TOPIX/Mad Dog, Toronto, completed digital compositing, character animation and synchronization of elements on a pool of spots for Thrifty Car Rental and agency Bernstein-Rein, Kansas City, Mo. The ads-"Buy/Sell," "Side by Side," "Dead Heat," "Work Out," "Lineup," "Internet Rate" and "Rainy Day"-feature such sight gags as a duck swimming in a convertible during a rainstorm, and a giant hole opening up and swallowing a car. TOPIX credits include executive producer Chris Wallace, senior producer Diana D’Amelio, designer/art director Mark Cutler, Inferno artists Marco Polsinelli and Aaron Weintraub, and 3-D animator Patrick Kil.
New York-headquartered Rhinoceros Visual Effects and Design took 3M to new heights with photo-realistic CGI of numerous scissors, and compositing for a :15 via Grey Advertising, New York. "No More Scissors," which spotlights 3M’s Scotch Tear-by-Hand Packaging Tape, features a fleet of cutters floating from their worldly bonds and heading skyward into space, leaving their users free to tear tape without them. For Rhinoceros, Arman Matin was project leader/animation director for Rhinoceros, Michael Miller was executive producer and Yfat Neev was producer.
R!OT, Santa Monica, has created high-definition video masters of HBO’s popular series The Sopranos. HBO is using the newly created HD masters of seasons one and two (which were both originally mastered in standard definition video) in preparing for the release in Europe on PAL-standard DVD. R!OT colorist Linda Olague transferred the original 35mm film negative to HDCAM on a Philips Spirit datacine. Editor Brian Reid then conformed the show on a Discreet HD Fire and outputted the finished masters to D5 at 1080/24p high-definition video. R!OT also provided film transfer, color correction, editing and titling services for the standard definition version of The Sopranos‘s just-oncluded second season. Henry artist/editor Garth O’Donnell and editor Tom Sing, handled the post duties.
MUSIC NOTES
Lewis Flinn, president of Lewis Flinn Music, New York, wrote and produced the score for Wendy Wasserstein’s Old Money, which is currently playing at Lincoln Center’s Newhouse Theater, New York. The score features string quartet arrangements of several turn-of-the-century standards, as well as underscoring. Flinn’s work was also recently heard in the Adobe Theatre Company’s production of Orpheus and Eurydice, Off-Broadway. Flinn has composed music for such commercial clients as Microsoft, AFL-CIO, Touchstone Energy and Life cereal.
Composer PJ Hanke of SPANK! Music and Sound Design created a cinematic score for a package of spots for Nintendo’s new game "Zelda: The Legend of Majora’s Mask." Created by Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, the ads make use of different parts of Hanke’s complete three-minute score, including a high-definition, 5.1 surround :60 version for movie theatres, two :15 teasers for the Internet, and two :30s for television. Sound designer Sophia Morizet collaborated with Hanke on the project.
