Even though "The Best Work You May Never See" gal-lery is now in its sev- enth year, the positive charge still resonates for SHOOT when a spot recognized in that gallery goes on to gain wider spread attention. Normally there’s considerable lag time between gallery inclusion and an awards honor and/or greater exposure. But in the case of Wisconsin Lottery’s "Casino," a spot SHOOT selected last month for this week’s "The Best Work You May Never See" (see p. 11), the gratification is almost instantaneous.
The Flash animation com-mercial—directed and design- ed by Dave Wasson of Acme Filmworks, Hollywood, for agency Hoffman York, Minne-apolis—has been nominated for an Annie Award, recognizing excellence in animation (see story, p. 7). "Casino" is one of four spot nominees in the TV commercial category as select- ed by judges from the Inter-national Animated Film Soci- ety, also known as ASIFA-Hollywood. The winning spot will be announced and honored during the Annie Awards gala on Feb. 7 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, Calif.
"Casino" carries the feel of the Las Vegas "Rat Pack" days of high rolling and fast living in the 1950s. Michael Tavara composed "Rat Pack"-style music for the piece. While that music was being written, Wasson designed the key layouts. The drawings were scanned into an Apple Macintosh G4, and the designs were color-styled us- ing Photoshop 7.0. Once the music was completed and approved by Hoffman York and the client, the Flash animation process began.
The spot benefited from having the music done prior to the beginning of that animation workflow. This better enabled Wasson to accent the animation according to the musical subtleties. Wasson worked with animator Nate Pacheco using Mac-romedia Flash 5, which enabled them to import the musical score directly into the timeline, providing precision in marriage between the animation and the score.
The flashy neon of the Vegas strip comes to life from the spot’s outset via casino icon-ography like a bright-lights horseshoe and signage conveying such messages as "Luck," "Spin," "Fun" and "Oh Baby!" From this mosaic of signs, the spot transitions to a spinning roul- ette wheel, with its bouncing ball hopping over to the next scene, a pair of dice with 7-11 beckoning. At first, the dice come up six—a four and a two—but the bouncing ball lands on the four die, turning it into a five, which brings the two-dice tally to a lucky seven.
We’re then taken to a glit- tering lotto ticket as a voiceov- er describes the instant scratch game as "the hottest spot in Wisconsin." Next up is a game of blackjack followed by a winning spin on a slot machine. Gaming chips then stack up by themselves, transitioning to an end tag with the logo of the Wisconsin Lot-tery.
"The inspiration for this spot stems from the highly stylized animated title sequences cre- ated by Saul Bass for mov- ies like It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and the original Ocean’s Eleven," related Was-son. "The great thing about working in Flash with this classic graphic style is that it al- lows for a much higher qua- lity of animation than you would ever have had time for if you were to animate the same thing traditionally."
The creative ensemble at Hoffman York consisted of creative director/copywriter Mark Catterson, art director Matt Driscoll and producer Kiki Hayes.
