SHORT CUTS
Machete Edit & Design, Chicago, cut three humorous :30s for Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB), Chicago and its client, DiGiorno. Directed by Neil Harris of bicoastal Smuggler, the ads show people breaking the news to others that their pizza is not delivery, it’s DiGiorno. "Relationship" has a cross-dressing man revealing his secret to his clueless boyfriend; "Family Secret" shows an African-American couple sitting down to dinner with their three sons. One of the boys is white, another is Middle-Eastern, and the third is African-American. "Tippy" features a deceased dog that is laying near the dinner table while the family digs into the DiGiorno pizza. Machete’s Mark Jepsen was the editor, with Scott Cohn assisting.
Viewpoint Creative, Boston and Los Angeles, completed production on the 2004 promotional campaign for the Discovery Channels’ American Chopper, series. The reality show focuses on the relationship between Paul Teutel Sr. and Paul Teutel Jr. as they work in the family’s motorcycle building shop. The setting for the campaign is a massive, abandoned factory with rusty pipes, huge cargo doors and pillars throughout the interior. Blue and yellow lights were cast across the walls of the interior, complementing the 12 different custom choppers that were displayed on the set. Shots of the Teutels are also featured as they banter and ride their bikes to the sound of Thin Lizzy’s "The Boys Are Back in Town." Viewpoint credits included designer/art director Tom Bik and creative director of design Joseph Kiely. Viewpoint Creative is a creative services agency providing clients solutions to clients through the integration of design, promotion and advertising. Viewpoint’s clients have included ABC, Court TV, Discovery Networks, Disney, DIY, ESPN Networks, FX, HBO, HGTV, PBS, Showtime, Cinemax, DirecTV, The Sci Fi Channel, The History Channel, TLC, and The Travel Channel.
New York-based editorial house Rogue Post completed the independent feature film Late Watch using the digital intermediary process. Directed by Fluid Eye Films’ Henry Miller, the project was mastered in Rogue’s resolution independent suite. Colorist John Dowdell of TCS-New York took care of the color timing. Rogue provided TCS with a tailor-made EDL, immediately setting TCS up for the color correct. The film was never cut, but was loaded directly from the lab rolls. The corrected film was laid off to Panasonic D5-HD tape. Rogue Post’s title designers then built the film’s title sequence using the corrected HD footage. The film was mastered using the D5-HD format at 24p using Rogue’s uncompressed HD output capabilities. Rogue’s crew included partners/editors Ian B. Wile and Sean Campbell, chief compositor Patrick Campbell and designer Jackson Cooper.
MUSIC NOTES
Engineer/composer Damon Trotta of SoundHound, New York, arranged, recorded and produced a new cover version of the theme song from the classic movie, Shaft to promote USA Network’s hit series Monk. USA promo writer/producer Adam Reid conceived the project, with Isaac Hayes recording new lyrics for the tune. The new promo began airing on Jan. 2 in more than 4,000 movie theaters, and also aired on both TV and cable stations leading up to the season premiere of Monk on Jan. 16.
615 Music, Nashville, was selected to write and produce theme music for the statewide television and radio campaign to launch and promote the Tennessee lottery. Chosen by the Tennessee Education Lottery Corp., the up-tempo tune is called "Tennessee’s Ticket to Fun." Written by Lindsey Williams and produced by 615 Music president Randy Wachtler, the tune will be used in a :60 TV spot as well as :30 and :10 radio commercials that will run across the state to support the start of the Tennessee lottery, which commenced on Jan. 20. 615 Music is a full-service music development, recording, postproduction and sound design company whose clients include network and cable television, local market television stations, radio stations and syndicates, advertising agencies and film makers. The company’s broadcast client roster includes ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, MSNBC, HBO Worldwide, A&E, HGTV, The History Channel, the Family Channel, Discovery and CMT. The company has also created themes and promotions for numerous television series and shows, including Live with Regis and Kelly, Frasier, ABC Sports College Football, PBS’s Wall Street Week, and Nova. Advertising clients include Ford Motor Company, Wal-Mart, Sears, Domino’s Pizza, Hasbro Toys, Nestlé’s and Wendy’s.
IN GEAR
Panasonic, Secaucus, N.J., announced that its AJ-HD27 VariCam High Definition Cinema cameras have been selected to shoot The Casino, a new unscripted drama that will air on FOX. The Casino will be the first primetime network unscripted reality series to be shot entirely in high definition. Production by Mark Burnett Productions on the 13-episode series will begin this spring and air in summer 2004. The show provides a behind-the-scenes look at the real-life dramas that unfold at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino after its new owners take control of the business and attempt to bring back it back to its past glory. The series will center on entrepreneurs Timothy Poster and Thomas Breitling who created travelscape.com, which was later sold to Expedia.com, making the pair multimillionaires. Poster and Breitling will use part of their fortunes to fulfill their lifelong dream of purchasing the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas, and its sister property in Laughlin, Nev. Eighteen Panasonic VariCam cameras will be used to capture the 24-hour-a-day challenges that Breitling and Poster face, and the personal dramas unfolding among some of the 3,000 employees inside the casino. The VariCams are being rented from Bexel. In addition to VariCams, Panasonic TH-42PHD6Y 42" high-definition plasma displays and BT-LH900 9" HD monitors will play prominent roles in the production of the series. Panasonic’s AJ-HDC27 VariCam replicates many of the key features of film-based image acquisition, including 24-frame progressive scan images, time-lapse recording, and a wide range of variable frame rates (4 fps to 60 fps in single-frame increments) for "overcranked" and "undercranked" off-speed in-camera effects. The AJ-HDC27 VariCam also features CineGamma software that permits Panasonic’s HD Cinema camera systems to more closely match the latitude of film stocks. Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Co. is a supplier of broadcast, professional video and presentation products and systems. Panasonic Broadcast is a unit company of Matsushita Electric Corporation of America, the principal North America subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.
CLIPLAND
Method, Santa Monica, collaborated with director Gore Verbinski on "Born Too Slow," a music video for Crystal Method. The clip, based on Verbinski’s graphic vision, and inspired by Edward Muybridge’s study of motion photography, features shots composed against geometry patterns and natural architecture in an urban environment. The hero in the video leaves his world and experiences another while bringing pieces of his world within himself. Verbinski came to Method with the track and treatment, with Method developing and playing on Muybridge’s look and Verbinski’s concept, including compositing and treatment of the figures to recreate Muybridge’s world. Method’s crew used Flame, Inferno, Maya, Photoshop and Boujou on the project, and the clip was shot on HD. For Method, credits included visual effects supervisor/lead Cedric Nicolas, visual effects artists Chris Staves and Alex Frisch, 3-D artists Laurent Ledru and Gil Baron, visual effects junior artists Brandon Sanders and Katrina Salicrup, visual effects producer Rich Rama, and engineers Andrew Bell and Scott Taylor. Verbinski directs commercials via bicoastal Anonymous Content.
R!OT, Santa Monica provided visual effects services for "(There’s Gotta Be) More to Life," a music video from Stacie Orrico, in which the 17-year-old singer is cast as 10 distinct characters. Directed by Dave Meyers of bicoastal/international @radical media, the clip uses a series of transitions in which Orrico’s make-up and costumes abruptly change as she moves from one scenario to the next. The video plays off lyrics in the song with the singer cast as a waitress, a model, an athlete and other characters, each of whom feels a void in her life. In several instances, as a scenario ends, the camera moves in on Orrico and a dissolve occurs to a new scene with the singer in a new guise. R!OT compositors helped to create the transitions through match frame edits and by controlling the dissolves so that parts of Orrico’s features persist momentarily through the cut.
