To promote Windows Server 2008, the most recent release of the Microsoft Windows Server line of operating systems, which was released February 27, a series of three video ads starring a computer-generated robot character are playing at www.serverunleashed.com and other sites. The spots were created by McCann Erickson/San Francisco and produced by Digital Domain/Venice, Calif.
“It’s a major launch for Microsoft, an updated version of their enterprise software and they needed a big campaign, so we came up with the metaphor of the robot,” said Michael Furlong, a creative director at McCann. “The campaign is about reliability and manageability, which we represented with the strength and flexibility of the robot.”
In spots entitled “Command Line,” “Crouching Robot” and “Exerciser,” the robot, nicknamed IT247, is the server, which runs and jumps around the industrial space as two men discuss it.
Digital Domain used motion capture to set up the robot’s moves. “We wanted to have the robot be able to do robotic things and have the flavor of a human being,” said Fred Raimondi, the Digital Domain director. “Rather than have an animator do it, we recorded the motions of a guy in a suit with sensors on his body and applied it to the robot model.” Alex Chansky, an actor who doubled for Spiderman in two movies and has appeared in martial arts films, was filmed in the motion capture sequence.
The two men were shot on green screen with everything else in the spots in 3D. The spots were shot with an Arri D4 digital camera. “It’s fully digital and we didn’t use film,” Raimondi said.
The spots are all :30s but they’re not running on TV in the U.S., although they may in international markets. “Different markets will adapt them for their own usage,” Furlong said. “Here, we’re trying to target IT pros and it’s easier to get them online.” The U.S. campaign runs at www.serverunleashed.com and a number of sites in a media buy, including gadget sites Gizmodo and Crunchgear.
The U.S. campaign also includes two-page magazine spreads.
Furlong said he worked with the McCann office in Japan to coordinate the robot movements because “they’re very sensitive to how robots are represented.” Robots have appeared in ads for Honda and Nissan in Japan, “so we had to make sure the robot was unique,” he said.
The Hottest Ticket At Sundance: Writer-Director Mary Bronstein’s “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
Rose Byrne plays a mother in the midst of a breakdown in the experiential psychological thriller "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You."
Anticipation was high for the A24 film, which will be released sometime this year. Its premiere Friday at the Sundance Film Festival was easily the hottest ticket in town, with even ticketholders unable to get in. Those who did make it into the Library theater were treated to an intense, visceral, inventive story from filmmaker Mary Bronstein that has quickly become one of the festival's must-sees.
Byrne plays Linda, who is barely hanging on while managing her daughter's mysterious illness. She's faced with crisis after crisis, big and small — from the massive, gaping hole in their apartment ceiling that forces them to move to a dingy motel, to an escalating showdown with a parking attendant at a care center. The cracks in her psychological, emotional and physical wellbeing are become too much to bear.
"I'd never seen a movie before where a mother is going through a crisis with a child but our energy is not with the child's struggle, it's with the mother's," Bronstein said at the premiere. "If you're a caretaker, you shouldn't be bothering with yourself at all. It should all be about the person you're taking care of, right? And that is a particular kind of emotional burnout state that I was really interested in exploring."
Byrne and Bronstein went deep in the preparation phase, having long discussions about Linda with the goal of making her as real as possible before the quick, 27-day shoot. Byrne said she was obsessed with figuring out who Linda was before the crisis. The film was in part inspired by Bronstein's experience with her own daughter, but she didn't want to elaborate on the... Read More