Spotlight
J.J. Sedelmaier's Larry the Luger.
J.J. Sedelmaier Productions created Larry the Luger, their fifth commercial for Goodmark's Slim Jim snacks "extreme sports" themed campaign. The 30 second spot was animated by Tom Warburton in a rough, black and white style that looks like scratch-on-film, but was created with traditional drawings composited on a computer by Tape House Computer Ink And Paint. While this one was completed digitally, the first four spots in this campaign, produced by J.J. Sedelmaier, were 15 seconds each and created strictly on film. . . . . The Ink Tank in New York has expanded its production facility to include an additional 650 square feet of space. . . .Curious Pictures' New York facility and staff director Steve Oakes created a 30 second commercial for Oscar Mayer's Lunchables snack product, through the J. Walter Thompson Agency in Chicago. The 3D computer animated spot, entitled High Noon, depicts a brown paper bag lunch and a Lunchables box pitted against each other in an "old western" style set-up. High Noon is airing in a few U.S. spot markets now, and will start airing nationwide in early 1998. . . . Curious Pictures also created Rubio 1 and Rubio 2, a pair of 30 second spots for the Southern California restaurant chain, Rubios. Directed by Steve Oakes, the spot features match sticks, dancing Busby Berkeley-style, animated using a combination of stop motion, table-top photography and motion control camera work. The agency was VitroRoberston in San Diego. . . . In yet another project, Curious Pictures, in collaboration with Tomato, the London-based artists' collective, created a 15 second I.D. spot for Island Records, which will be used on the company's videos and marketing materials. . . . .Viewpoint Studios, a Boston-based broadcast design and animation studio, created the title animation sequence and internal graphics for Science Times, a new television series inspired by The New York Times' science news column, and produced by NyT Television, Pearson Television and The Learning Channel. . . . .Blue Sky completed the second in a series of commercials for Rayovac, following their pilot CGI spot featuring appliances lining up to be filled with batteries. The new 30 second spot, titled Fierce Creatures, stars campaign spokesman Michael Jordan interacting with a CGI "battery-eating" CD Player. . . .
Will Vinton Studio's Clorox
Metal Test.
Portland-based Will Vinton Studios created Metal Test, a commercial for Clorox Bleach, through the DDB Needham agency. Directed by Barry Bruce, the 30 second spot uses 3-D computer generated character animation to depict anthropomorphic bottles of bleach attempting to pass themselves off as Clorox brand. . . . San Francisco-based Luna Cie, Inc. recently created animated segments and effects for two animated music videos. For the band Primus and their song, "Shake Hands With Beef," Luna Cie director/president John Tissavary animated bluescreened CGI wings for live-action characters. For The Charlie Hunter Quartet's song, "Lively Up Yourself," Tissavary created the entire video using grainy Super-8 film composited with computer effects. Both spots utilized Alias Wavefront's PowerAnimator on a Silicon Graphics Indigo2 Extreme workstation. . . . . Loconte Goldman Design created a package of I.D.s, bumpers and motion backgrounds for ABC News' program, Nightline. The spots, featuring animated moving typography, and multi-layered imagery, were created using a variety of techniques including SGI-rendered lighting effects. . . . .Portland-based Will Vinton Studios created Drum Solo, a commercial for BBDO/NY's client's product Doritos Nacho Cheesier. This is the second Doritos commercial created by Vinton in a campaign promoting the snack food as "The Loudest Taste On Earth." The 15 second spot was created using experimental techniques described by director David Daniels as "carefully calculated nonchalance," starting with deliberately scratching live-action film, scanning the images frame-by-frame into a computer, then printing, coloring, texturizing and ultimately re-shooting each frame on film.. . . . Los Angeles-based REZN8 Productions designed an on-air image campaign for Fox Broadcasting Company, promoting the network's daily programming line-ups with a combination of live action, effects and animation. . . . New York's Zander's Animation Parlour completed Talking Eyes, two commercials for Partner's & Shevacks' client, Pfizer, the manufacturer of Visine eye drops. The hand-animated, 15 and 30 second spots depict two simple yet realistically-animated pairs of human eyes, one of them, of course, in bloodshot condition.
Talking
Eyes, a visine commercial by Zander's
Animation Parlour.
Telezign Goes Bicoastal. Telezign,
the ten-year-old New York-based graphics, design and animation studio,
recently "went bicoastal" by opening a Los Angeles studio in
Santa Monica. The new facility, which has already aided the completion
of several productions, is being headed up by Jean Shim as creative director
and Peter Burega as managing director. Both Shim and Burega joined the
company this year. Telezign, which has produced many broadcast i.d. promotional
packages for television networks, hopes the expansion to L.A. will add
more motion picture work to the company's credit list. Most recently, Telezign
has created promos for the TV shows The Keenen Ivory Wayans Show, Wheel
of Fortune and Jeopardy!
Kleiser-Walczak Launches Commercial Division. Kleiser-Walczak
Construction Company, a visual effects firm with offices in North Adams,
Massachusetts and Hollywood, has launched a studio in New York focused
on commercial production. Headed by partners Jeff Kleiser and Diana Walczak,
the company has primarily focused on digital production for feature film
and theme park projects, such as Judge Dredd, Stargate, and currently,
New Line Cinema's Mortal Combat: Annihilation. The New York studio
is already in production on a commercial for Griffin Bacall's toy line
based on the Beast Wars animated series by Mainframe Entertainment.
Animators Ray Haleblian and Josh Reisf have relocated to New York from
the Massachusetts facility, and Kleiser Walczak anticipates several new
hires as well. New York-based commercial rep Alan Brown will continue to
be the New York representative.
Animation World News is compiled daily for publication in the AWN Daily Flash, the weekly Animation Flash email newsletter, and monthly issues of Animation World Magazine.
Send your newsworthy items, press releases, and reels to:
Email: wendyj@awn.com
Fax: (213) 464-5914
Mail: Animation World Magazine
6525 Sunset Blvd. Garden Suite 10, Hollywood, CA 90028 USA
Table of Contents
Feedback?
Past Issues
[about | help
| home | info@awn.com
| mail | register]
© 1997 Animation World Network