SHORT CUTS
New York-based Beehive completed a promotion package for Showtime to introduce the network’s new series, Freshman Diaries, a weekly, half-hour series about the first year of college life. The spots use a highly stylized graphic and animation style to set the tone for the young adult/late-teen audience. Beehive’s crew had no moving footage and very few stills to work with, so Tony Castellano, Showtime’s creative director, suggested creating and animating illustrations. They came up with a technique for treating still images, which were shot using a digital camera, and animating them using line art and Flash to produce a posterized, illustrative look. The images were combined with abstract architectural animations reminiscent of the Austin, Texas college campus where the show takes place. Beehive shot four kids in a style similar to the publicity photos of the actual students in the series. The photo series was then looped into a staccato animation style. Beehive’s Ada Whitney was creative director, Jessica Gleason was executive producer, and Marcelo Cardoso was designer/animator.
Creative Group, a postproduction facility in New York, completed work on the show open and bumpers for ABC Sports’ primetime golf event, "Battle at the Bridges." Using The Matrix as inspiration, ABC producers Victor Vitarelli and Sam Silver shot the golfers according to the movie scenes they were trying to recreate. Creative Group’s designer/Flame artist, Miguel Oldenburg, recreated some of the movie’s well-known effects, including streaming digital characters, which reveal the event’s participants. In addition, Oldenburg manipulated the ABC logo, giving it the same treatment as the open from the film. David Klinkowize of Creative Group edited the open and the bumpers on an Avid Symphony. Oldenburg performed the final composite on the Flame. Troy Krueger mixed the audio special effects and music utilizing one of the shop’s three Pro Tools/HD 5.1 surround sound mixing theaters. Additionally, Creative Group created the open for the documentary, The Curse of the Bambino. The open was produced by Black Canyon Productions in conjunction with HBO Sports. Creative Group’s Keith Crago conformed the open in one of the company’s seven Sony component digital online rooms. Oldenburg then gave the open a graphic treatment that portrayed the eerie and mythical feeling that surrounds "the curse." He later added a title animation to the end of the open, and also created a credit bed, as well as promo pages that follow the overall design of the open. Jason O’Leary was graphics producer for Creative Group. The Curse of the Bambino examines the phenomenon of whether or not Boston’s American League baseball franchise has been cursed since Babe Ruth was traded to the archrival New York Yankees in 1920. The film premiered Sept. 16 on HBO.
R!OT, Atlanta, produced a graphics toolkit for TBS SuperStation. The package centers on the cable network’s recently redesigned logo and relaunch, encompassing dozens of live-action elements in four basic design concepts. Collectively, the package provides TBS with the ability to customize IDs, promos, interstitials and other on-air media. R!OT creative director Jeff Doud led a team of artists in taking the project from concept through completion. R!OT’s services included design and direction of a 35mm film shoot using Atlanta-based Turner Studios’ MILO motion control camera, the supervision of the telecine transfer to HD, and Inferno sessions at Turner Productions, Atlanta. R!OT’s Beth Helmer was producer on the project.
MUSIC NOTES
Bicoastal Face The Music made a cameo appearance during the recent MTV Video Music Awards broadcast in the form of a guitar-led track that supported a graphic introducing the award for Best Rock Video. The track was composed and performed by Patrick Doyle and Matt Diehm, and was inspired by the work of Doyle’s band Sputnik Monroe. Doyle’s bandmate, guitarist Noel Bass, appeared on-camera in the graphics as a guitarist performing a heated solo. Mike Schmidt produced and engineered the track for Face The Music.
STOCK SHOTS
Video Tape Library (VTL), Los Angeles, has acquired the exclusive rights to footage of the recent Southern California wildfires, shot by firefighter Captain Al Simmons. Simmons, a 30-year fire department veteran, has shot footage from the front lines for several years, capturing the perspective as only a firefighter can. The footage was shot on Simmons’ off hours from battling the blazes over a six-day period in the San Bernardino, Simi Valley and Lake Arrowhead areas. The footage features burning embers, the burning of land and homes, and the heroic fight the firemen put up to control the fires. VTL was established in 1984. The company’s library includes such categories as historical and news (dating from 1898 to the present), humor, sports, locations, Americana and wildlife. Earlier this year, VTL became the exclusive distributor of the Sony Video Library, by Sony PCL, which includes more than 300 hours of high-definition footage.
CLIPLAND
Kroma, a post/visual effects shop in Los Angeles, used its wizardry to help create a humorous, live-action "cartoon" for "Light Your Ass On Fire," a new Busta Rhymes clip. The track comes from "The Neptunes Present … Clones," a CD release from rap producer Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. In the video, directed by Joseph Kahn of SuperMega Entertainment, Los Angeles, Rhymes and another man, played by actor Bokeem Woodbine, pursue the same woman like a pair of cartoon cats chasing a mouse, their antics enhanced by over-the-top Looney Tunes-style visuals. The men arrive at the woman’s doorstep together, each carrying candy and flowers, and vie for her attention as she does housework. At one point, Rhymes’ rival becomes so excited that his eyes pop out of his skull and his heart thrusts back and forth through his shirt. Kroma’s work on the project included designing the wild graphic that opens the piece, and crafting the numerous sight gags that follow. Artists pulled off the popping eyes and pounding heart effects by adding computer-animated elements to the live action. A similar technique was used to create an effect in which Woodbine’s teeth pop out of his skull and land on a table. Near the end of the clip, Rhymes’ rival is knocked through the roof of the house after he is caught spying on the woman, and sent flying over the horizon. Artists created the sequence from a static shot of the house exterior by producing a 3-D model of the actor using textures drawn from his filmed image, and animated it through the scene. They also painted his exit hole on the side of the house. Kroma employed Avid|DS software for 2-D effects, compositing and finishing. The 3-D elements were created via Softimage|XSI. Credits for Kroma go to lead artist Bert Yukich and executive producer Amy Yukich.
