By Theresa Piti
SHORT CUTS
Hornet Inc., a bicoastal commercial film and design company, completed "Instructoart," a series of eight promos for MTV. The humorous package focuses on various everyday habits and customs of people; in "Gay/Straight," we see how a guy patting another guy on the fanny isn’t okay unless they’re planning sports, we’re shown the proper clothing to wear should one develop a "Farmer’s Tan," and we’re introduced to the art of the "Arm Fart." Additional spots, which premiered during the most recent MTV Video Music Awards, include "Black and Curly," "Musical Instruments," "Comb Over," Supermarket" and "3 Second Rule." The Hornet team used After Effects, Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator to complete the project. For Hornet, Eng San Kho was creative director, freelancer Matt Vescovo was creator/director, Michael Feder was executive producer, Marla Puccetti was producer, Susan Hildebrand was art director, Mike Gleason edited, and Aaron Stewart was lead animator.
Resident Life, a new reality series from The Learning Channel, follows the lives of overworked medical interns testing the limits of sleep deprivation in their positions at Vanderbilt Medical Center, New Orleans. Director Chel White, partner/director at Bent Image Lab, Portland, Ore., represented by Curious Pictures for broadcast and television projects, set out to create a :30 and a :15 that would distinguish Resident Life from the sea of reality programming currently on the air. White’s collage animation is a process of enhancing video footage frame by frame. "It starts with using the live action as a resource to build on," he explained. "We go in and pull from stills and various sources—eyes, mouths and ears that are at a similar angle—and stick them on top of what is there. The desired overall effect is moving images that are full of electricity and constantly in motion. Color is also a big part of the equation—taking the backgrounds and pushing them away from plain video to punchy duotones and colorful collages." The promos are comprised of a series of video sound bites, medical imaging (i.e., MRIs and Fluoroscopes), operating room footage, and some live action the Bent team shot in a Portland hospital. By pulling from different sources and animating the video, White and his crew captured the show’s energy in the form of an extremely edgy effect. For the first time in White’s career, he worked entirely in the digital realm. White shot all of the live action from the Portland hospital on Mini DV. White and his crew used Adobe Photoshop and After Effects software to create the collage effect and edited the spot using an Avid. Studio Artist was used in creating some of the effects in the backgrounds. Additional credits on the job go to executive producers David Starr and Ray Di Carlo of Curious and Bent, respectively; DP Mark Eifert; casting/production coordinator Lou Anne Moldovan; production coordinator Michelle Nati; digital team leader Julie Orser; composite artist Steve Balzer; animator/composite artist Orland Nutt; animators Zack Margolis and Aaron Hood Brown; frame preparer Ryan Jeffrey; and editor Steve Miller.
Sister shops Postique, Griot Editorial and hdstudios teamed up to create two video programs for the Detroit Historical Museum’s new exhibit, "Guts, Games & Glory: Detroit’s Sporting Legacy." The Detroit Historical Museum’s recently opened exhibit celebrates Southeastern Michigan’s long history of professional amateur and youth sports. "Guts, Games & Glory" transforms the Booth-Wilkinson Gallery into a giant locker room, featuring more than 800 artifacts, including a variety of photographs, uniforms, equipment, trophies and souvenirs. Also featured is rare film footage from past decades that helps illustrate the stories of the city’s sports championships, teams and heroes. The Detroit Historical Museum called upon Postique, Griot and hdstudios to complete the film transfer and postproduction of two video programs. The vintage film footage was transferred to digital tape and color corrected by hdstudios’ senior colorist Rob Randall. Griot’s Dyan Bailey completed the offline, and Postique online editor John Hathaway provided the finishing. Postique senior editor James Zolliecoffer created the opening title sequence and supervised the project. The final pieces, a 20-minute program for the "Basement Sports Den" area, and a one-hour program for the main hall, were delivered to the Detroit Historical Museum on DVD, authored by Postique new media supervisor Jim Elder. Postique and Griot, both located in Southfield, Mich., and Farmington Hills, Mich.-based hdstudios are divisions of Grace & Wild Inc.
New York-headquartered editorial company 3 Fingered Louie cut "Soccer," a :30 for Ogilvy & Mather, New York, and its client Capri Sun Sport. In the ad, a man enters the game from the sidelines—powered by a Capri Sun Sport beverage—and winds up kicking the winning goal, much to the surprise of the other players. Larry Frey of bicoastal production shop Villains directed the commercial. 3 Fingered Louie credits include editor John Anklow, assistant editor Maurice Abbatc, and executive producer Lynne Mannino.
MUSIC NOTES
In The Groove Music, Minneapolis, completed the original theme music for Road to the Tour and Tour de France programming that aired on the Outdoor Life Network Adventure (OLNTV) channel. The original music compositions were used as intro and theme music during the Road to the Tour program, and throughout OLNTV’s coverage of the Tour de France. For that coverage, In The Groove worked with arranger/conductor Lee Blaske to create a two-minute original theme. The musical score, which was recorded by a 40-piece orchestra, used a combination of orchestral, modern tempo, and classical music to reflect the many stages of the Tour and capture the determination possessed by the participants in the cycling competition.
Sacred Noise, New York, worked on the music and sound design for Ethan Allen’s "Kids," via Grey Worldwide, New York. The :30 was directed by Kathi Prosser of Toronto-based The Partners Film Company. Peter Rundquist was composer/sound designer for Sacred Noise, with owner/creative director Michael Montes, owner/executive producer Jeff Rosner, and producer Jason Menkes as additional support.
Michael "Smidi" Smith, a composer with barton:holt, Culver City, Calif., wrote the title theme music and underscore for the recently aired NBC reality series The Restaurant. The series, which premiered in July, featured owner/chef Rocco DiSpirito getting his new restaurant off the ground in New York.
IN GEAR
Crawford Post Production, Atlanta, a service company of Crawford Communications, installed four Avid Media Composer Adrenaline systems. The Adrenaline combines next-generation Media Composer software with new hardware to offer real-time, multi-stream, uncompressed standard definition video editing and 10-bit high-definition media expandability. In addition, Crawford Audio has upgraded its 10 Pro Tools Mix24 systems to the latest Pro Tools HD3 hardware running Pro Tools 6 software.
Media Ventures Entertainment Group, a Santa Monica-headquartered music and audio post facility headed up by partners Jay Rifkin and Hans Zimmer, installed a second Euphonix System 5 digital audio console for music mixing. This past June, composer Klaus Badelt got a call from Disney Pictures to score the feature Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, with only six weeks to release. The score was slated to be mixed at Media Ventures, but the tight deadline and the scale of the score demanded an upgrade to the main mixing room, which housed a large Euphonix CS3000. The obvious choice was another Euphonix System 5, and the project was finished on time. Euphonix, based in Palo Alto, Calif., manufactures large format audio consoles and digital recording equipment to the broadcast, post, live sound and music production communities.
Steve McQueen Shows Wartime London Through A Child’s Eyes In “Blitz”
It was a single photograph that started Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen on the journey to make "Blitz." As a Londoner, the German bombing raids on the city during World War II are never all that far from his mind. Reminders of it are everywhere. But the spark of inspiration came from an image of a small boy on a train platform with a large suitcase. Stories inspired by the evacuation are not rare, but this child was Black. Who was he, McQueen wondered, and what was his story? The film, in theaters Friday and streaming on Apple TV+ on Nov. 22, tells the tale of George, a 9-year-old biracial child in East London whose life with his mother, Rita ( Saoirse Ronan ), and grandfather is upended by the war. Like many children at the time, he's put on a train to the countryside for his safety. But he hops off and starts a long, dangerous journey back to his mom, encountering all sorts of people and situations that paint a revelatory and emotional picture of that moment. SEARCHING FOR GEORGE AND FINDING A STAR When McQueen finished the screenplay, he thought to himself: "Not bad." Then he started to worry: Does George exist? Is there a person out there who can play this role? Through an open casting call they found Elliott Heffernan, a 9-year-old living just outside of London whose only experience was a school play. He was the genie in "Aladdin." "There was a stillness about him, a real silent movie star quality," McQueen said. "You wanted to know what he was thinking, and you leant in. That's a movie star quality: A presence in his absence." Elliott is now 11. When he was cast, he'd not yet heard about the evacuation and imagined that a film set would be made up of "about 100 people." But he soon found his footing, cycling in and out of... Read More