Software company 3DO has again turned pop culture on its ear with the spot "Toy Justice" which promotes its electronic game "Army Men 3D." The :30, produced by Santa Cruz-based production company Compass Rose Media (CRM), is a wickedly funny spoof of the famed ’96 Nissan "Toys" spot out of TBWA/Chiat/Day, L.A. (whose live action was directed by Kinka Usher of House of Usher Films, Santa Monica, and stop-motion helmed by Mark Gustafson of Will Vinton Studios, Portland, Ore.)
The stop-motion/live-action "Toys" (SHOOT Top Spot, 9/27/96, p.13) depicted a plastic action-figure doll driving a mini-Nissan sports car inside a residential home and into a young girl’s bedroom, where he picks up a female doll. In a sense, the first :17 of "Toy Justice" continues where "Toys" left off, noted Steve Weisser, executive producer at CRM. "In ‘Toys,’ he stole the girl," said Weisser. "In this spot, he’s driving her into the boy’s room."
The 3DO spot is driven by a music track that’s similar to Van Halen’s cover of the Kinks’ "You Really Got Me," which powered the Nissan spot; appropriately enough, "Toy Justice" was scored by former Sammy Hagar band member Robert Berry of Sound Tech Studios, Campbell, Calif. "Toy Justice" opens on a male doll in a remote-controlled red sporty car (license plate: "MR SEXY"); beside him is a long-haired doll whose hair obscures her face. The car zips down a hallway, and goes skidding into a young boy’s bedroom.
At one point in the wild ride, a tire blows out and-after the car spins around 360 degrees-it crashes into toy blocks. The POV then zooms across the room to a bookcase topped by a green plastic army commander, who fires his bazooka at the car. The male doll gulps nervously, followed by a huge fiery explosion that blows the car to bits. "Damn yuppies," the army guy sneers. The rest of the spot is comprised of game footage as a voiceover says, "Introducing ‘Army Men 3D’ … real combat, plastic men."
"Toy Justice" was co-written by 3DO advertising director Joey Jodar and freelancer Jeff Buchanan, who also served as live-action director. Other key members of the production team included CRM creative director Barto Sarto who served as the CGI direc-
tor/editor and live-action DP Eric Swenson.
3DO drew notice for a previous spot "Tready Bear" for Battletanx that parodied the cuddly Snuggles bear character that stars in ads for Snuggles fabric softener. It raised controversy after Snuggles company Lever Bros. contended that 3DO infringed on the trademarked Snuggles bear (SHOOT, 2/26, p.1); 3DO voluntarily pulled the spot off the air to avoid further litigation. However, the spot’s airing helped spur product sales up 300%.
3DO did its latest ad without Nissan’s permission. A TBWA/ Chiat/Day spokesman was aware of "Toy Justice" but said neither agency nor client plans legal action against 3DO, adding that "legally, I don’t know if you can sue for parody." And like "Tready Bear," the spot has paid off with boffo sales: "Army Men 3D" sold 370,000 copies in a month and landed on the top 10 play station market list nationwide.
Much of the credit goes to CRM who told the story in :17 with a spot that doesn’t look cheesy or cheap, despite its limited budget and schedule (two shoot days and a month of post-compared to the 12 week production schedule for "Toys"). Weisser related it was most efficient for CRM to do the graphics, stop-motion animation and post in-house, adding, "The big advantage is we’re not on someone else’s clock."
Weisser added that they also had to walk a fine line in creating the parody. "We had to be tricky enough that people knew what it was," said Weisser, "but different enough so that it’s its own creative." He noted that’s why, for example, the female doll’s face is covered and there are mostly one-shots of the male doll. Weisser cited the concern as being a justified reaction, given that Mattel sued Nissan alleging that "Toys" violated copyright and trademark by showing dolls resembling Barbie, Ken and G.I. Joe (SHOOT, 9/26/97, p. 31).
CRM used multiple techniques on the spot. For example, the zoom shot of the missile traveling looks like motion control (which they had no money for) but is actually a morph zoom, explained Weisser, that is comprised of the first and last shots of the sequences connected by a morph.
Weisser cited several other notable effects: the shot of the car spinning around where you see the characters’ POV was achieved by shooting the car against bluescreen. A camera was then mounted on a rig that rotated around the room; both shots were then comped together. The shot of the tire blowing out which looks like live action is actually CGI, and the gulp shot is hand-drawn frame-by-frame animation.
The characters and models were created by San Francisco-based modelshop M5 Industries; the remote control car was operated by Bay Area freelancer Joel Johnson. Additional credits go to sound designer/audio mixer Will Littlejohn of Wave Sound Group, Santa Clara, Calif.
