Recently coming into prominence on the Internet, the directing team of Bruce Branit and Jeremy Hunt has gained its first spot and music clip representation, signing with Los Angeles-headquartered A Band Apart Commercials and sister shop A Band Apart Music Videos.
Michael Bodnarchek, co-president/CEO of A Band Apart’s commercial and music video operations, entered into a spirited competition among several production houses for the two directors after seeing their short film, 405, on Web site IFILM. com. Since debuting on the site in June, the three-minute film has generated some 2.5 million hits. A separate 405 site has attracted a monthly average of 30 million hits during the summer.
Written by Hunt—who co-directed with Branit—405 showcases the duo’s prowess not only in digital imagery and live action, but also in the comedy, thriller and storytelling genres. Just short of three minutes, 405 relates an extreme tale of a Southern California freeway commute gone bad. At first, the driver of a sports utility vehicle seems to have everything going his way. While traffic in the opposite direction is in virtual gridlock, his is the lone vehicle zipping merrily along Los Angeles Interstate 405. But there’s a price to be paid for smooth sailing. The police have cleared his side of the freeway so that an out-of-control DC-10 airplane can make an emergency landing.
That reality dawns upon our driver when he looks in his rear-view mirror and sees the plane fast approaching. He cannot elude the DC-10. It overtakes the SUV, which becomes wedged under the plane’s underbelly. The plane and the SUV careen down the thoroughfare at an alarmingly high rate of speed. But the nightmare only gets worse as the SUV driver sees far ahead an elderly woman who’s puttering at a snail’s pace in an old crate of a car. Somehow, the conjoined vehicles avoid what seemed an inevitable collision with the oblivious senior citizen. Finally the plane and the SUV come to a harrowing halt. The clunker car eventually pulls up alongside, at which point the frail old woman gives the SUV driver a middle-finger salute and continues her commute.
Nearly one-third of 405 was created digitally on personal computers. This included the CGI airplane. The digital imagery was composited with live action scenes, and additional effects were added. Branit and Hunt served as directors, cameramen, visual effects artists, compositors and sound effects editors.
"It’s amazing to think that this film was made in the span of three months during their spare time, primarily through the use of personal computers," related Bodnarchek. "There’s no telling what they can do with greater resources at their disposal … At the same time, they want to continue to work in their personal, hands-on manner, tapping more into the potential of computers and digital imagery."
Bodnarchek observed that Branit and Hunt represent the new wave of talent emerging in digital filmmaking. He described them as being "visionaries" who will be "a perfect complement to our roster of cutting-edge directors." Bodnarchek sees the pair taking on sophisticated visual effects and combo (live-action/ effects) spots, and being appropriate for such ad genres as automotive and comedy.
Branit said that he and Hunt "decided to sign with A Band Apart because they fit what we want to do. We are looking to do large, very stylish high-profile projects, as well as direct feature films and be able to retain our artistic freedom. We met with tons of companies and felt that the overall vibe we got from the people at A Band Apart just felt right."
405 was the first time that Branit and Hunt teamed as directors. However, they’re no strangers to collaborating with each other as visual effects artists. Branit was a supervising animator and Hunt a digital effects artist for episodic work on the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. They also teamed on the TV movie G-Saviour, with Branit serving as visual effects supervisor and Hunt as a digital artist. Hunt additionally was a supervising animator on The X-Files, as well as on the space battle sequence for the Backstreet Boys’ music video "Larger Than Life."
