Hasta La Creative!

VEJA magazine takes us down deep– how deep? Really freaking deep, to show you what it’s like when you go deep into a topic. In this case it’s 5,000 meters. All to make the point that the deeper you go, the uglier it gets. I really like the analogy here, and fewer ones would work better. Not being familiar with the magazine I assume it’s of the investigative journalism kind. If that’s the case, with everything going on in Brazil right now, they have their work cut out for them, I think.

A curling enthusiast gets denied the chance to watch his beloved sport and retreats to his “shiny place,” i.e. playing the mobile game Bejeweled Stars. In it he imagines putting the wifey and dog in place while he rides atop a giant curling stone.

Clash of Kings, is a mobile real time strategy game. To promote the game in the UK, Wasserman created a stunt involving 125 Knights taking to the streets of London to battle evil Lava Monsters. In other words, they hosted a sort of LAARP-meets-renaissance-faire to promote the mobile game. They filmed this stunt during rush hour in London, with a full scale battle re-enactment to bring the experience of playing Clash of Kings to life.
During the battle, some civilians joined in the fun as well.

After the battle, Clash of Kings hosted a free event on Potter’s Field where the knights celebrated their victory, alongside members of the public. The event culminated in a hog roast, ales and small one-on-one knight demonstrations. If you didn’t get a chance to take part, don’t despair. For the next three weeks, knights will be roaming around London to surprise and delight or annoy Londoners during their commute, which they’ll film of course, and push out on their social channels.

There’s not only a practical reason (lots of eyeballs) for hitting up Londoners during their commutes: Simon Couch, business strategy director, experience at Wasserman notes that 65% of all UK Clash of Kings users tend to play on their daily commutes to and from work.

If you haven’t been keeping up with Brazilian politics, you should know that they have a big credibility gap at the moment. To capitalize on this mistrust, 89FM created Truth Detector radio, in which they invited figures from Brazilian society strap into a lie detector and get interviewed to see whether or not they are telling the truth. These interviewees include Oscar Maroni, who sounds like the Larry Flynt of Brazil, and supermodel Renata Kuerten. They even took on Zika with Leonard Weissmann, a government infectologist as well as Inri Cristo who claims to be Jesus.
The results of the lie detector are sent to RDF’s in cars and smart phones.
Neat idea. I was wondering if they’d get any actual politicians on the show. After the success of the first season, for the second season, they decided to invite a bunch of politicians, sending out invitations to 94 of them. None of the politicians accepted. Considering Brazil’s human rights record under its dictatorship, they should consider that a blessing. Esto dizendo, caras.

Director Neil Krug creates a desert in Downtown Los Angeles for Gonjasufi

The video for “The Blame”, a soothing yet melancholy track, features Gonjasufi wandering in solitude amidst a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. In conceptualizing the video, Krug recognized the song’s dark undertones and chose to enhance it with desolate imagery to bring it to life.

Having always had a fascination with the 1970s films The Omega Man and Soylent Green, Krug went back to these films for reference to prior to filming and selected quintessential Los Angeles locations that would be easily recognizable. A major challenge in the production of the video was creating the illusion of a deserted city within a congested urban metropolis.

“When you decide to film in Downtown LA, you concede to the fact that people are going to be everywhere and in every shot no matter how hard you try to block those things from happening,” says Krug. ”The real work was painting all the people out of the backgrounds in post.”

On top of being a talented director and photographer, Krug is also an experienced visual effects artist and did his own effects on the video.

“All the clips have undergone serious paint work to remove people from the backgrounds, says Krug. “Most all of the shots were turned into matte paintings so I could introduce the desert elements without too much heartache.”

For this project Krug teamed up with longtime friend and cinematographer David Myrick, who he has successfully collaborated with on numerous projects in the past.

“The Blame” is from Gonjasufi’s new album MU.ZZ.LE. released through Warp Records.

Filmworkers director Matt Egan creates a trailer worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster for Derek Haas’ new novel “The Right Hand”

Derek Haas has seen a lot of slickly-produced trailers full of pyrotechnics, special effects, and sexy women. They are often part of the marketing campaigns for the films whose screenplays he’s written, films that include 3:10 to Yuma and Wanted. But it’s unusual for one of his spy novels to get the Hollywood treatment.

Yet, a trailer for The Right Hand, Haas’ new book due out in November, looks very much like a preview for a summer blockbuster. A silhouetted figure in a perfectly tailored suit appears in an ominous, nighttime setting. There are guns, bomb blasts, roaring motorcycles and a naked woman with a Medusa’s crown of snakes. Dynamic images flood the screen at heart-pounding speed. A sonorous voice-over refers to “covert operations outside the boundaries of reality.”

This dazzling trailer was produced by Chicago-based Filmworkers. Matt Egan, director of the company’s in-house production unit, concepted, directed and edited the trailer. Additional post-production support (color grading, editorial finishing and other services) was completed by Filmworkers and 3-D animation was supplied by its affiliate, the production studio Vitamin. Egan shot the live action elements on a special effects stage at Resolution Digital Studios.

“The book is very cinematic—it reads like a James Bond or Bourne novel—and we felt it could benefit from a trailer with the emotional intensity of trailers for that type of movie,” Egan explains. “I use a lot of visual metaphors to represent the complexity and suspense of the novel, such as graphical mazes for the plot twists and turns, and the Medusa character who represents a sense of foreboding and parallels the book’s female lead, who is both attractive and dangerous.”

Haas, for one, is impressed with the results. “It’s the best book trailer I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And the response is overwhelming. Entertainment Weekly launched it on their website and everyone is ecstatic. It’s certainly going to drive sales.”

Cost is one reason that trailers are a relative rarity in book publishing, but Filmworkers is hoping to change that. As a boutique option with a huge pool of talent and resources at its disposal, Filmworkers provides soup-to-nuts creative and production services and does so far more efficiently than is possible through traditional production channels.

“Filmworkers can develop, write, design and execute media using in-house resources alone,” explains Bill Ryan, co-founder (with Filmworkers president Reid Brody) of the independent film production company 2DS. Ryan introduced Haas to Filmworkers. “In today’s media landscape, it is possible to promote a book the same way that you promote a movie, so I think there is a lot of potential for the new model Filmworkers has created.”

Filmworkers is located at 232 E. Ohio St. Penthouse, Chicago, IL 60611. For more information, call (312) 664-9333 or visit www.filmworkers.com.

Brand New School Opens Twentieth Anniversary AICP Show, Debuts Historical Interactive Installation at New York’s Museum of Modern Art

NEW YORK – June 6, 2011 – The artists and producers from international production company and design studio Brand New School (BNS, www.brandnewschool.com) are very proud to announce their role in designing and producing several key artistic elements debuting June 7 at the 2011 AICP Show, The Art & Technique of the American Commercial. The annual program, hosted by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), premieres each year at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), before travelling on to high-profile venues in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Miami, and Richmond over the weeks to come.

For 2011, BNS art director Christopher Palazzo and his colleagues created the show graphics packaging for this year’s 20th anniversary AICP Show, while developing and programming the thematically related, 40-foot interactive installation set to debut in MoMA’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at the June 7 event.

“Since this is the 20th anniversary AICP Show, we thought it would be fun to highlight some of the best moments throughout the years,” Palazzo began. “After spending just ten minutes in the footage archives, it was clear that we needed the graphic design of the package to take a back seat to the 20 years of seminal content. We wanted to remind people of these achievements, framing it through a design that — like the content itself — broke some rules but felt very modern.”

For the rich media installation, BNS developed a proprietary machine-vision application, programmed by its very own School of Interactive Media (BNS/SIM) interactive director Justin Bakse, along with lead developer Greg Schomburg and others. The installation instantly delivers excerpts from hundreds of AICP archive spots to all who approach it. “The wall presents an animated attract loop that spans the full canvas of 40 displays,” said Bakse. “As guests walk up to the installation, individual monitors near them display reels showing iconic AICP Show moments from each year.”

The display system for the interactive installation designed and fabricated by McCann Systems of Edison, NJ, features the award-winning Christie(R) MicroTiles(TM) from Christie Digital Systems USA. This is the second year that these two cutting edge companies have joined forces using the MicroTiles System to showcase work for AICP and the advertising industry at MoMA.

“A benchmark year like the 20th anniversary of the AICP Show is bringing out the very best in everyone, as evidenced in the submissions and honorees for this year’s Show and Next Awards. The enthusiasm at this time in our industry, with all of the possibilities on the horizon, gives the perfect opportunity to take a moment to reflect on the evolving craft of the motion image in marketing communications,” said Matt Miller, AICP President and CEO. “Watching the creations of BNS come together over the last months for this year’s titles, and experiencing the interactive installation, is a dream-come-true for those of us who love and honor American Commercials, and the AICP Shows. These works of art from BNS are wonderful tributes to everything the AICP represents, and their collaboration with McCann Systems continues to be an amazing experience.”

At the BNS studio in New York, Palazzo and editor Eli Marvos artfully drew from the AICP Archives to create poignant, entertaining sequences using Final Cut Pro, while designers Freddy Arenas, Scott Balles and other artists created original graphics and animation using Adobe Creative Suite and After Effects.

“The guys at Sacred Noise came through with an incredible custom track for the open,” Palazzo said. “They loved what we were up to. It’s great when people can meet on the same turf and create amazing results.”

After tomorrow night, the BNS/SIM interactive installation will travel on to select AICP Show venues. Also worth noting, last year BNS designed the visual identity system and presentation graphics for the Next Awards, a featured presentation of the AICP Show honoring and examining the best in marketing communications, while also earning top honors in the Next Awards Experiential category for their innovative project promoting Monday Night Football on ESPN.

In addition to Palazzo, Bakse, Schomburg, Arenas and Balles, credits for BNS also include founder and executive creative director Jonathan Notaro, managing director Danny Rosenbloom, executive producers Devin Brook and Jason Cohon, producers Madison Brigode and Joe Balint, animators Hye Sung Park and Raymo Ventura, and production coordinator Zoe Beyer.

For more information on AICP and the AICP Show, please visit www.aicp.com.

About Brand New School
With offices in New York, Los Angeles and London, Brand New School is a vertically integrated production company and design studio that delivers extraordinary media on all platforms. Offering a new model for creative digital production, we are filmmakers, developers, designers, animators, editors, illustrators, and producers dedicated to driving communications to new heights. Akin to leading academic institutions, our guiding philosophies prize experimentation and learning, and our commitment to discovering the best ideas for our clients is absolute. For more information, please visit www.BrandNewSchool.com.

Activision Publishing, Inc. and High Moon Studios tapped Digital Domain and Mothership Director Neil Huxley to create the new teaser trailer for the highly anticipated “TRANSFORMERS: FALL OF CYBERTRON” video game that premiered Monday, June 4, on SpikeTV’s GT.TV. Picking up where the first teaser (December 2011) ended, the new :90 short delivers a fast-paced, high-impact battle sequence revealing new hero characters including fan favorite METROPLEX. The full trailer can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyW5KMMDjZw

Featuring characters from Hasbro’s iconic TRANSFORMERS brand, the piece opens as the AUTOBOTS are locked in battle with the DECEPTICONS. GRIMLOCK is joined in combat against BRUTICUS by two new DINOBOTS, SWOOP and SNARL, as OPTIMUS PRIME is suffering at the hands of MEGATRON, SHOCKWAVE and STARSCREAM. Just as MEGATRON comes in for the final blow, OPTIMUS PRIME unleashes the colossal METROPLEX, who is the size of an entire city. METROPLEX heeds the call of the AUTOBOTS, powering himself with the last of the planet’s ENERGON to offer the first indication that the tides of this war may shift.

“The vision this time around was much more apocalyptic,” said Huxley, who also wrote the piece. “This trailer was all about more destruction, more atmospherics—all much bigger in scope. We had already explored the more emotional side of these characters with a slow-paced, dramatic slice of the story in the first teaser; with this one we shifted gears to accelerate the action. We knew that the client wanted to reveal METROPLEX in the climax of this spot. That was really the jumping off point, and we were given the creative freedom to develop the storyline that would hook the audience back into this world.”

Peter Della Penna, Studio Head at High Moon Studios, said, “With Digital Domain, you know you will always get something beautiful and technically precise. What we learned on this piece is that their work on the story and directing front is equally strong. It was great working with Digital Domain again and getting the full benefit of their creativity.”

The Digital Domain team, led by Digital Domain Visual Effects Supervisor Richard Morton, was able to leverage the digital assets and pipeline developed for the previous “TRANSFORMERS: FALL OF CYBERTRON” trailer, also directed by Huxley, that achieved over six million views online within days of its debut.

On the production side, after Activision approved Huxley’s script, Digital Domain was able to skip the typical pre-visualization step and went straight onto the virtual production stage, framing shots using existing digital assets from the previous piece. By repurposing many of the digital models and environments built for the first trailer, the team was able to significantly compress the production schedule, completing the piece in eight weeks. Hero movements for newly introduced characters were recorded in motion capture, and game assets were rebuilt for high-resolution playback. Working again in Digital Domain’s virtual production studio, Huxley directed the movement of CG sets and motion-capture actors in real time – shooting the CG story with a virtual camera as if he were shooting live action. A team of 14 Digital Domain artists created battling robots that leap, fly and transform across the screen, and extensive smoke and fire that drives the apocalyptic look and feel of the trailer.

Rich Flier, executive producer, business development, Mothership and Digital Domain, said, “Activision wanted another high-impact teaser to galvanize the TRANSFORMERS fan base, but which delivered a completely different pace and feel than the first one. Getting to build a story around the reveal of METROPLEX and other popular characters from the TRANSFORMERS brand was a fantastic opportunity for Neil and the team.”

Game © 2012 Activision Publishing, Inc. ACTIVISION is a registered trademark of Activision Publishing, Inc.

Mathew Cullen of MTh (Motion Theory) directs the newest Target spot, featuring top music act Pink.

This is the long edit, putting together all those situations where the Líbero Spray may be useful. You see Líbero Spray acts like the vanishing spray made popular during the World Cup, and tells people to keep their distance. From the midnight snacks in the fridge. From your school. From you. Do not miss the 30 second breakdowns, like Disco, Teenage daughter and Bedroom, and Night in.

Innovation that has revolutionized football fields everywhere is now within everyone’s reach. An extraordinary invention, that helps men understand the required distance for any situation in life.

“Libero Spray is the same as using referees to explain to a player what is the required distance in a free kick. Our innovative product works the same way in order to explain to any man how much distance he needs to maintain from the TV remote, a diary, or even a person,” explains Diego Barcala, Director of the magazine. “We are thrilled at how the campaign strategy has moved into the territory of product development while keeping the concept, humor and insights that have made our brand grow.”

Líbero, is the magazine that covers culture, style, nostalgia and other content through football. Since the initial launch of the concept, “If you explain with football, you understand” results have been extremely effective. Distribution has grown from only Spain to include México, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia and Portugal. International subscriptions grew by 600% and local by 263% in the first months of the original campaign.

Líbero Spray will be available at select newsstands, on ebay and through the site: spray.revistalibero.com