SHORT CUTS
Click 3X produced a new :45 promo marking the return of Showtime’s original series, Queer as Folk. Co-directed by Click 3X’s Iain Greenway and Peter Corbett, the promo kicks off the fourth season of the hit show with the tagline "This spring the original comes of age." The promo is designed to resonate with Queer as Folk fans by playing off the crowning event of the show’s last season: the electoral defeat of an anti-gay mayoral candidate. In the promo, the show’s cast—who worked for the candidate’s defeat—strides through the Babylon nightclub past cheering admirers. Echoing a scene from the season finale, the actors head out onto the street to celebrate. They form a tableau as the show title appears. The moody imagery is complemented by graphics that emerge out of the nightclub lighting. Greenway and Corbett shot the spot in Toronto on the actual Babylon nightclub set used in the show. In addition to the show’s nine cast members—among them, Gale Harold (Brian), Hal Sparks (Michael) and Randy Harrison (Justin)—some 180 extras were employed as nightclub patrons for the shoot, which was accomplished in a single day, despite its more than two dozen set ups. Corbett and Greenway took time in pre-production to plan each shot so that the production could be accomplished in just one day. The tight scheduling was necessary due to the fact that it was being squeezed in between shoot days for the show itself. Credits for Click 3X go to Greenway, co-director/creative director; Corbett, co-director/technical director; Susan Armstrong, visual effects artist; Abbe Daniel, executive producer; and Cass O’Meara, editor.
EyeballNYC and New York music shop Expansion Team "remixed" a package of 10 network IDs for Comedy Central. The promos, which were originally done by the same companies in 2002, share the same beginning as the old ID package, but then quickly transition into a completely new creation, warping and twisting the visual and musical elements of the original package. After the opening, each remix takes a dramatic, schizophrenic shift, exploding in a flurry of graffiti tags and spray paint. Additionally, Expansion Team’s composers—Vinroc, Roger J. Manning Jr., creative director DJ Lux, Disco-D and Mathematics—reworked the tracks for the individual IDs to match the visual design of the each promo. EyeballNYC credits include creative director Limore Shur, associate creative director Julian Bevan, executive producer Mike Eastwood, senior producer Eve Ehrich, lead designer/animator Brian Sensebe, 2-D animators Danny Kamhaji and Naomi Nishimura, and editor Alex Moulton.
London-based Framestore CFC handled postproduction services on a spot for Lynx out of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London. "Touch" highlights the "Lynx Effect"—the powerful influence that the men’s deodorant has on members of the opposite sex. Directed by Daniel Kleinman for Large, London, the ad features a young man who finds himself in a sub-tropical railway waiting room. His arrival causes something of a stir with some of the beautiful young women who find his presence quite provocative. From the unzipping of his bag, which causes a girl’s boots to spontaneously unzip themselves, to the changing of a radio station, which has a distinctive effect on the nipples of another woman, each movement of the hero has a parallel effect of a suggestive nature on the women around him. During the three days of post work at Framestore CFC, the company’s head of Inferno, William Bartlett, added digital polish to the largely practical effects, including wire and crew removal from some of the shot. Additionally, senior technical director/animator Andrew Boyd created an animated sweat droplet—when the hero’s finger traces a winding road on his map, it causes a trickle of sweat on one of the women to follow an identical, unnatural path along her skin. Bartlett also animated in Flame the opening of a book that causes a young woman’s shirt to burst open. A button from the shirt morphs into the lozenge on the side of the Lynx spray shown in the product shot. Helen MacKenzie produced for Framestore CFC.
MUSIC NOTES
Hells Kitchen Music, New York, composed the track for Toyota Camry’s "Trust." The :30, created by Atlanta agency WestWayne, features a dad and his teenage son sitting in a driveway in the father’s new Toyota Camry. The father apologizes to his son after accusing him of driving the vehicle without his consent. The truth unfolds, however, when dad turns on the radio and a heavy metal track comes on. Tom Routson directed for bicoastal Tool of North America. For Hells Kitchen, Marc Battaglia composed, with Don Siudmak serving as executive producer.
IN GEAR
Quantel has sold its first iQ in Russia. St. Petersburg’s KSK Film inked a deal for a machine with 340 minutes storage, along with the QColor in-context color grading option. KSK Film, which also maintains a London office, was set up by Russian industry veteran Oleg Strelets in 2000. The company has just completed a deal to co-produce and work on the postproduction for Sunless City, a film by Sergei Potemkin. Quantel is headquartered in New Canaan, Conn.
National Boston, Brookline, Mass., has acquired Pandora International’s Pogle, a high-definition telecine transfer system. National Boston colorists Steve Baldwin and Rob Leaton will be manning the Pogle, which further enhances the facility’s high definition capabilities. National already offers high-definition color correction in its HD online suite.
