SHORT CUTS
Post producer Brian Gaffney and visual effects artist Pete Mayor of The Finish Line (TFL) , Santa Monica, worked on XBOX’s "Can You Hang With That," a theatrical commercial showcasing Activision’s new Spider-Man XBOX game. The spot, which is being shown with the Spider-Man feature, was also produced in a lower resolution version for television broadcast. Created by D’Arcy, Los Angeles, the :30–with a :15 lift-follows the superhero through his adventures in the air and on the ground, blending 2K action scenes from the movie, footage from Activision’s XBOX game and a 3-D title sequence. One of the first challenges was to get the game footage into 2K format. Since the game itself was not created or mastered in HD, but in standard NTSC format, Gaffney arranged for a professional game player from Activision to play the game on-site at TFL. That footage was captured in real time, passed through a time-based corrector to D1 and taken to Swietlik, Santa Monica, where Dan Swietlik offlined the ad. The footage was then return to TFL where Mayor worked on Discreet’s Inferno to treat and optimize the footage for high resolution scaling to 2K. The film elements, scanned from the movie, were provided from Sony Imageworks on DTF-1 data tape format, as 10-bit log Cineon files. Since Inferno works in 12 bit linear color space, Gaffney built a custom Look Up Table (LUT) and Mayor used it for all the imported images to ensure that what was seen on the computer monitor would match that of the film projection in the theater. Once Mayor pulled in all the elements, he assembled a :30 and :15 spot that opens with a D1 version of the film elements, cuts to the 3-D sequence which transitions to the game footage and eventually to an end slate built from graphics supplied on CD. A color correction pass was done on versions for the U.S., France and England to match the highlights from the film to the game footage. The spot was then exported back to DTF-1 and sent to E-Film, Hollywood, for film output to 35mm at 2K. Steve Kochack was TFL’s systems administrator for the IO, supervising the transfer of all files.
Blue Visual Effects, Philadelphia, has added a Discreet Logic Inferno to its post arsenal. The Inferno allows the company’s clients animation, color correction, type and visual effects creation, along with outputting in standard NTSC, HDTV and film. The shop already has the Flame, Combustion, Smoke, After Effects and Avid.
Match Frame, San Antonio, Texas, provided editorial and post for a pair of Western Union ads via Bromley Communications, San Antonino. The :30s "Supervisor" and "Doctor" feature family-oriented vignettes, as a voiceover describes the flexibility and versatility of Western Union in Latin America. For Match Frame, Kreg Lauterbach was offline editor, Andrew Dela Cruz was online editor, Joe Molina was colorist, and Stephanie Schneider supervised the post. The director was Juan Carlos Perez of Miami-based Octane Films.
MUSIC NOTES
Loren Silber of Santa Monica-headquartered POP Sound mixed five :10s for California Cheese via Deutsch LA. The ads feature the tag line, "Great cheese comes from happy cows," and comically highlight th behind-the-scenes antics of making commercials featuring cows. Phillip Hamilton assisted Silber on the audio mixing.
Composer/drummer Mat Walker of Spank! Music and Sound Design, Santa Monica and Chicago, has been drafted by the rock band Garbage. Walker will join the group on the road for a series of concert dates that will take them through the U.K., Europe and Russia. He is filling in for Garbage drummer/producer Butch Vig, on a tour that includes sharing bills with such artists as David Bowie and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Walker’s ad credits include work for such clients as Honda, Gatorade and Coors.
STOCK SHOTS
Creatas, a Peoria, Ill.-based provider of royalty-free photography, footage, illustration and Flash movies, has added new footage spanning a dozen different categories-from kids and families to conceptual backgrounds to contemporary scenes of people at work, and includes more than 1,000 single clips and numerous CD titles. Creatas is now carrying EyeWire’s complete footage collection, as well as introducing five new titles from Triangle Images that explore the classroom, people and home life.
