The fusion of an exploding disco ball with the image of Justin Timberlake is the climax of “Screams,” an HBO video ad being used to promote a concert that will air on the network September 3. The ad is playing at sites including YouTube, pcplanets.com, musicstarx.net, Justin Timberlake’s MySpace page and first played on air June 10th during the Sopranos finale.
Shilo/New York, the production company, and Smoke & Mirrors/New York, the post/effects company worked with HBO’s in-house agency on the job.
“We designed the look of the spot and did all the editorial and pre-viz and sent it to Smoke to do the photo real finishing of the glass breaking,” said Tracy Chandler, Shilo’s executive producer.
The shards of glass float timelessly in space as they slowly get sucked back together to form a disco ball with Timberlake’s image. The ball then explodes to the words “Only on HBO” and the date of the concert.
“Not only did the look and edit need to be compelling, the texture and lighting had to look correct. We wanted to design a look that encompassed the icon of the shiny disco ball,” Chandler said. “CG allowed us to have total control over the timing and action of the glass, something we never could have controlled in a practical shoot environment.”
To create the exploding ball, “the dust and ambiance were created in Flame, utilizing speed six and sapphire sparks to finish the look,” said Nick Tanner, Smoke’s senior Flame artist. “The multitude of tiny ambient particles were generated in Flame on a shot-by-shot basis with specific reflections and animations.”
The images of Timberlake came from music videos and HBO footage. “We had to twist the colors to fit it into the color scheme, which adds mood to the piece,” Tanner said.
Even the type received special treatment. “The type was supplied by Shilo and we applied a slight glow, to make it look like it comes from the reflections in the glass,” he said.
The spot lasts only 25 seconds but the spacy images, the exploding ball and the appearance of Timberlake make it intriguing. “You don’t have time to absorb everything and on additional views you see new things happening within the frame,” Tanner said.
DGA Award Nominees Set For TV, Documentaries and Commercials
The Directors Guild of America has unveiled the nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Television, Commercials and Documentary for 2024. The winners will be announced at the 77th Annual DGA Awards on Saturday, February 8, at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Garnering multiple nods in their respective categories of Dramatic Series, Comedy Series and Movies for TV/Limited Series were, respectively, Shogun, The Bear and The Penguin. Three of the five nominations in Dramatic Series went to Shogun--Hiromi Kamata for the “Ladies of the Willow World Episode,” Frederick E.O. Toye for “Crimson Sky” and Jonathan van Tulleken for “Anjin.” The other two nods were garnered by Alex Graves for The Diplomat episode “Dreadnought” and Issa Lopez for the “Part 6” installment of True Detective, Night Country. The Bear also took three out of five nominations, in the Comedy Series category: Directors Ayo Edebiri for the “Napkins” episode, Duccio Fabbri for “Doors,” and Christopher Storer for “Tomorrow.” The other two Comedy Series nods went to Lucia Aniello for the Hacks episode “Bulletproof” and Jeff Schaffer for the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode “No Lessons Learned.” And garnering three of the five nods in Movies For Television and Limited Series was The Penguin: Directors Kevin Bray for “Top Hat,” Jennifer Getzinger for “A Great or Little Thing” and Helen Shaver for “Cent’anni.” Rounding out the category were nominationns for Alfonso Curaon on the strength of Disclaimer, and Steven Zaillian for Ripley. Nominated in the Documentary category were Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev for... Read More