SHORT CUTS
Creative director/designer Garson Yu of Hollywood-based yU + co collaborated with director Ang Lee in designing the main title for the feature The Hulk. In addition to the main title, Yu was also involved as a visual design consultant on the film, conducting R&D for a split-screen effect used at several junctures in the movie to simulate the experience of reading a comic book. Additional credits for yU + co go to executive producer Jennifer Fong; VFX producer Petra Holtorf; technical director Tara Turner; Inferno artist Conny Fauser; compositor Robert Cribbett; graphic designers Synderela Peng, Yolanda Santosa and Martin Surya; 2-D animator Etsuko Uji; lead 3-D artist Asa Hammond; 3-D animators Shane Zucker and Mitch Deoudes; and editors Emmy Leung and Tony Fulgham.
Crawford Post Production, Atlanta, provided start-to-finish post work for six Icy Hot Back Patch spots featuring basketball star Shaquille O’Neal. After being shot by Caleb Deschanel of Dark Light Pictures, Hollywood, the footage was brought to Crawford for transfer, offline, online, graphics, color correction and audio. Crawford editor David Bush used the Avid DS to perform the conceptualizing, offline, graphics compositing and tracking. Sound designer Dave Wilson of Crawford did the audio sweetening and mixing for the ads using sounds that worked naturally with stop-and-go action. Wilson treated the product section of the shots with a soothing, needledrop music bed. For the crowd, shoe squeaks and ball hits, Wilson chose a more traditional sweetening, mixing actual sounds with drums and other percussion effects. Crawford Post Production is a division of Crawford Communications.
Keith James of charlieuniformtango, Dallas, cut a :30 for Temerlin McClain, Irving, Texas, and its client, La Quinta Inns. "Baggage Claim" was directed by Jordan Brady of Santa Monica production house Area 51 Films. James Rayburn was assistant editor, with Dave Laird completing the Flame work and Russell Smith handling sound design chores.
MUSIC NOTES
New York-based Fearless Music composed music for two Pontiac Vibe ads via Vigilante Group, New York. In "Fuel Band" (:30), composer Jamie Lamm reworked the song "Superstar," by the Washington, D.C.-based band Getaway Car, into the spot. "Superstar" will be available on Getaway Car’s forthcoming CD, which will be released sometime during this summer. The :30 "Fuel DJ" uses a score composed and arranged by Lamm, with sound design by Gabriele Solarino. The commercials broke during the MTV Movie Awards in June.
POP Sound mixer Mitch Dorf is currently working on the audio post for the second consecutive season of NBC’s Crime & Punishment. Dorf, who was named 2002 West Coast Mixer of the Year by the Association of Music Producers (AMP), currently works in POP Sound’s studio H on an AMS Neve Logic 2 console with 32-track audiofile. In July, Dorf will be moving into one of the newly constructed studios at the Santa Monica-headquartered company.
IN GEAR
Grace & Wild Inc., Farmington Hills, Mich., has added nine Avid Media Composer Adrenaline systems with state-of-the-art digital nonlinear accelerator (DNA) hardware at both Griot Editorial, Southfield, Mich., and hdstudios, Farmington Hills. Both companies are divisions of Grace & Wild. Adrenaline offers real-time, multiple stream uncompressed finishing; 24p film offline capabilities for film or TV projects; and built-in high-definition expandability. The new system allows up to five streams of uncompressed standard-definition video; faster system performance including enhanced scrubbing and real-time audio crossfades; and the ability to mix different resolutions within one timeline and transcode between resolutions. Five Adrenaline systems have been installed at Griot, while the other four, in addition to an Avid Unity 2.8 terrabyte storage network, have been added at hdstudios.
AROUND THE DIAL
New York-headquartered Sound Lounge Radio produced a series of controversial radio commercials for New York’s Uniformed Firefighters’ Association protesting Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to close several city fire stations as part of a package of budget cuts. Conceived by New York agency Hill, Holliday, the spots feature a voiceover by actor Denis Leary, and scenarios that portray the closures as threatening public safety. The tagline for the campaign is "Budget cuts are suicide." "Please Hold" has an answering machine picking up a 911 emergency call. A recorded voice notes that "all fire companies in your area are busy," and adds that the nearest station house is eight minutes away. Leary explains that due to the proposed cuts, fire department response times will put the lives of New Yorkers at risk. A similar track is followed in "Message for Mayor Bloomberg" and "Hello and Welcome to … 911," with each of those ads concluding with a phone number for the mayor’s office, encouraging the public to register their protest. Sound Lounge Radio recorded all of the voice talent, created sound design elements and mixed the final spots. In "Hello and Welcome to … 911," engineers created a parody of telephone movie ticket services, with a caller punching his way through an interminable series of menus to report a fire. The studio recorded Leary in his office, sending a remote team to the site with a Macintosh laptop loaded with Digidesign Pro Tools digital audio recording and editing software. Sound Lounge Radio creative director Tony Mennuto directed the talent. Seth Phillips was recording engineer, Gregg Singer served as executive producer, and Phillip Loeb handled the final mix. The spots were on the air within 48 hours of the start of production.
