SHORT CUTS
Match Frame, a digital postproduction shop with offices in San Antonio and Austin, Texas, completed work on four spots for Dawn dishwashing liquid and San Antonio agency Bromley Communications. For one of the ads, flying animated dishes cleaned with Dawn detergent are stacked up against those washed with a competitor’s cleanser. Match Frame added the timing and choreography, giving the commercial its visual "rhythm." The spots were shot on 35mm in Argentina and edited at Match Frame. One of the ads-the :15 animated bathtub spot-utilized editing, telecine and animation services. The animation–fully rendered 3-D graphics–were created using Softimage .xsi and composited in Inferno. The commercials are airing on Hispanic market outlets in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Click 3X, New York, designed and produced a campaign for the Oxygen network centering on the tagline, "Oh! Oxygen." Conceived by Click creative director Iain Greenway, the graphics-only treatment transforms that brief phrase into an expression of Oxygen’s programming. The package includes :05 to :30 pieces, and uses a fluid design centering on the reveal of the "Oh! Oxygen" tagline. In some spots, the phrase forms out of type floating in 3-D space, while another shows the "Oh!" taking shape in a pool of rippling water. In addition to Greenway, Click’s Shannon Horan was executive producer for broadcast; Alicia Powers was producer; Eve Lim was designer; Arlan Smith and Heath Hewett were designers/After Effects animators; Dave DiMeola was After Effects animator; and Kristen Pedersen, Anthony Filipakis and Dan Barlow were CG animators.
Boston-based Pisces worked on a package of all-graphics spots for the New Hampshire Lottery via agency O’Neil Griffin Bodi, Manchester, N.H. The ads–which promote the lottery’s new Powerball Game–features a red Powerball logo as an immense wrecking ball that swings at the back of the viewer’s TV screen until it eventually breaks through the glass. Pisces Flame artist Todd Shoemaker used a variety of Flame Sparks, 3-D software, and 3-D texture mapping to create a realistic version of the logo icon. Additional Pisces credits include visual/audio editor Stacey Kelly.
MUSIC NOTES
Mixer Bill Smith of HSR Studios, New York, cut the music bed, wrote the scripts and recorded the voiceover for a pool of spots for a television campaign promoting "Wishes," Arista recording artist Kenny G’s third Christmas CD. Smith utilized a Soundtracs DPC-II digital console and a Fairlight Mfx 24 digital workstation to mix the spots. The ads were directed by Jim Barham of VT2 Media Design & Communications, Houston.
Santa Monica-based POP Sound worked on the audio mix for a package of commercials for FOX Sports via TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles. "Dumpster," "Nose Hair," "Iron" and "Hot Anti-Freeze" feature National Hockey League fans’ lives being painfully chronicled over the course of a season. For example, "Dumpster" show a man nonchalantly getting his back hair waxed by his wife around the time of Game 1. By Game 13, he’s playing foosball with a buddy at a bar, when a dart suddenly winds up in his neck. He casually removes the projectile and looks around for the culprit. Near the end of the hockey season, the man flings a garbage bag into a large dumpster and, as he peers inside, the heavy top falls over, smashing his head into the metal frame. He simply shrugs ff the accident and heads back home. The ads, directed by Rocky Morton of bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander, feature the tag, "The more hockey you watch, the tougher you get." POP’s Stephen Dickson was the mixer, with Jeff Britt as assistant mixer.
IN GEAR
Grace & Wild, Farmington Hills, Mich., added two state-of-the-art telecine systems with high definition capabilities in its hdstudios division in Farmington Hills, and Postique, Southfield, Mich. The addition of a Philips Spirit Data Cine system at Postique doubles its capacity. Among the features that Postique’s two suites now offer are Spirit Data Cines with da Vinci 2K Plus color correctors, Digital Vision DVNR 1000 for grain reduction and aperture correction, Sierra Designs Quickframe DDR for color matching, Abekas ASWR 8150 switchers, as well as First Art’s PrimalT. Over at hdstudios, the Cintel telecine has been replaced with a Thomson-Philips BTS Shadow, a fully digital and high definition capable system. The Shadow’s features include Zeiss optical systems for 16 and 35mm film formats; Image X, Y zoom, X, Y linearity and 360 degree image rotation; built-in resolution independent digital primary and secondary color correction; diffuse illumination for optical removal of blemishes, dirt and scratches; and optical diffusion filters for effects.
Quantel featured eQ–its HD editing system–in the U.S. Capitol during the fifth annual Government Video Technology Expo, which was held on Dec. 4-5, at the Washington D.C. Convention Center. The forum, which focuses on the needs of video communication professionals working in the government and public sector, allowed Quantel to showcase the features of its generationQ family of postproduction solutions. GVExpo 2002 featured more than 40 educational sessions including Digital Technologies, Production Strategies, Law Enforcement and Security Applications, Networking & Distribution, Presentation, and Post Production Strategries.
