An artist who made a clean sweep of the nominations in the spot color correction category at the recently held Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA) Awards, an accomplished editor who is starting a new career chapter with a move to a noted house, and yet another cutter who wrapped an ambitious project in Europe–that’s the mix of artisans being profiled this time around in SHOOT’s Post/Editing Series. Steve Mottershead of Outside Editorial, New York, is the one who made a major impact at the HPA competition. Editor Tim Cahill recently joined Red Car, New York. And editor James Rosen of Final Cut, London, comes off of a campaign designed to heighten anticipation for Sony’s not yet released PlayStation 3. Here are their stories.
Steve Mottershead
A Sure Thing At HPA Awards
When the HPA Award nominations came out for outstanding color correction in commercials, Steve Mottershead of Outside Editorial, New York, was guaranteed a win. That’s because he received all three noms: one for Jaguar’s “Gorgeous,” another for Jaguar’s “XK Launch” and the third for Greyhound Bus’ “Let’s Go Dog.” So much for suspense on awards night earlier this week. (He wound up winning for “Gorgeous.”)
Mottershead, a noted Inferno/Flame artist who first established himself at AXYZ, Toronto, before moving to New York and joining Outside in August 2005, isn’t your typical colorist. He does his color grading on the Flame and even all the more remarkable given his sweep of the HPA category, only diversified relatively recently into the colorist discipline at Outside.
In fact, diversification is the name of Mottershead’s game as he’s also stepped up his directing career. He helmed some music videos while at AXYZ and recently teamed with Chris Sargent (a solo director at Untitled, Toronto, and a stateside DP) on a two-and-a-half minute piece for Jaguar that’s airing on DirecTV. And at press time, Mottershead and Sargent were slated to co-direct some additional Jaguar spot fare, all for Euro RSCG Fuel, New York. Furthermore, Mottershead also occasionally co-directs with Craig Bernard under the Beta Movement monicker; their credits include a music video, “Walk Straight,” for The Willowz. Mottershead has additionally helmed solo, wrapping the Breach of Trust music clip titled “Bad Trip.”
Still Mottershead’s day-to-day focus is on his Outside endeavors spanning Inferno/Flame artistry, visual effects and design and Flame color grading. He enjoys the supportive environment at the New York house and opportunities that have emerged for him there. His effects/design exploits include spots for Jaguar, New Balance, Coppertone and Oppenheimer Funds. Color grading spans not only spots for Jaguar but music video for the likes of Alexis on Fire and Willowz.
Of his work for Jaguar, Mottershead has praise for Euro RSCG Fuel creative directors Hal Wolverton and Alicia Johnson. “Hal has become a great mentor of mine and is really open to experimenting with the color of the Jag spots,” says Mottershead. “He also has a great eye and taste for color and his input helps bring the grade to an impressive level.”
Indeed Mottershead is no stranger to high profile work dating back to his AXYZ tenure, such as Inferno artist assignments for Budweiser. Included in this Bud fare were two Super Bowl comedy commercials, “Clown” and “Good Dog” via Downtown Partners DDB, Toronto. He also had occasion to work on Bud projects for DDB Chicago.
Beyond Budweiser, Mottershead took on Flame chores at AXYZ for commercials in Canada on behalf of such clients as General Motors, Xbox, FedEx, Fidelity, Lipton, adidas and Nike. He was on staff for five years at AXYZ, rising to senior Inferno artist. But he then began to look to broaden his creative horizons. Initially he explored prospects abroad, including at facilities in Australia and Japan. But an overture from Outside struck his fancy and he wound up in the Big Apple.
“It’s exciting to work at Outside and in New York,” he relates. “It’s been a great advancement for my career.”
Now, though his career is still in bloom, he has reached a point of industry recognition. The inaugural HPA Awards were launched to honor excellence in the art, science and craft of postproduction.
Tim CahillSteers Toward Red Car
Many in the advertising world know Tim Cahill as an editor. Many may not know that he is also a painter.
Cahill–a 15-year veteran of the commercial business who recently signed with Red Car, based in its New York office–says he enjoys painting, particularly abstract painting, Rauschenberg style. He sometimes mixes photography with oils. He also enjoys what he calls abstract experimental video. Cahill additionally teaches storyboarding at New York’s Parsons School of Design. His students are studying communications and design and have an interest in 2D.
Cahill started his editing career in documentaries, an area he still enjoys. He’s been cutting commercials for roughly 15 years. His previous stints have been at New York-based Bluerock (then Palestrini Post Production), 89 Editorial, and most recently, V2.
Cahill won two Association of Independent Creative Editors (AICE) Awards in ’02 on the strength of his work for the Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association/College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA/CREF) directed by Tony Kaye (now with bicoastal Supply and Demand) for Ogilvy & Mather, New York. At the AICE Awards, the spot titled “Anthem” was honored in the Montage category while the other TIAA/CREF ad, “Diane Lewis”–which entailed editing by Cahill and Peter Goddard of Poppy Films, London–won in the regional spot category. This campaign featured vignettes of artists that have been TIAA/CREF clients, including Mikhail Baryshnikov and Kurt Vonnegut. The ads were cut in a documentary style with images including stock footage and newly lensed images.
Cahill’s spot credits also include Absolut, Kodak, Motorola and GMC, promos for VH-1, MTV, ABC News, CNN HBO and Showtime, and music videos for the Beastie Boys, U2, Madonna, John Mellencamp and Enja.
Since joining Red Car in September, the editor cut a Volvo marketing video using stock footage for EURO RSCG in New York. “This was about taking the expectations about Volvo to a new level,” Cahill relates. “The editing was very experimental. We did quick edits that were rhythmically paced, maybe jittery, to something long and beautiful.” He also cut two not yet airing spots for the Ad Council out of New York-based Grey Advertising; Clay Williams of bicoastal/international MJZ directed.
Cahill is also currently working on a documentary with a working title Adopt Me Michael Jordan. The topic is adoption in Ethiopia, and the film follows a social service agency in Ethiopia that caters to Americans adopting children. Cahill is working on the project with Susan Motamed through New York-based Jumbo Films. (Motamed was a producer on the ’05 documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.)
“I like to do both,” Cahill says of long- and short-form projects. “I like the naturalness and narrative style of documentaries, and [I like] telling a story that could change things. I also like commercials. They are very experimental and [challenging] to cut.”
To that end, he also enjoys the experimental nature of Web advertising. He cut an Internet marketing piece for Pitney Bowes recently while at V2. “It was a new adventure in Web advertising,” Cahill says. “I think that’s where commercials are going to end up, and I think it’s a great medium for experimentation because you don’t have a fixed length, so you don’t have an arbitrary decision that limits the details and forces a rhythm…It allows more freedom, more creativity. It is going to be the future, so we should embrace it.”
This is Living for James RosenPlayStation 3 Campaign Combines Web, Cinema, Branded Entertainment and HD.
“This is Living” is a new branded series of five shorts from London-based agency Stream promoting the upcoming release of Sony’s Playstation 3 gaming console. Each short focuses on real life characters to demonstrate the benefit of the platform’s new technology. Bridging the gaps between commercials, virals, documentaries and shorts, the campaign was initially launched on the PSP3 Web site, staggering the debuts of new episodes; cinema distribution in Europe is also part of the marketing plans. The campaign was shot and finished in HD.
James Rosen, who’s based in the London office of bicoastal/international Final Cut, edited this inventive campaign, which was directed by Colin O’Toole of London-based Unorthodox Styles, the production company and animation house on the project.
Rosen started at Final Cut’s London office nine years ago as a runner; he assisted editors there and was later promoted to editor. He is grateful to Final Cut, saying, “They really let you cut and learn the equipment.” A major opportunity came in music videos while assisting Final Cut editor Gary Knight, whom Rosen helped cut Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter.” Rosen continues to work on music videos for artists such as Robbie Williams.
Rosen also recently cut a short film, Always Crashing in the Same Car, and says he enjoys taking on different types of projects. At press time, Rosen had completed HD spot work for Finish dishwasher tablets via Euro RSCG, London. “A lot of people are shooting HD now,” he reports, “but they are still mostly being finished in standard definition.” The “This is Living” series is another example of his HD work. It was lensed using a high-speed HD camera, and the footage was recorded to hard drives. Rosen cut the series on an Avid. Finishing was handled at London-based St. Anne’s Post, which onlined the spot in HD on an Avid Nitris from HDCAM source material. “They had cinema in mind–also the new Playstation [accommodates] HD, so it was all encompassing and we wanted to show off the HD.” he says.
The first episode is titled Real Time and uses a pair of amateur boxers who demonstrate the importance of impulsive reactions as an analogy for PSP3’s real-time physics. The other film scenarios include a London man who obsessively collects miscellany to highlight immense storage potential; BMX flatland biking as a demonstration of precision controls and wireless capabilities; and a home blown up to flaunt the PSP3’s HD image quality.
“The approach was a documentary-style, with a short film POV, and we paced it and structured it as that,” Rosen explains. “It didn’t need to be 30 or 60-seconds, so we could pace it out quite nicely….We were able to create a sense of what a boxer does. You could almost see his thinking process, feel and see things you wouldn’t feel and see before. We wanted it to be more of a short film [series] than commercials. So the main guts were the film, not the game footage…..We [aimed to] present the technology of PS3 without hard-selling to the viewer. It had to feel as far away from an advert as possible.”
