase of a pair of Anco blades. The wiper blades format mirrors Anco’s current television ad, which was also produced by Click 3X, showing before and after views through the window of a rain-drenched car. Hyperformance Media was developed by Click 3X to help advertisers extend their marketing reach and budgets by repurposing TV spots as high-impact interactive ads. Credits for Click 3X go to Franco Fiore, creative director; Ben Cerf, designer/Flash animator; and Sergio Jimenez, producer. The team for the Anco television spot included Jason Mayo, executive producer; Misha Stanford-Harris and Alicia Powers, producers; Peter Corbett, director/visual effects supervisor; Eve Lim, design director; Dave DiMeola, titles and footage treatment; Kristen Pedersen and Dan Barlow, CGI animation and lighting; and Tony Robbins and Mark Bernardo, compositing. The commercials were conceived by Wyse Advertising, Cleveland.
Reelworks Animation Studio, Minneapolis, created graphic design and 2-D/3-D animation for Best Buy’s "Back in Time," a :30 back-to-school ad. Created in-house at Best Buy, "Back in Time" features a graphic, two-color visual transport from a present-day graduation ceremony, back to wintry evenings of study, early autumn days on campus and finally, all the way back to the inside of a Best Buy store, where some of the tools that led to the spot’s open, were purchased. The contemporary look was created by utilizing a combination of hand-drawn animation and digital compositing tools that produced realistic-looking character motion. Reelworks’ crew included director Morgan Williams, designer/animator/compositor Charlie Griak, compositor Todd Hemker, art director Joe Krause, and producer Audrey Robinson Favorito.
On the heels of their successful collaboration on the documentary Vermeer: Master of Light, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., has returned to Interface Media Group (IMG), Washington, D.C., for The Magic of Illusion, part one of the Empire of the Eye trilogy. IMG completed the design of 3-D images, postproduction, mixing and packaging for the interactive, multimedia film project, which celebrates the visual revolution of the Renaissance. Using 21st century digital technology, computer generated imaging and digital high magnification, IMG worked closely with Joseph J. Krakora, executive officer at the National Gallery of Art, on the film. The hour-long documentary, which focuses on the visual tools that create the magic of illusion, is narrated by Al Roker. The program will be released to PBS in the fall of 2004, and will air on more than 200 PBS stations nationwide. The challenge facing IMG was how to present a documentary series so compelling that it would enable viewers to experience both the beginning of this visual revolution and its applications today. IMG assembled its team of artists, editors, computer generated imagery specialists, compositors and sound designers, which also included DP Tony Black, A.C.E., who served as offline/online editor/senior consultant on the program. Art director/3-D animator Carol Hilliard began designing titles, as well as preparing for the creation of the computer generated portions of the documentary, while director of audio Dennis Jacobsen developed the film’s sound design. Jeff Weingarten, VP of creative services, handled the compositing. The rendered images from the documentary’s animations, were edited and composited with an audio track using Discreet Logic’s Inferno and Fire on an SGI Onyx 2 workstation, and rough cuts were previewed in Adobe After Effects. All 3-D effects were created in Maya, running on an Intergraph TDZ workstation. The final step, color correction, was completed after trial screenings in the National Gallery’s Theater. Additional IMG credits go to assistants Richard Akerson and Joshua Nelson.
Company 3, New York, provided a complete package of post services for the sixth and final season of HBO’s Sex and the City. The services run the gamut from dailies transfers to final color correction and online editing. Before the season began, Company 3 colorist John Bonta met with John Thomas and Florian Ballhaus, the cinematographers shooting this year’s season, to select super 16mm stocks, which turned out to be a mix of Kodak stocks 7218 and 7274. Each episode of the show yields approximately 8 hours of 16mm dailies, so Bonta and fellow colorist Dave Francis used a Philips Spirit Datacine to transfer circle takes from the previous day’s shoot to digital video. After each episode was edited, Bonta and Francis used a da Vinci 2K color corrector for final coloring.
MUSIC NOTES
Larry Pecorella of Comma Music & Sound Design, Chicago, composed the track accompanying Cheez-It’s "Hunchback," via Leo Burnett USA, Chicago. The ad, which promotes the new Cheez-It Chili Cheese flavor, was produced for both television and cinema, and was directed by Joe Pytka of PYTKA, Venice, Calif. "Hunchback" opens on an old world scene which turns to chaos as people run screaming from an unsightly man. As the crowd scatters, the hunchback heads up into a bell tower, where he sits overlooking the city. He then laughs and removes his mask and cape to reveal a box of Cheez-Its strapped to his back. The spot ends with the tagline, "Get your own box." Pecorella’s original score was performed by the Prague Symphony.
Tom Jucarone of New York-based Sound Lounge mixed three :15s for Diageo’s Bailey’s Minis and J. Walter Thompson, New York. "Minibar," "VIP Room" and "Tailgate" were directed by Clay Williams of bicoastal Morton Jankel Zander. And Sound Lounge’s Peter Holcomb mixed a package of Ameritrade ads directed by Speck/Gordon for Omaha Pictures, Santa Monica. "Gerald Lewis/Texas Oil Man," "Amy Webster/Dentist," "Mike Kelly/Physicist," "Nigel Kent/Punk Rocker," "Ashby Parsons/Pro Golfer" and "Betty Zeldin/Retiree" were created by Ogilvy & Mather, New York.
IN GEAR
Da Vinci Systems announced that Company 3, a bicoastal company specializing in postproduction for the commercial and music video industries, used da Vinci’s 2K for color correction of several clips that received awards at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. Company 3 senior colorist David Hussey relied on the 2K to complete "Lose Yourself" by Eminem (Best Video from a Film), Justin Timberlake’s "Cry Me a River" (Best Male Video and Best Pop Video) and "Rock Your Body" (Best Dance Video), and Beyonce Knowles’ "Crazy in Love" (Best Female Video, Best R&B Video, and Best Choreography in a Video). The 2K is a real-time, multi-standard, multi-resolution image processor that can color enhance in standard definition, HDTV, and data up to 4000 x 4000. Providing image-color control in all available resolutions, the 2K features up to nine Power Windows and 10 channels of primary and secondary processing, Super Kilovectors with hue and saturation/luminance qualification, and advanced chroma filtering. The 2K’s Power Windows allow Hussey to control and manipulate specific parts of the film frame, while the logical layout of the panel enables him to work more efficiently. Da Vinci Systems, an Acterna Corporation company, provides SDTV, HDTV, data, and digital film color enhancement technology and film restoration products to the worldwide postproduction marketplace. The company is headquartered in Coral Springs, Fla., with offices in Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Germany and Singapore.
