The New York-based design and production studio hey! has wrapped up 22 thirty-second animations for Arista Records. Presented at Bertelsmann Music Group’s marketing conference, hey! created musical sequences highlighting Arista artists Whitney Houston, Santana, Run DMC, Toni Braxton, Carly Simon, Aretha Franklin and many more. "Essentially, we have made stills of the artists come to life by creating 2D animations in inferno*.

Class-Key Chew-Po director Voltaire has wrapped up his first national spot for Kellogg’s PopTarts Pastry Swirls. The spot features cherries parading in a chorus line then diving into a pool of cream cheese. Innovative Business Communications provided the CGI cream cheese so that the fluid nature would be more believable. The commercial was produced for Chicago-based ad agency Leo Burnett.

Eyeball has livened up the newest spot for Nike’s latest shoe line, Presto! The spot that airs in Nike stores shows off the bright colors of the shoes with slick retro style. Director Limore Shur said, "We were after a moving, driving, fun-looking piece to exemplify what the shoes are all about. I think we achieved that. There was a nice aesthetic appeal to the whole thing." Curious Pictures used Adobe After Effects, Illustrator, Photoshop and Discreet edit* to blend the graphics with the colors and product shots.

Ring of Fire has finished two spots for Sony’s Walkman entitled "Spaceship" and "Dorm." Both spots center around the space alien Plato. In "Spaceship" after downloading tunes onto his Sony Memory Stick Walkman, Plato fights Los Angeles traffic in his shuttle on his way to his new college. In "Dorm," Plato enters his room after a shower to find that his female over-night visitor loves the mini disk of songs Plato has made her on his MiniDisk Walkman.

Curious Pictures has completed the opening for the new Cartoon Network series THE BOB CLAMPETT SHOW. The spot highlights the mix of Clampett’s styles from his Warner Bros.’ shorts to his later puppet work. In Flame, the Curious artists created smiles on the puppets’ faces and a film transition into a puppet theatre. Steve Patrick was the creative director for Cartoon Network and Denis Morella directed the open for Curious Pictures.

TOPIX/Mad Dog has created the visual effects for a 30-second spot entitled, "Stuntman" for Clearnet Communications Inc. Highlighting their new wireless phone, Mike, the commercial is airing in Canada. The ad features a stuntman jumping from a building and making phone calls as he descends. Director Chris Wehfritz brought the spot to life without having a real stuntman jump from a building. Wehfritz took footage of a free-falling parachutist and rotoscoped each frame.

Spontaneous Combustion has designed, directed, produced and edited a 30-second spot for Estee Lauder’s new skin refinisher, Idealist. The commercial started with a wire-rail globe spinning and changing into a square, triangle and back to a sphere then finally revealing the new laser technology from Estee Lauder.

Wild Brain has finished three spots for Sony Music Entertainment’s "Pass It On" campaign. "Adventure," "Love" and "Street Party" air exclusively on MTV and highlight several of Sony Music’s top artists by combining live-action music video footage with traditional cel animation. Creative director Ed Bell brought to the project his futuristic hip hop/anime designs, while director Robert Valley helped bring to life the surreal tone of the spots. "Ed Bell created a new genre of animation that isn’t confined by stylistic boundaries," said Valley.

Ring of Fire has created the newest completely CGI spot for Suntrust. "Sunrise/Sunset" is a 30-second commercial that brings to life fire-flies dancing, thunderstorms and a brilliant sun to ring in the bank’s name change from Crestar Bank to Suntrust. Using Maya 2.5, Ring of Fire created motion test rough landscapes for advertising agency West Wayne’s approval. Once the thumbs up was given Ring of Fire artists, led by creative director Jerry Spivack, added richer detail to the long tracking shot that changes from night to day.

hey!, a design and production studio, finished new opens, bumpers and background elements for five History Channel shows. The firm created an open for SPY WEB, revised opens and bumpers for HISTORY’S GREATEST BLUNDERS and WEAPONS AT WAR, and opens for MOVIES IN TIME and HARDCOVER HISTORY. For SPY WEB, hey! used a mainly gray palette and added bits of color to evoke a feel of coded messages. "We had this coding going on in a textured background, with letters that cycle and change and evolve into the SPY WEB logo," said creative director Laura Tolkow.