Bi-coastal directing collective Brand New School (www.brandnewschool.com) recently collaborated with agency Secret Weapon Marketing to create an intriguing new ad campaign for Clear Internet, the company that has blanketed several major cities with wireless Internet access.
Press Release from Brand New School
NEW YORK August 27, 2009: Bi-coastal directing collective Brand New School (www.brandnewschool.com) recently collaborated with agency Secret Weapon Marketing to create an intriguing new ad campaign for Clear Internet, the company that has blanketed several major cities with wireless Internet access. Following a first-person camera view blended with quirky transitions, the spots reveal to potential Clear customers how they can use seamless, high-speed Internet in a collection of locations previously uninhabited by wi-fi, or in this case, wi-max signals.
Directed by Brand New School director/founder Jonathan Notaro, the three-spot campaign conveys the idea of enjoying the comforts of Clear's super fast mobile Internet from anywhere in the city.
He comments, "As a director, it's not everyday that you are honestly impressed with the product or cause you are trying to promote. Often I feel like we are selling elixirs out of the back of a pick-up, but in this case, it's a really impressive product that has the potential to change the way we use the Internet, and how we live wirelessly without bandwidth limitations."
Notaro continues, "I wanted the transitions to have a realistic theatrical feel to them. It's always nice to contrast something technical like a robust wi-max service with something a bit more humorous and unexpected. So we created the transitions from location to location in camera. We pre-visualized the motion, and the sets were built on glides based on the motion established in the 3D previs. The art dept crew became the animators, pulling the individual elements in a complex order that was established after many rehearsals. At one point we counted 14 moving parts all happening in a crowded subway car built on an actual construction site. Adding another fun layer of complexity was the first person POV. We had camera operators wear a helmet cam rig that was built to accommodate a lightweight film camera and wore special viewing goggles that produced a live playback image to see what the lens was looking at. I found it refreshing to play with a new technique and at the same time, let people be people."
"These spots effectively show possible uses for an Internet service, but in a very playful way," says Vadim Turchin, Art Director at Brand New School. "We don't usually think of ourselves as a hardcore visual effects house here, but we had a lot of fun creating these playful transitions and conveying the underlying concept that city dwellers can now do the thing you'd normally do at home or at work anywhere you want to."
In the launch spot the doors of a subway car open, and the scene abruptly changes to two burly construction workers on a job site. The camera pans down to reveal a crystal clear Internet video conference occurring in the midst of construction. No sooner has the video conference been revealed than we see two bare legs recline on a beach chair, and the laptop computer on them uploads a picture of young boy jumping into the pool to YouTube. One thing is clear: if you have an internet-enabled laptop, there is virtually nothing you cannot do anywhere in this city.
"A lot of the appeal of this campaign comes from Jonathan's sense of humor," says Turchin. "He loves to rely on unexpected turns within the piece that will capture and hold the viewers' attention. He tries very hard to capture each moment in a compelling way, and that is what makes these spots special."
It is also what made the spots so challenging. The many transitions in the 30-second spots had to be as seamless and smooth as they were quick. Precise pre-planning was required to ensure that the shoot would go off without a hitch.
"We performed extensive pre-visualization in Autodesk Maya to ensure that the stories would fit well together in such a short span of time," says Turchin. "The transitions had to make sense, so we did a lot of exploratory work in 3D prior to doing any location scouting. By the time we hit the site, we had a very clear idea of how each transition would play out. We used a standard 16 mm camera on the head rig rather than a digital camera, which was a little heavier and constrained the motion a bit, but the eventual effect was great. We were also fortunate to have an excellent compositor in Mark French, who did all of this in Flame."
About Brand New SchoolWith offices in New York and Los Angeles, Brand New School is a bicoastal directing collective working in all fields of commercial art. Ever evolving, the studio continues to cultivate a sense of wonder and exploration. For its artists and clients alike, BNS represents an opportunity to play at work, to conduct experiments in image-making, and to feed the inspiration that drives the industry.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
