"Sensitive," one of four :15s in a World AIDS Day campaign sponsored by Levi Strauss & Co., won the best commercial honor at the 27th annual Annie Awards, which recognize excellence in animation.
Directed by John Hays of San Francisco animation studio Wild Brain, "Sensitive" features a condom character who is crying his eyes out in a darkened movie theater. He’s reacting to a romantic tearjerker being shown on the silver screen. The punchline: "Condoms are sensitive."
Conceived by TBWA/Chiat/ Day, San Francisco, the PSA deftly deploys humor to promote condom usage. The agency team consisted of creative director/ copywriter Peter Angelos, creative director/art director Rob Smiley, art director Jennifer Boyd, copywriter Craig Namba and producer Katherine Colbert.
In addition to Hays, other contributing artisans at Wild Brain included animator Ralph Fernan, assistant animators Victor Gascon, Billy Burger and Brian McKensie, ink & paint artists Kuen Hicks and Frank Barnhardt, layout artist Cindy Ng, executive producers Jeff Fino and Paul Golden, producer Liz Gazzano and production manager Adrian Card. Offline editor at Wild Brain was Gretchen Hildebran. Greg Gilmore of Western Images, San Francisco, served as online editor. The sound designer was Claude Letessier of Element, Santa Monica.
The Annie Awards, presented by the Burbank-headquartered International Animated Film Society (ASIFA-Hollywood), honor animation in various entertainment disciplines, including feature film, TV programs, spots and interactive media. ASIFA-Hollywood is a nonprofit organization devoted to advancing the art of animation. The Annie Awards ceremony was held last weekend (11/6) at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, Calif.
"Sensitive" topped a field of commercial nominees that consisted of another Wild Brain-produced ad, "Celebrate Being In The Dark" for the San Francisco Film Festival, directed by Gordon Clark for agency Zimmerman Crowe Design, San Francisco; Old Navy’s "Performance Fleece," helmed by John Kricfalusi of Spumco, Glendale, for Old Navy Marketing, San Francisco; Kraft Foods’ Miracle Whip commercial, "Tweety," directed by Frank Molieri of Warner Bros. Classic Animation, Sherman Oaks, Calif., for J. Walter Thompson, Chicago; and Hollywood Gum’s "Gnome," with computer animation produced by Ring of Fire Advanced Media, West Hollywood, Calif., for Euro RSCG, Paris. Ring of Fire’s Jerry Spivack served as visual effects supervisor/creative director/ Henry artist on "Gnome," which was directed by feature filmmaker Tim Burton (Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands) via Los Angeles-based A Band Apart.35mm.
Review: Writer-Director Adam Elliot’s “Memoir of a Snail”
It's not your typical stop-motion film when characters name pets after Sylvia Plath and read "The Diary of Anne Frank" — or when the story's inspired by a quote from existentialist thinker Søren Kierkegaard. And it's certainly not your typical stop-motion film when you find yourself crying as much as the characters do — in their case, with huge droplets leaking from bulging, egg-shaped eyes so authentic-looking, you expect the screen to get wet. But those are just a few of the unique things about Adam Elliot's "Memoir of a Snail," a film that's as heart-tugging as it is technically impressive, a work of both emotional resonance and great physical detail using only clay, wire, paper and paint. One thing Elliot's film is not, though, is for kids. So please take note before heading to the multiplex with family in tow: this film earns its R rating, as you'll discover as soon as young Grace, voiced by Sarah Snook, tells us she thought masturbation was about chewing your food properly. Sex, nudity, drunk driving, a fat fetish — like we said, it's R-rated for a reason. But let's start at the beginning. In this, his seventh "clayography" (for "clay" and "biography"), the Australian writer-director explores the process of collecting unnecessary objects. Otherwise known as hoarding, it's something that weighs us down in ways we can't see, for all the clutter. Elliot also argues that it helps us build constrictive shells around ourselves — like snail shells, perhaps. Our protagonist is Grace Pudel, voiced with a quirky warmth and plenty of empathy by the wonderfully agile Snook. We first encounter Grace as a grown woman, telling her long, lonely life story to her pet garden snail, Sylvia (named after Plath), at a moment of deep sadness. Then we flash... Read More