METAphrenie, a world renowned, multi-award winning company that creates visual solutions for the global advertising, marketing, and broadcast industries, has designed and produced HD animation appearing on the global website promoting the new Reebok training shoe Zigtech. Andrea Dionisio, Creative and Managing Director, METAphrenie, made the announcement. Hurrah! Marketing, a preeminent rep firm for creative companies, represents METAphrenie, both in the U.S. and internationally.
To view METAphrenie’s work for this project in a linear fashion, please see: <a href="http://www.metaphrenie.com.Reebok/Zigtech/55″>http://www.metaphrenie.com.Reebok/Zigtech/55
To see this work as it appears on Reebok’s website, please see:
http://www.reebok.com/US/more/zigtech
The London-based agency Glue selected METAphrenie for the company’s Zigtech Campaign Spring 2010, which featured the tagline: “Reezig. The energy drink for your feet.” The campaign was designed to promote Reebok Zigtech, a new training shoe with a revolutionary zigzag sole. The unique geometric sole converts the wearer’s downward leg energy into forward propulsion, thus reducing wear and tear on the runner’s key leg muscles.
Mr. Dionisio said, “For this campaign, we needed to create a product showcase, which could ‘live’ as an interactive piece at www.reebok.com. This showcase had to demonstrate the five major features and benefits of the new Zigtech shoe, which were Energy Boost, Lightweight, Flexible, Stable, Less Wear and Tear, and a 360-degree solution.”
Each METAphrenie created animation showcased on the Reebok Zigtech website starts and ends at the same point, allowing for each video to be stitched together. The site opens on a still image (a 3D render) of the Zigtech shoe, and then depicts hotspots on key locations on the runner’s body, so that a visitor to the website can then select a video of that specific product benefit to watch.
Mr. Dionisio adds, “Everything we did on this project was in CG. The shoe was entirely created in 3D, as were the athletes wearing them. We used motion-capture to produce the natural running animations. The original data was then modified to depict the athlete’s start and stop at specific points. The athlete was not the focus of the spots, and was made to fade into the background at specific points. The athlete character was used to showcase the shoe action, and make it believable for viewers.”
The METAphrenie Reebok Zigtech project was produced in HD, and will be featured on in-store video screens as well. The company had a schedule of 3.5 weeks to complete the campaign.
Amr Mohameed Abdel-Hamed, CG Supervisor for METAphrenie, said, “One of our challenges with this assignment was to ensure the trainer was as photo-real as possible, while visually maintaining the balance between the ideal product and the real shoe.”
Adds METAphrenie Art Director Giuseppe Ambrosio, “Since the project was produced in HD and then down-sampled for the web, we had to make sure that all of the details in the textures would still work, and would remain visible at the lesser resolution. Our schedule for this project was also very tight, and we had to produce eight animations for a total length of over two minutes in just a few short weeks.”
CREATIVE CREDITS
CLIENT: Reebok
Design/Production Company: METAphrenie
Creative Director: Andrea Dionisio
Art Director: Giuseppe Ambrosio
CG Supervisor: Amr Mohammed AbdelHamed
CG Artist: Robert Wegemund
Agency: Glue, London
Senior Design Director: Matt Verity
Producers: Graeme Binnington, Carlos Matos, Michael Gondovsky
Music/Sound Design Company: Radium Audio
ABOUT METAPHRENIE
Founded in Berlin, Germany, in 2004, by Creative & Managing Director Andrea Dionisio, and expanding into a second location in Dubai, UAE, in 2009, METAphrenie (which means “Beyond the Mind”) creates award-winning visual solutions for the global advertising, marketing, and broadcast industries. In 2009, the company was the winner of five Promax/BDA Arabia Awards, comprised of three Gold and two Silver trophies. METAphrenie was honored by Promax/BDA for its design work featured in various, on-air promotions which were broadcast on the Al Jazeera Sport television channel, during that network’s coverage of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.
Working across a variety of media, METAphrenie partners with the world’s leading agencies, advertisers and broadcasters to set “Brands in Motion.” Since its inception, the company has created award-winning work for such major clients as Adidas, Audi, Siemens, Reebok, Marlboro Racing, Comedy Central, Porsche Design, Al Jazeera Sport Channel, Al Dawri & Al Kass Sport Channel, Lig TV, and Sky Sport.
METAphrenie founder/owner Andrea Dionisio is an internationally recognized motion graphics designer and producer. Prior to launching his agency in 2004, he was an Associate Creative Director with Eyeball in New York, and previously, a Broadcast Designer with Manhattan Transfer and Meccanica. Dionisio is a graduate of the renowned Parsons School of Design. For more information, please visit www.metaphrenie.com.
ABOUT HURRAH! MARKETING
Launched by longtime Promax/BDA executive Carol Eisenrauch, Hurrah! Marketing specializes in the representation of preeminent creative companies. Julie Sweetwood, VP/Business Development Executive, represents METAphrenie. Hurrah! Marketing’s LA office address is: 1110 S. Robertson Blvd., Suite 5, Los Angeles, CA 90035, the phone is 310.285.0252, and the web is www.hurrahmarketing.com. The company also has a second office on the East Coast — phone is 410-661-1251.
