A HANDFUL FOR AN EYEFULThe offbeat humor of Skittles has made its way north of the U.S. border with a three-spot package–“Abs,” “Bike” and “Chop”– out of TBWA oronto directed by Jim Hosking via production house OPC, Toronto. In “Bike,” for instance, a teenager bored to tears in a classroom sneaks a handful of Skittles into his mouth. As he chomps down on the candy, he disappears in a puff of smoke and is transported to a makeshift fantasyland where he is perched on one cloud next to a lovely angelic lass standing on an adjoining cloud with her bicycle. He reaches out to touch her when he’s all too soon returned to the mundane classroom. Reasoning that he needs another handful of Skittles to take him back to nirvana, the teen immediately downs some more of the candy treats and is again with the lovely lady, except this time he’s on the same cloud and on the bike, with the handlebars sticking out of his head. He’s perfectly content to be with the girl as he rings the bell on the bike handlebar in obvious approval. A parting product shot of a bag of Skittles is accompanied by the slogan, “No handful is ever the same.” The TBWA team included copywriter Allen Oke, art director Scott Couture and producer Nadya MacNeil. Harland Weiss executive produced for OPC, with Merrie Wasson serving as producer. The DP was Doug Koch. Editor was Mark Morton of School Editing, Toronto. Visual effects were done by Crush, Toronto.
CHERRY PICKINGCherry Lane Music Publishing Co. Inc., a New York-based independent music publisher with production clients that include DreamWorks Animation SKG and DreamWorks Pictures, The Weinstein Company, Lakeshore Entertainment, NFL Films and NASCAR, has signed a long-term agreement with music production library APM Music (a joint venture of EMI Music Publishing and BMG Music Publishing) to provide music from Cherry Lane’s catalogs for APM’s diverse collection of musical genres. APM’s library tracks are made available for licensing in film, television, advertising, radio, recording, games and new media. Previously, Cherry Lane, as music administrator for Electronic Arts, the world’s largest videogame publisher, negotiated a deal with APM for use of EA created and owned music. Through this agreement, tracks from the musical scores of EA’s top-selling titles became available for licensing to the production community through APM. Cherry Lane continues to administer this unique agreement. Founded in 1960 by producer/arranger Milt Okun, Cherry Lane oversees an extensive catalog of songs from Elvis Presley, John Denver, Quincy Jones and Ashford & Simpson, to more recent Billboard chart-toppers including the Black Eyed Peas, John Legend and Wolfmother.
PEOPLE IN THE NEWSJeff Elmore, who joined postproduction house charlieuniformtango, Dallas and Austin, in 2005 as an assistant producer, has been promoted to audio producer. His recent projects include Texas Lottery and Ponderosa for TracyLocke, Dallas, and Nationwide Radio for TM Advertising, Irving, Tx…..Brickyard VFX, which maintains visual effects boutiques in Boston and Santa Monica, has added producer Cara Farnsworth to its West Coast operation as producer. Most recently, she was an effects producer at Asylum VFX on features and commercials.
