This special venue gives new size and scope to NASCAR if such a thing is possible. “Showdown,” another chapter in the animated “Sprint NASCAR Monsters” campaign, presents eight separate screens that play simultaneously across eight separate HD monitors surrounding the audience with intense visuals and sound. The viewers actually stand in a Sprint NASCAR hauler in the middle of the screens and watch as eight different NASCAR monster cars “wake up”–each in its own individual garage and then shooting out onto the track where the monster attacks unfold lap by lap. Then after an intense battle, we find the restless monsters back in their respective garages as all of the doors slam shut, giving way to an eerie howling wind.
The visceral visuals are advanced by a soundtrack that has to be intense, unique and must make sense from the POV of the viewer on all eight monitors, with audio playing from one 5.1 mix. There was no facility that could simulate this environment to mix, so Chris Bell of Chris Bell Music & Sound Design (CBMSD), L.A. and San Francisco, mixed from a drawing of monitor and speaker layout supplied by the designer and basically imagined the TV monitors around him and his colleagues in the mix session. It was awesome as it all came to life in the surround mix after designing it one screen at a time.
Unlike sound design for broadcast, Bell explained he had an end user system with tons of power as well as large speakers capable ( and willing ) to pump out massive bass and rumble. So there were totally different limits as to how big and fat the final mix could be. Having spent years co-sponsoring a stock car and traveling to NASCAR events and always recording, Bell was able to use some of the super loud and fat sounds that really don’t translate well on conventional TV broadcast. Also he could add the same bottom end rumble that you would find at the actual race track and knew it would play back as he had recorded it. The sound design is artistry in intentional sensory overload.
Complementing it is some sound design from Bill Chesley of Henryboy, New York, in part of the racing sequence.
Audio post mixer was Andy Greenberg of One Union Recording, San Francisco.
The creative team from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, included group creative directors Paul Stechschulte and Franklin Tipton, art directors John O’Hea and Khara Cundiff, copywriters Ty Hutchinson and Adam Cook, producers Josh Reynolds and assistant producers Meagen Moore and Jessica Mehl.
Live action (for the “Racing” sequence was directed by Jeffery Plansker of bicoastal Supply & Demand, with Neil Shapiro serving as DP and Tina Nakane as line producer. CG came out of Gunshop, San Francisco, with an ensemble that included creative director Stacy Nimmo, exec producer Therese Vreeland, 3D artist/compositor/matte painter Dean Foster, 3D artist/compositor Anthony Enos, animators Conrad McLeod, David Leonard, Jesse Davidge, Alan Cook and Nate Pacheo, producer Brandon Sugiyama and editors Paul Trillo and Ian McCarney.
Mass Market, N.Y., provided CG shots that included the zoom in/out of the racetrack, the image of the CG phone with the stadium atop it, and the cars in attack mode.
Editor on the “Racing” sequence was Noah Herzog of General Editorial, Santa Monica.
Does “Hundreds of Beavers” Reflect A New Path Forward In Cinema?
Hard as it may be to believe, changing the future of cinema was not on Mike Cheslik's mind when he was making "Hundreds of Beavers." Cheslik was in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with a crew of four, sometimes six, standing in snow and making his friend, Ryland Tews, fall down funny.
"When we were shooting, I kept thinking: It would be so stupid if this got mythologized," says Cheslik.
And yet, "Hundreds of Beavers" has accrued the stuff of, if not quite myth, then certainly lo-fi legend. Cheslik's film, made for just $150,000 and self-distributed in theaters, has managed to gnaw its way into a movie culture largely dominated by big-budget sequels.
"Hundreds of Beavers" is a wordless black-and-white bonanza of slapstick antics about a stranded 19th century applejack salesman (Tews) at war with a bevy of beavers, all of whom are played by actors in mascot costumes.
No one would call "Hundreds of Beavers" expensive looking, but it's far more inventive than much of what Hollywood produces. With some 1,500 effects shots Cheslik slaved over on his home computer, he crafted something like the human version of Donald Duck's snowball fight, and a low-budget heir to the waning tradition of Buster Keaton and "Naked Gun."
At a time when independent filmmaking is more challenged than ever, "Hundreds of Beavers" has, maybe, suggested a new path forward, albeit a particularly beaver-festooned path.
After no major distributor stepped forward, the filmmakers opted to launch the movie themselves, beginning with carnivalesque roadshow screenings. Since opening in January, "Hundreds of Beavers" has played in at least one theater every week of the year, though never more than 33 at once. (Blockbusters typically play in around 4,000 locations.)... Read More