ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 3.8 - November 1998



Commercials

Wild Brain animated Hershey's Kisses. Images courtesy of Wild Brain.

Seeing Spots. Montreal, Canada-based Productions Pascal Blais completed a 30-second clay-animated commercial for J. Walter Thompson's client Kraft/Oscar Mayer Foods and their product "Lunchables." The spot, titled Kitchen Hoops was directed by Pascal Blais, and is the third in a series of animated spots for this client. It portrays a boy and his father playing a game of basketball, and celebrating afterwards by breaking out the product, "All Star Burgers and Hot Dogs." The commercial is airing nationally in the U.S. . . . . San Francisco-based Wild Brain, Inc. produced two new commercials for Ogilvy & Mather's Hershey's Kisses ad campaign. The two new 15-second spots were directed by Carl Willat, who has directed more than 15 Hershey's Kisses ads over the last decade. Drag Racing, like all previous 15 spots, uses tried-and-true stop-motion. However, for the second spot, titled Fishing, Willat used computer animation, marking the first time CGI has been used in this campaign. Willat insisted, however, that CGI will not replace stop-motion. "Our primary responsibility is to tell the story," he says, "and we must be open to using whatever additional tools are appropriate to help tell that story.". . . .San Francisco-based Radium produced a 30-second animation of the MTV logo for the network's annual MTV Movie Awards show. The sequence is being used as a lead-in to clips of nominees introduced in the show. Artist Alaina Goetz used Maya and Flame to create the piece, which was produced in just three days.

ViewPoint Studios' Modern Marvels main title package for The History Channel. Image courtesy of ViewPoint Studios.

London-based Passion Pictures produced ten seconds of computer animation in two different spots for food supplier, The Co-op. Depicting realistic chickens and a pig, the 3D CG sequences were directed by Chris Knott, using software such as Morph Gizmo for facial animation and the Lightwave plug-in, Steamer for atmospheric haze. . . . New York-based J.J. Sedelmaier Productions created the animation in a two-spot package for Griffin Bacal's client Tonka and their new product, Cool Tools toys. The spots combine live-action with animation of drawings by designer Doug Fraser, animated by Vinnie Bell. J.J. Sedelmaier Productions also created animation in an ad for Hasbro/Parker Brothers' ad for "Family Game Night." The animation is done in a childlike style, directed by Sedelmaier and animated by Tony Eastman. . . . Los Angeles-based Industrial Light & Magic Commercial Productions, a division of ILM parent, Lucas Digital, used animated visual effects in a commercial for First Union. Live actors were composited with a 3D CG environment featuring a floating piggy bank, animated money and other exaggerated elements of the finance world. The production team included director Steve Beck, visual effects supervisor George Murphy and CG lead Tim Stevenson. . . .

Boston-based ViewPoint Studios and Heck Yes! Productions have redesigned the main title animation package for the History Channel's show, Modern Marvels. The 20-second open was created with Flame, compositing motion control photography with animation by Mike Leone of ViewPoint. . . .


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