Rhinoceros Visual Effects & Design has brightened up six 15-second spots introducing Colgate Total Whitening toothpaste. "Hearts" shows a toothpaste tube floating in a red space until heart-shaped balloons peel away from the background and float skyward revealing the new package in a stunning white environment. "Brightness" opens with the tube on the same red background, when a brightness adjustment bar pops up, goes haywire and turns the background again to white. These first two spots launched in the beginning of February with the others set to roll out in the upcoming months. Rhinoceros' credits include director/creative director Harry Dorrington; executive producers Rick Wagonheim and Michael Miller; senior producer Bennett Lieber; inferno* artist Niklaus Schlumpf; and digital artists Pat Porter and Lynn Bacino for "Curtain", Arman Matin and Jeff Guerrero for "Hearts"; Marc Steinberg and Joon Seolee for "Whiteness" and Marc Steinberg for "Tunnel." The spots were produced for ad agency Young & Rubicam. "The creativity from the agency perspective was brilliant. Emphasizing the product's new whitening capability, each spot had its own hurdle to clear as far as animation and rendering," says Dorrington. "Lighting was one of the most important issues. I always approach CG lighting as I would a film, so there are times when things actually look overexposed to resemble a real film shoot. The requirement was to make the typography on the tube the whitest thing, so we offset it by analyzing various other shades of white and off-white that surround it."
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
