For the past five years, AWN has put out a call to its readers working in commercials to share their work. Each year the showcase is filled with innovative, funny and eye-popping spots. This year is no exception. It is a collection of commercials representing the best, and diverse, work these production houses are doing. These are ads you definitely don't want to skip past.
[1]
A52 "The simple ideas always seem the hardest to pull off. A52 and the entire team made the very complex process of a whale eating a girl look so simple." -- Jennifer Parke, vp/group creative director at Deutsch.
"Jared did an amazing job directing this. It was a great cast, it was shot extremely well. From the rough-cut to the final version is truly unbelievable; A52's team absolutely brought this spot to life. From my perspective, this is one of the most extraordinary leaps from the rough-cut to the final version of a spot that I have ever worked on." -- Jen Dennis, producer at Deutsch.
A52's team, including vfx supervisor Patrick Murphy, vfx producer Sarah Haynes, 3D supervisor Andy Hall, lead Inferno artist Raul Ortego and others worked closely with the agency and production teams -- including director Jared Hess, line producer Laura Heflin and director of photography Munn Powell -- to determine what needed to be shot during the project's single day of location production, which was filmed at the Olympic Training Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Moving forward with the live-action footage of the divers, A52's post-production work began.
Under Andy Hall's supervision, A52's CGI team of Paulo de Almada and Dan Gutierrez modeled, textured, colored, animated and lit the "hero" whale, as well as a school of fish that appears throughout the spot, using Maya for the animation, and Mental Ray for rendering. From there, Raul Ortego artistically composited in the coral reef and appropriate screens for the Helio device, while also adding the CG fish and whale. His final touch was to color-grade the water to complete the spot's deep-sea illusion.
Credits for Helio Scuba Time
"A52 really brought this concept to life. The work they did on the whale, the color and the environment helped us take this spot to another level." -- Nate Morley, vp/group creative director at Deutsch.
A52
Exec producer: Mark Tobin
Producer: Sarah Haynes
VFX supervisor: Patrick Murphy
Inferno supervisor: Raul Ortego
3D supervisor: Andrew Hall
3D artists: Dan Gutierrez, Paulo de Almada
Deutsch Inc., Los Angeles
Cco: Eric Hirshberg
Group creative directors: Nate Morley, Jennifer Parke
Art director: David Zorn
Copywriter: JD Jurentkuff
Director of broadcast production: Randy Morton
Agency exec producer: Steffi Binder
Agency producer: Jen Dennis
Live-action director: Jared Hess, Moxie Pictures
Live-action director of photography: Munn Powell
Editor: Paul Martinez, Lost Planet
End graphics: Logan
Sound design: Brian Chapman, Beacon Street Studios
Final mix: Robert Feist, Ravenswork
[2]
Acme Filmworks Credits for Powershares Escape Average
Acme Filmworks is home to many of the world's finest animation directors and produces some of the most stylish commercials being created in the word today. Veteran Acme director and Time Squad creator Dave Wasson's latest work is representative of Acme's quality of artistic sophistication. PowerShares Escape Average combines a retro design that includes a classic action chase sequence accompanied by cool jazz that raises the bar for animated advertising. Under a tight deadline, Wasson and his team hand drew storyboards traditionally as well as in Adobe Flash. Wasson's final character designs and backgrounds were completed in Adobe Flash and Adobe After Effects was used for final composite. Euro RSCG of Chicago was the advertising agency to this fast-paced, action-adventure character piece for PowerShares that is a signature Acme FilmWorks production.
Acme Filmworks
Exec producer: Ron Diamond
Co-exec producer: Gwynn Adik
Director/designer: Dave Wasson
Technical director: Nicolas Mermet
Storyboard artists: Dave Wasson, David Knott
Character layout: Saharat Tantivaranyoo
Character animation: James Krenzke, Justin Murphy, Rob Lilly
Assistant animation: James Krenzke, Greg Franklin
AfterEffects artists: Nicolas Mermet, Brendan Burch, Mike Jacobson
Flame artist: Philip Ineno
Exploratory artwork: Bernie Peterson
Production managers: Eric Orner, Kerry Valentine, Brendan Burch
Production assistant: Albert Ramirez
Euro RSCG McConnaughy Tatham/Chicago
Producer: Monica Wilkins
Exec creative director: Blake Ebel
Creative director/copywriter: Elyse McGuire
Creative director/art director: Amanda Butts
[3]
Blur Studio Credits for Eureka Capture
"This all-CG spot is rendered with picture perfect photorealism and uses seemingly impossible camera moves link one scene to the next. We looked for creative ways to showcase each feature of the new Eureka vacuum and give it some personality. Although the agency considered a live-action approach, we strongly advocated CG because it gave us complete control and the flexibility to put the camera anywhere. The key to the spot is that it's more than a simple showcase for the vacuum's features. It's an adventure story. We kept the beginning very clean and simple -- white walls and highly reflective floors -- so that when the full room appears, it feels like a climax. It goes beyond conventional vacuum cleaner ads, yet it's still all about the vacuum." -- Norn Kittiaksorn, creative director.
Creative director/designer: Norn Kittiaksorn
CG supervisor/animation/Layout: Adam Swaab
Creative consultant: Jennifer Miller
Producer: Beth Elder
Lighting/compositing/modeling: Tim Jones
Modeling: Zack Cork
Hair simulation: Becca Baldwin, Jon Jordan
Doner
Vice-chairman/cco: John DeCerchio
Exec producer: Sheldon Cohn
Producer: Agnieszka Palarz
Exec creative director: Gary Wolfson
Creative director: Glen Hilzinger
Art directors: Holly Ensman, Virgil Adams
Writer: Vivian White
[4]
Charlex Like most spots we do, we extensively Pre-Visualize everything, working out timings (tricky for a 15 sec spot), and get everyone on the same page as early as possible.
In addition to the energetic animation style, these characters had to look realistic and delicious, no small feat when dealing with tons of peanuts and crispy chocolate crumbs everywhere!
In the end, we've designed and animated a trio of Hungry Peanut Butter cups evolving their way into something new and tasty, satisfying both our own creative appetite and the clients." -- Anthony Tabtong, animation director
"We took advantage of Maya 8.0's new geoCaching features extensively for this project which allowed the animators to be more free with their techniques, They could use clusters, soft Mods, sculpt deformers or sometimes just remodel using artisan to get the characters into the poses we wanted.
We also decided to use PhysX by Ageia a game physics engine that can be used in Maya. This allowed us to work faster and create more iterations of the peanuts (in the bowl)." -- Stephen K. Mann, lead character td
Credits for Reese's Goin' Nuts
"A lot of work comes through the pipe here and comparing them would be akin to apples and oranges. We are always proud of the character work we do and Reese's is no exception. There is a healthy balance between marketing a product and creating something artful and fun. In this case, the marketing (in which we present how the new Reeses candy bar was conceived) was the fun!
Charlex
Director: Alex Weil
VP/senior graphics editor: Kevin Matuszewski
CG supervisor: Keith McCabe
Animation director: Anthony Tabtong
Lighting director: James Fisher
Lead effects td: Sebastian Marino
Lead character td: Stephen K. Mann
Supervising td/effects: Seth Lippman
Lead modeler: Alex Cheparev
Animators: Adam Burke, Sam Crees, John Wilson, Pat Porter
Lighting Tds: Gong Myung Lee, Cody Chen, Luis Cantillo, Jeff Chavez, Cesar Kuriyama, Keith McMenamy
Character td: Andre Stuppert
Modeling tds: Hungkit Ma, Anthony Patti
Designers: Will Kim, John O'Callaghan
Flame artist: Mike Mendizabal
Sound designer: Chris Afzal
VP/exec producer: Adam Isidore
Producer: Chris Volckmann
Music Company: The Lodge
Translation
Creative director: John McBride
Producers: Courtney Stovall, Joseph Ninivaggi, Lauren Hughes
[5]
Framestore Diarmid Harrison-Murray, senior td, concurs. "The process we developed was interesting, actually," he says, "Dale started off by sketching everything on paper, and this was converted into vector art using Toon Boom, a vector animation package. From Toon Boom the work went through Flash, which gave us a file format that enables getting this 2D curve animation into Houdini.
In Houdini we'd put the animated curves through a feedback loop to generate all of the neons, whether they were on or off, and then we'd reapply their animation back on top of that to tell us which tubes should switch on at which point. So as well as the lighting and rendering, we were building all of the geometry of the neon tubes."
Because of the evolving nature of the project, a fairly automatic, procedural process was desirable. The elements couldn't be hand-modeled, because one change to the animation or design would mean everything would have to be done again. Explains Harrison-Murray, "The system we developed allowed us to plug the 2D animated curves at one end and get out neon tubes at the other end complete with all their bolts and trimming and a suitable amount of natural variation in appearance and behavior: a controllable but automatic process. We had to monitor this and keep an eye out for bugs - but we got a smooth pipeline going eventually."
One of the big challenges in lighting this spot was the question of 'indirect illumination.' In this case all the light cast by the neon lights and bounced around by their surroundings. With a lighting set-up this huge, quite a bit of time had to be spent optimizing a system that would give the indirect illumination and reflections needed, without bringing the render farm to its knees. Says Harrison-Murray, "We were rendering with Renderman, which has various systems in place to help you deal with a ton of geometry without running out of memory. In addition, the reality of production demands means that providing the result looks great, elegant fakery is quite acceptable..."
The architecture behind the look, the series of rendered passes, which create every facet and nuance of light behavior, was devised by Harrison-Murray. Once prepared, these passes were handed to Inferno artist Tim Osborne who prepared the final image, adjusting color values, brightness and contrast to ensure that the neons read correctly against the evening sky.
Credits for Lux (Shine) Neon Girl
Overall, production designer Dale Newton spent some six months on "Neon Girl," which includes a couple of months on inspirational design, through the early animatic work, to full production and delivery. "It didn't feel like an animation project, more like a film making project. It was more of a creative challenge than a technical one, from my point of view," he says, adding with a smile, "Though [senior technical director] Diarmid Harrison-Murray -- who handled the lighting -- might have a different take on it."
Framestore CFC
Production design: Dale Newton
Design: Sylvain Marc
Animators: Dale Newton, Sylvain Marc
Additional animation: Florent de La Taille
Senior technical director: Diarmid Harrison-Murray
Technical directors: Guillame Fradin, David Mellor
Junior technical director: Paul Jones
Modeling: Mary Swinnerton
Senior compositing artist: Tim Osborne
Producer: Scott Griffin
Santo
General cd/art director: Maximiliano Anselmo
General cd: Sebastian Wilhelm
Copywriters: Matias Ballada / Sebastian Wilhelm
Head of production: Facundo Perez
Agency producer: Andres Salmoyraghi
Rattling Stick
Director: Daniel Kleinman
Exec production: Johnnie Frankel
[6]
FuelVFX The Nissan campaign pays tribute to Japan's tradition of manga, an artform that Hollywood has appropriated in blockbusters like The Matrix and, more recently, Transformers. Fuel wanted to pay respect to that tradition and at the same time contribute to the genre by developing something a little different -- a more "organic" animated transition, that blends man and machine into a suit of 21st century armor.
Simon Maddison, Fuel's VFX supervisor on the three spots, explains that, "The organic feel was not altogether straightforward to achieve. Three distinct models needed to be created: the robot, the car, and a 'car/robot hybrid,' which would help blend the shapes and geometry in the transition. The commercials were lensed in and around Sydney, and Maddison was on hand to supervise the visual effects shots, many of which involved either moving cameras or car rigs. "We were mindful of recording HDRI (high dynamic range image) lighting references on location, to apply later in post to the robot animation. In this way we are able to match the live-action lighting conditions and to reflect the city environments in the robot's polished metallic surface, all techniques that help with integrating the CG into the live-action."
Credits Nissan Dualis Pass
Shoji Kawamori, cult Japanese designer and creator of Manga classics like Macross/Robotech and Patlabor, was asked by Nissan to design a robot to represent their new model Nissan Dualis. Given the stature of Kawamori in the Japanese design community, Fuel felt honored to be able to team up again with director, Josh Baker, in the challenge to bring the design to life. In the three spots, Jump, Rise and Pass the driver and the Dualis are transformed into a hybrid robot or "powered suit" representing the vehicle's blend of expert handling and advanced technology. And in the great Manga tradition, when faced with urban gridlock, the Dualis makes his escape in typical anime style.
Fuel
VFX supervisor: Simon Maddison
VFX producer: Dave Kelly
3D lead: Mike Bain
Lead Flame artist: Karen Fabling
Sydney Film Co.
Director: Josh Baker
Producer: Nicole Crozier
[7]
Hornet Credits for eBay Robot
Peter Sluszka spreads holiday cheer in a new spot for eBay, featuring a not so typical family. The spot opens with a superhero dad as he plays with an "it" game, which he keeps away from his son. "It" ornaments decorate the tree while the family robot opens up an "it" present. The spot, done in conjunction with BBDO NY, culminates in a camera move that reveals the context of the snowy day.
Hornet Inc.
Director: Peter Sluszka
Exec producer: Michael Feder
Producer: Greg Bedard
Animation producer: Joel Kretschman
Director of photography: Ivan Abel
Motion control operator: Richard Coppola
Animator: Jason Patterson
Art director: Tim McDonald
Fabricator: Ben Phelan
Storyboard/design: Fred Fassberger
Character design: David Zung
Character fabrication: Nathan Asquith, Julianna Cox
Sculptor: Michael Lawrence
Additional fabrication: Peter Erickson
Compositor: Dan DeGloria, John Earle
Editor: Anita Chao
Production assistants: Aaron Rosenbloom, Ben Ruggerio, Michael Seiser, Ariana Renteria
BBDO NY
ECD: Greg Hahn
SCD: Chris Toland
SCD/art director: James Clunie
SCD/copywriter: Kara Goodrich
Producer: Becky Friedman
Account supervisor: Megan Bundy
Music producer: Loren Parkins
[8]
an ideal world Credits for Wienerschnitzel's Nutter Butter
"A dancing CG hot dog would normally take three months to produce, but the agency needed it in two weeks. After carefully reviewing the boards, we found a way to do it. Our solution was a hybrid approach combining still photography, 2D and 3D animation. We shot still images of cookies and Freezees against greenscreen. We also shot a bar of chocolate after smashing it with a hammer. We pulled the chocolate sequences into Maya to create the streams of chocolate that fly across the sky. We then integrated all of the live elements into our 3D world. For the character, we 'repurposed' animation from an earlier Wienerschnitzel commercial. For one sequence, we animated the hot dog's arms to make it look like he's swimming. The spot is basically a cocktail of pieces we put together through splicing and dicing." -- Robb Hart, creative director
an ideal world
Lead VFX Artist: Sharon Diaz
Director/producer: Robb Hart
Director of photography: Rich Schaefer
Key grip: Tony Perija
Gaffer: Brian Rupp
Production assistant: Kristyn Mancuso
Food stylist: Norman Walton Stewart II
DGWB
Associate creative director: Jim Riddle
Motion graphics artist: Brandt Wiseman
Account supervisor: Michael Gurrieri
Group account director: Doug Koegeboehn
Agency producer: Carlos Gutierrez
Exec creative director: Jon Gothold
Credits for Cover Girl Umbrella
KromA
[9]
"This spot for Cover Girl is based on Rihanna's Umbrella music video and uses water effects that are similar to those we created for the video. Liquid crisscrosses the frame, responding to her hand gestures and other movements. Water elements were shot practically with an HD camera, but were heavily manipulated digitally to make it appear to flick off her arms and conform to the shape of her head. We painted the footage frame by frame, in essence, choreographing the movement of the liquid through the frame while retaining its organic quality and feel." -- Bert Yukich, visual effects supervisor.
KromA, Los Angeles
VFX supervisor: Bert Yukich
Exec producer: Amy Yukich
Reactor Films
Director: Chris Applebaum
Producer: John Hardin
Director of photography: Pierre Rouger
Credits for Prego Olive Oyl
Renegade Animation
[10]
Olive Oyl [10]
"Renegade has had a lot of experience in recreating classic cartoon characters for commercials (Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, SpongeBob SquarePants, and many others) and it's a job we take very seriously. Our animators are cartoon fanatics and treat these characters with reverential care. They also do their research to make sure that they get the nuances of the character exactly right. For the Prego spot, we modeled our Olive Oyl after the character in the Fleischer cartoons. In the commercial, Olive calls the product "Poifect, just like me." Our team went to great lengths to make sure that was true." -- Darrell Van Citters, director.
Animation director: Darrell Van Citters
Producer: Peggy Regan
Animator: Scott O'Brien
Assistant animators: Cathlin Hidalgo Polvani & Randy Sanchez
Effects animation: Joey Mildenberger & Mike Jones
Technical direction: Andy Jolliff
Ink & Paint: Tony Salama, Dillon Markey, Liz Richards
Editorial: Michael D'Ambrosio
Voice of Olive Oyl: Diane Michelle
[11]
Stardust Studios This project's workflow involved providing a written treatment, then styleframes, then fleshing that out to a detailed storyboard. The frames were then put into a boardomatic to pitch music ideas and get a sense of the timing. At that stage, Stardust's team started planning what parts of the project would be 3D, 2D or cel animation and starting to work out what sort of camera moves and transitions the spot would have, mapping out the journey through our fantasy world with a single 3D camera and simple 3D objects which acted as place holders for the creatures and environment.
Once they were comfortable with composition and movement, they broke up the whole piece into sections so that individual artists could focus on their designated areas independently. 3D artists went to work fleshing out the "world" as other 2D and 3D animators and modelers went to work developing the techniques to be used for the visual effects. Each member of the team working on this spot wore a lot of hats throughout the project; no one had one single job to do. They had 3D artists and animators, compositors and designers all working together. Production from animatic to final delivery spanned about three months.
Autodesk Maya is the preferred tool for 3D at Stardust. They used Autodesk 3ds Max for rendering certain scenes as a test for its V-ray renderer. Adobe After Effects was the choice for compositing, 2D animation and effects, allowing them to use the same 3D camera from their Maya scenes exported to After Effects to composite 2D objects and effects in a 3D space. Next Limit's RealFlow liquid simulation program was used to create some liquid effects.
Credits for Presidentti Fantasia
"Finishing the entire spot in full HD was a huge endeavor, as was working with a remote client. In the end, it's a beautiful piece, which grew and changed over the length of the project while staying true to the initial vision. Every one of our designers and animators put a huge amount of effort, time and artistry into it under intense pressure, and we feel the results speak for themselves." -- Alan Bibby, Stardust's project creative director
Stardust Studios
Senior producer: Michael Neithardt
Line producer: Mark Mutschler
Exec creative director: Jake Banks
Creative director: Alan Bibby
Lead designer: Jon Saunders
Designers: Kim Dulaney, Chi Chi Bello
CG director: Carl Mok
3D artists: Carl Mok, Cary Janks, Cavin Thuring, Emil Kahr Nilsson, Elliot Blanchard, Tom Cushwa
2D animators: Carl Mok, Cary Janks, Doug Purver, Emil Kahr Nilsson, Elliot Blanchard, Michele Higa, Chris Smith, Jesse Casey
Compositors: Carl Mok, Cary Janks, Emil Kahr Nilsson
SEK & GREY Oy, Helsinki, Finland
Creative director: Mikko Petäjä
Copywriter: Jusa Valtonen
Exec producer: Olli Korpiala (Front Desk, Helsinki)
Music/sound design composer: Tuomas Kantelinen, Helsinki, Finland
Final Mix: Mikko Oinonen, Soundtrack Studios, Helsinki, Finland
[12]
With A Twist Studios Credits for Amp'd Mobile
"In this spot for cell phone provider Amp'd Mobile, a wave of gold-toned mercury explodes out of a ribbon of asphalt and ultimately forms a customized Motorola Moto Q handset. We created the liquid VFX using Real Flow and, although, the look, texture and motion of the liquid are based on mercury, we took some artistic license. The liquid is an actor in the spot. The movement appears to be organic, but it is actually choreographed to tell a dramatic, visually engaging story -- the shooting angles, too, are intended to heighten the sense of mystery and drama. Choreographing the liquid required a lot of experimentation with the liquid simulation software. We ran a massive amount of simulations to get the right look and performance. We put our whole pipeline to the test. Every resource was dedicated to this project. We had to continually rerun the simulations to perfect the behavior and the choreography--and some simulations took two days to compute. The end shot of the animation sequence, where the mercury reconstitutes itself as the Moto Q phone, involved some 30 layers and more than 100,000 individual particles." -- David Burton, VFX Supervisor
With a Twist
VFX supervisor: David Burton
CG supervisor: Brandon Bartlett
Project lead: Frank Synowicz
Exec producer: Pam Hammarlund
CG artists: Paul LaFond, Ryan Romans, Matt Nowacki, Matt Hammarlund
Matte painter: Chris Bloyer
Studio producer: Kelly Brittingham
Green Dot Films
Directors: Three Legged Legs
[13]
Zoic Studios For Tonguezilla, Zoic accomplished sky replacement, compositing of many city dwellers shot on bluescreen into a miniaturized set, element character duplication and color correction, 2D sparks, smoke effects and lazers, as well as other CG elements such as alternating Lemon and Lime ninja stars.
Credits for Sprite Tonguezilla
Rick DeMott is the managing editor of Animation World Network. In his free time, he works as an animation writer for television. His work on Growing Up Creepie can be seen of Discovery Kids. Previously, he held various production and management positions in the entertainment industry. He is a contributor to the book Animation Art [14] as well as the humor, absurdist and surrealist short story website Unloosen [15].
For Crispin Porter + Bogusky's newest vision of the Spite Sublymonal campaign, Zoic Studios was asked to help design and create various CG elements and finish final compositing of a world of new characters. The majority of the work Zoic Studios performed was in Combustion, After Effects and Flame, but also required Maya and LightWave for many CG elements. Zoic began by shooting lots of different characters and elements on bluescreen for use throughout the various spots in the campaign. Each spot was written as a piece of the entire story that ultimately culminated in explaining why Chris, the main character, was experiencing "Sublymonal" moments throughout his daily life.
Zoic
Creative director: Chris Jones
Compositor: John Shirley
Producer: Maya Sanchez, Chris Wright
Smuggler
Director: Jonathan Watts
DP: Matthew Santos
Exec producers: Patrick Milling Smith, Brian Carmody
Producer: Jeff Miller
Crispin Porter +Bogusky
Cco: Alex Bogusky
Cd/copy writer: Tim Roper
Copy writers: Guy Rooke, Carl Corbitt, Donnel Johnson
Art director: Mike Kohlbecker
Producer: Paul Gunnarson
Spot Welders
Editors: Haines Hall, Damion Clayton
Exec producers: David Glean, Tommy Munrov
Producer: Konda Mason
UPP
Telecine producer: Jitka Chaloupkova
Links:
[1] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+781%29
[2] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+782%29
[3] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+784%29
[4] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+785%29
[5] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+794%29
[6] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+786%29
[7] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+787%29
[8] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+783%29
[9] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+790%29
[10] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+791%29
[11] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+792%29
[12] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+793%29
[13] http://www.awn.com/javascript%3ApopupMediaPlayer%28%27awn-hot-spots-5%27%2C+795%29
[14] http://mag.awn.com/index.php?article_no=2270
[15] http://www.unloosen.com