As VFXWORLD turns its focus in February to commercials, music videos and IDs, Tara DiLullo recently spoke with vfx artist Joe Laffey about his attention-grabbing spec spot, X-GAMES SKATEBOARD. The clever, fast-paced, MTV-style :45 spot features the tardy professional skateboarder, Caine Gayle, defying gravity, narrow alleys and city congestion to catch up to his fellow boarders on their X-Games-bound bus in Los Angeles. Laffey TV, the St. Louis-based animation and vfx arm of Laffey Computer Imaging, created the entire spot for $10,000 by merging greenscreen technology, proprietary free-moving camera techniques and good old-fashioned 2D and 3D animation.

You can read all about it later this week along with Karen Raugust’s account of how Animal Logic has been producing lively 3D-animated interstitials for Cartoon Network’s new international rebranding campaign.

Bill Desowitz
Editor