SHORT CUTS
Los Angeles-headquartered Union Editorial completed work on a 17-spot in-store campaign via FCB San Francisco, to help launch the Levi’s Signature brand of jeans that will be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. The package features people of all ages and types, and contrasting graphical accents in bold red to uniquely demonstrate the various features of the pants, including "heavy 14.5 ounce denim" and "reinforced pockets." The spots fuse black-and-white live-action footage—directed by Peggy Sirota of bicoastal HSI Productions—with graphic elements, such as bold red text or the Levi’s Signature logo superimposed across the screen. The new logo, designed by graphic artist Mark Hensley of Pittman Hensley, Los Feliz, Calif., updates the classic Levi’s jean patch, and features the word "Signature" scrawled in fountain pen-inspired cursive. Union’s Einar cut the spots, assisted by Dave Stroup. Michael Raimondi and Megan Dahlman were executive producer and producer, respectively.
London-based Loose Moose produced another animated celebration of the joy of cookies for Chips Ahoy! The :15 "Birthday" is the fourth spot by Loose Moose for the Nabisco product, via FCB, New York. The commercial opens on a little girl’s birthday party, with the viewer’s POV almost completely obscured by a balloon in front of the camera. Streamers and balloons fly around the shot as everyone cries, "Happy birthday!" The camera zooms in, eventually revealing the birthday girl sitting next to a cookie character, square in the middle of the frame. After the clapping dies down, the cheery-looking cookie character inquires of the birthday girl, "So … where’s the cake?" The girl replies, "We’re not having cake." The cookie holds its open-mouthed smile for a short moment, then collapses into a comically glum expression as it says, "Uh-oh." The three visible sides of the room in which the party is held were made to scale and filmed along with the puppet characters by the traditional stop-frame technique. The balloons, streamers, and the view of the room beyond the door and serving hatch in the back wall were all created in Maya by the Loose Moose CGI department. The CGI and stop-frame animation was composited together by Bruce Hancock at Edgeworx London. Credits for Loose Moose go to animator Ange Palethorpe, producer Glenn Holberton, and director Ken Lidster.
Bicoastal Imaginary Forces (IF) designed and produced the opens for the new television series Karen Sisco and The Lyon’s Den on ABC and NBC, respectively. For the action series Karen Sisco, bright electric colors and graphic bullet holes coalesce to create the title sequence, while the Isley Brothers’ "It’s Your Thing," is heard. For the legal drama The Lyon’s Den, starring Rob Lowe, IF designed a sequence comprised of "keyhole" vignettes in which silhouetted figures pass through revered monuments and institutions of government and justice while glimpses of contemporary, everyday life in the capital emerge. Through time-lapse shots, shifting shadows and the iconography of Washington, D.C., the sequence becomes a journey that explores the secrets, contradictions and morally ambiguous themes of the series. IF credits for the Karen Sisco open include creative director/designer Karen Fong, art director/designer/animator Grant Lau, designer Michael Riley, and editor Danielle White. For The Lyon’s Den, IF’s Ahmet Ahmet was creative director/designer/2-D animator, 2-D animator was Brian Mah, 3-D animator was Chris Pickenpaugh, and editor was Jason Webb. Edward Black and Keith Bryant were Inferno artist and producer, respectively, for both projects.
MUSIC NOTES
Tonic, New York, composer/principal Peter Fish has been busy with projects outside of the commercial world. He lent his expertise to "Taboo," a new Broadway musical written by Boy George, which opened Oct. 24 at the Plymouth Theatre in New York. The show, which ran in London’s West End for two years, focuses on two men and the gay underground scene during the 1980s. Fish handled the intricate task of programming the sounds for the synthesizer players in the show’s orchestra, cataloguing the sounds in chronological sequence. Also, for the fifth time in six years, Fish arranged and recorded seasonal music for the "Grand Central Station Christmas" laser show, which is projected onto the roof of the terminal every 15 minutes from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. Fish’s work also extended to New Yorkers’ homes as he composed original music for NY1 Noticias, the Spanish-language news channel on New York’s Time Warner Cable Channel 80.
CLIPLAND
The creative editorial department of GTN, Oak Park, Mich., has completed postproduction on three new music videos. Creative editor Steve Sweik worked with director Christos Moisides of Colony Films, Los Angeles, on Gold Cash Gold’s debut clip, "Vultures." The piece opens with a standoff at a pawnshop and ends with the band flying through the streets of Detroit in an old Buick. Sweik pieced the video together, working with colorist Tom Martin to transfer and color correct the Super 16 film. GTN senior creative editor Chris Chynoweth teamed up with director Anthony Garth of Fallout Films, Los Angeles, for Five Horse Johnson’s "Cherry Red" video, which uses an old steel plant as a backdrop. John Cathel of Postique, Southfield, Mich., transferred and color corrected the video. And Sarah Fisher, also of GTN’s creative editorial department, worked with Garth on the humorous clip "Steak," for New York-based Japanese punk band PeeLander Z. "Steak" features the band members dressed in Power Rangers-style costumes posing the question, "How do you like your steak?"
