Disney XD Targets Teens with a Rocking Score from Peligro Music
On February 13, Disney launches a new channel, converting Disney Toon to Disney XD. With programming geared to boys in their early teens, Michael Blum and Tracy Pion of Riverstreet Productions turned to Greg Kuehn of Peligro Music and Sound Design to score the promos, now airing on TV and in theatres.
“The promos were a lot of fun to do, and Disney gave us a lot of room to experiment beyond what they usually do musically,” says Kuehn, who enlisted his teen sons Max and Elvis (of the band Somewhere Else) to perform some of the vocals on the spots, along with Loni Ro and Saint P.
Client: Disney Channel
Exec. Creative Dir.: Jill Hotchkiss
Music/Sound Design: Peligro Music
Composer: Greg Kuehn
Production Compnay/Post Production Company: River street
Ex. Prod./Director: Michael Blum
Creative Director: Tracy Pion
Writer: Tom Pace
Line Producer: Lisa Poncino
Dir. of Photography: Dan Schmit
Post Producer: Sal Jurado
Editor: Tracy Pion
Editor: Galen Herod
Visual Effects: Blur Studio
Visual Effects: Engine Room
resolution LA Enhances ‘Her Morning Elegance’
New Video from Songwriter Oren Lavie Features Actress/Model Shir Shomron Spending the Day in Bed
A formidable creative collective came together recently to craft the music video for “Her Morning Elegance,“ a single from songwriter Oren Lavie, who co-directed the video with the directing/animating husband-and-wife team of Yuval and Merav Nathan. The piece was shot at the Tel-Aviv studio of Eyal Landesman, a leading Israeli photographer who is renowned for his work in the worlds of theatre and dance. Color and Post were done by resolution LA. Actress and model Shir Shomron is the central figure in the video, which chronicles her day using a series of eclectic photographic images, all shot from the ceiling above her bed.
“This is such a clever and entertaining video,” says resolution Senior VFX Supervisor Todd Iorio. “Working with these beautiful and creative images that come together in a literal and emotional sense was a real thrill.”
“Simple technical aspects also played a large part in the final look,” Iorio explains. “Having high-quality digital stills as the foundation gave as a lot of latitude to work with in term of color depth and range. We had that ‘extra’ room to play in the flame and really get the looks we wanted.” Iorio notes that, while there is a great deal of excitement at present about DSLRs getting the ability to record 1080p video, the images are compressed in those modes and latitude is really reduced, making it less than ideal. “This project is really exciting, because it’s the perfect fit for a still camera and plays to all the strengths of shooting RAW with good optics,” he says, “and in the skilled hands of all involved, made for a beautiful end result.”
‘
Her Morning Elegance”
Co-director/Songwriter: Oren Lavie
Co-directors/Animation: Yuval and Merav Nathan
Photographer: Eyal Landesman
Color/Post: resolution LA
VFX Artist/Colorist: Todd Iorio
Presidential Pledge: Arsenal FX Pitches In as Celebs Call for ‘A Day of Service’
Production Company: Katalyst Films
adidas and Sid Lee Enlist RESTLESS’ Wayne Holloway for Celeb-packed Internet Films
When they sit down to a "Poker Game," Kevin Garnett and Young Jeezy have already enjoyed a level of success that allows them to bet big. So, in this viral – one of 6 in a star-studded campaign directed by Wayne Holloway of RESTLESS
The internet campaign, a companion effort to a music video style piece helmed by Nima Nourizadeh of Partizan, was recently introduced with a piece that shows Russell Simmons on the phone inviting some of his A-List celebrity friends (Garnett, David Beckham, Missy Elliott, Run DMC, and others) to a "House Party" to celebrate the 60th year anniversary of adidas.
The party in question is the coming-together of stars, past and present, who’ve helped imprint the adidas brand over the years. The house itself was in Beverly Hills and with all this talent converging over a week’s time to participate in the "party," Sid Lee saw a wonderful opportunity to capture the celebs interacting with each other and to craft some dialogue-driven viral films. "This type of collaborative, craft-as-you-go project fits Wayne’s talents perfectly. It was exciting and felt very modern" said RESTLESS Co-Founder and Executive Producer Bryan Farhy.
Holloway and Kristian Manchester (Co-founder and CD at Sid Lee) developed 6 viral concepts for the shoot, to be rolled out in coming weeks. The internet films will also begin playing in adidas stores worldwide. Holloway not only got the stars to have fun, he elicited some extremely rare performances, including Simmons rapping "My Adidas." Simmons and Rick Rubin produced the song for Run DMC in 1986, contributing to an adidas craze that swept the nation; this marks the first time in, perhaps, 20 years, that Simmons has performed it.
Client: adidas originals
Spots Title(s): "House Party," "Poker Game"
First Air Date: 12/25/08
Agency: Sid Lee
Creative Director: Kristian Manchester
Agency Producer: Claudia Roy
Production Company: RESTLESS
Director: Wayne Holloway
DP: Kyle Brown/Chris Probst
EP(s): Bryan Farhy
Producer: Claudia Roy
Editorial: Sid Lee
Telecine: Riot
Colorist: Stephan Sonnenfeld
Post/Effects: Method
Music: Massive Music
Composer: Pilooski@Boogie Studio
Shoot Location: Beverly Hills, CA
Talent: Kevin Garnett, David Beckham,
Russell Simmons, Missy Elliott, Young
Jeezy, Katie Perry.
TNT Explodes with Rebrand from PrimalScream Music
Among PrimalScream Music’s latest efforts is a complete rebrand of network TNT (home to debuting series "Trust Me," which centers around the ad biz). For that project, Dionne flew to New York City to meet up with Lucinda Williams’ band, Buick 6, during a cross-country tour. "We would write and rehearse the TNT songs in the green room at the venue," Dionne recalled, "and then record the band on stage between sound check and their gig. So, it was a rare opportunity to get a live sound and there was an amazing energy on those recordings." The TNT campaign also reunited PrimalScream with Troika Design Group, with whom they worked on the hugely successful Starz! rebrand.
Client: TNT Redesign
Spot Title(s): 1, 2, and 3
air date: December 7, 2008
Agency: Troika Design Group
Producer: Kristen Olsen
Creative Director: Dan Pappalardo
Production Company: Troika Design Group
Director: Reid Thompson
Editorial Company: Troika Design Group
Editor: Hans Carillo
Music: PrimalScream Music
Executive Producer: Nicole Dionne
Read More »
Production & Post – “It’s Amazing”
Co-director Saam Gabbay offers insight into production and post on "It’s Amazing"
PRODUCTION
We had three cameras, one shooting time-lapse on the roof for the sunrise/sunset shots, then two on stage with one usually with a lensbaby (a cheap tilt shift lens) or a canon 24mm tilt shift (an expensive tilt shift lens). I shoot with EOS 1D Mark iii because it’s a fantastic camera and is fast as all hell. 
We set up a computer station with laptop and two external firewire drives, about 8 16GB SD cards. Total take for the entire shoot was 26 GB of jpegs shot at just over HD quality. 25,632 photos in total from three cameras.
In each setup, I would shoot the main camera while Michael Crook or Gabriella Kashani shot the other, sometimes switching. I wanted to let everyone shoot because it’s so fun and because I wanted to get unexpected footage. Everyone was allowed to comment on anything on set and there was a great spirit of cooperation. What was amazing was how (wardrobe stylist) Jennifer Giersbrook’s group, Kathy (amazing makeup), Aviva (hair), and Jem were in such great sync, choosing which character to shoot next on the fly. It was like clockwork.
I shoot staggered and try to mimic the human eye, jumping around and focusing on this and that and whatever is in the vicinity while the subject is still somehow in frame. I love shooting with a very narrow depth of field so I tend to shoot with a Canon 85mm f1.2 for most of the blurry stuff. My first films were never edited. All the choppiness and subject transitions were done in camera and animated as shot. We shot three takes of the song all the way through, two at the piano (really a hollowed out organ) and one standing with a gold mic from my studio. We started to move extremely quickly which is always dangerous… sometimes blasting through a set-up in 10 minutes.
Lighting was a huge and continual challenge as the day changed. Michael was a master at finding solutions and she, Gabriella and Jeff Adelman really rocked it in that department.
Coolest thing about the shoot was that Jem had already started editing it to the song in her head and I was freed up to just shoot. She did a great job of spacing out the characters and it took our trust to a new level. I would run in after a set up and we would have a quick chat as she was being made up and dressed with the script in her hand. We communicated in the zone with few words and it went flawlessly. True on-the-fly dialogue and in-the-zone collaboration. I loved it. Total trust.
POST
I split the photos into 3 categories – environment, non-sync, and synced. The environment and non-sync versions were animated into footage over the weekend with a framerate that Jem had liked during our tests. When she came to edit with me on Monday, I had made offline versions of the clips and set her up on final cut pro to mark and label her favorites. I then animated the syncs with a combination of time remapping and eye-matching each take. It took about 14 hours to sync and I was delighted that it worked.
We started editing by laying out all the selects from the 3 sync takes. The primary goal of this video was to show Jem singing so we spent a lot of time making sure we like all the singing bits. Whatever holes remained would be filled by our cast of characters. 
Imagine using 1500 photos from almost 26,000.
Editing was a heartbreak, there was so much good material. Perhaps the time constraints were a good thing in that respect as we couldn’t get too attached. It had to be locked down and there were very few changes (maybe one scene) from our first cut.
My favorite thing to do is to think about reverse angles and telling the story (editing) on the fly. You can see that the end of the Jem video flows quite naturally and this is how I like to work, kind of getting in touch with the entire environment and letting myself get into a flow-state, letting my hands tell the story while my mind tracks the environment. It’s a really great feeling.
The edit was approved by all and Jem was on a plane the next morning. I scaled the film down from HD to PAL as required by the label. We may make the HD version later but HD is 16:9 and photos are 
3:2 so we would lose quite a bit in the crop. I rendered an uncompressed quicktime and sent it to RIOT Santa Monica on a drive. They loaded it up in their tape-to-tape and I had a session with Marcelo Aprile to do some correcting and having some fun with the color, though most all of it was as-is, nothing strong. Things like making the sunset warmer and taking some yellow out of one of the lights. The end in particular was left mostly alone. We laid back to tape and also rendered back out to drive so I could post it on the web.
POST POST
What I loved about Jem was that, once given space, she’s huge. She had such a strong storytelling sense about her, a great vision, and a very keen sense for "what is right." She knows what works and that is a huge asset to have in a partner. She was able to really ride the line between art, pop, business and self quite gracefully and I think that is what makes her so special as an artist. I really liked the entire experience and though she claims to have learned a lot (especially about after effects and final cut pro), it’s actually me who learned from her. She deserves every good fortune she gets.
Read More »
Henry Littlechild of Outsider Helms ‘Unhealthy’ Cautionary Tale (or Tail) for Pfizer
“The agency and client both said ‘Don’t hold back!’” recalls Outsider director Henry Littlechild of his latest spot endeavor. “They really encouraged to make it as gross as it could be.”
The ad, created via Langland and driving viewers to www.realdanger.co.uk, begins innocently enough: a man opens a nondescript packet of tablets and pops one in his mouth. He is about to wash it down with some water, when a strange – and disturbing – feeling comes over him. Something is coming up in his throat. He opens his mouth to discover a tail coming out of it…followed by the entire carcass of a dead rat.
The VO explains that rat poison is only one of the “Unhealthy” ingredients found in fake medicines purchased from illegal websites. Sponsored by Pfizer, the piece is a warning, not a drug ad. “This was a fantastic script,” says Littlechild. “The way it was written allowed for a lot of scope. I was able to play with it, and, needless to say there were many possible approaches to the execution.”
The particulars of said execution are not for the faint of heart, so those who could not stomach the actual spot might best be advised to skip over the following: “Naturally, we did not ask our actor to ingest and regurgitate an actual rat,” says Littlechild. “What we did was have him stuff a sponge (outfitted with a fake tail) in his mouth. This was the best way to get the physicality required.” Now, for the ‘ewww’ moment: “To create the matching effect, we pushed actual dead rats through stretched latex designed to look like human lips and skin. This was not a glamorous shoot.”
Creating the spot for the cinema was another draw for Littlechild. “Its pretty great to think that the rat on the floor will be 20 feet across onscreen. That’s pretty powerful. And the idea of people having a mouthful of popcorn when they see this – I can only imagine their reactions.”
Reactions have been strong, and positive. Just launched in cinemas throughout Europe, “Unhealthy” has already been covered on British television, where it was featured on the evening report “News at 10.”
Client: Pfizer
Product: Real Danger
Title: Unhealthy
Production Company: Outsider
Director: Henry Littlechild
Producer: Ben Roberts
DOP: Stuart Graham
Agency: Langland
Creative Director: Andrew Spurgeon
Producer: Nigel Foster
Editor: Joe Guest @ Final Cut
Post: The Mill
Outsider Director Jorn Threlfall Delivers Audi in the Abstract
“Lines,” the latest spot from director Jorn Threlfall of Outsider, showcases the new Audi A4L using a striking combination of live action, line animation, and the Shanghai cityscape. “What attracted me to this project was the idea of making an abstract film,” Threlfall explains. “Watching the spot, you don’t even know it’s a car at first. I saw in ‘Lines’ the opportunity to create something quite beautiful and novel. The opening visuals are about setting a scene and creating an ambiance.”
Threlfall was also intrigued by the task of integrating the more eclectic visuals with stylized footage of the car. “The board was quite comprehensive but more about imagery than narrative,” says Threlfall, who worked very closely with Lintas China and the client throughout. “The client wanted to forge something new and original for Audi,” he recalls. “They were willing to experiment visually but also wanted to convey humanity, and for that we conceived the opening shot of a line becoming a woman’s eye. it’s a small moment but it connects. Touches like that were critical to the success of the spot.”
Shooting on location in China was a new experience for Threlfall, one that proved as rewarding as it was challenging. “The infrastructure for production is quite different,” he notes. “It’s very difficult to lock off roads, or to stop traffic – you’ll never get a shot of an empty block in downtown Shanghai. We had to find those little corners or roads under construction that we could exploit. Also, they turn all the lights off inside office buildings at 10 pm, which makes it hard to do a night shot of the city – your backdrop disappears into darkness! This was the first time I’ve worked with a white car, you don’t often see them in spots, but white is extremely popular and the new aspirational car for the up and coming Chinese car buyer. I enjoy tackling these issues and finding solutions. It’s hard work, both winning and executing a job like this, but we were treated very well, and it was a very enriching experience. I loved the crew, and look forward to going back there and shooting again.”
Client: Audi
Spot Title: “Lines”
Air Date: January 12, 2009
Agency: Lintas China
Executive Creative Director: Danny Zheng
Group CD: Andy Wu
CD: Simon Pang
Head of TV: Jane Cao
Production Company/China: Tewntyone Plus
Producer: Sally Fu
Production Company: Outsider
Director: Jorn Threlfall
Producer Benji Howell
DOP: Ekkehart Pollack
Editorial: The Whitehouse
Editor: Ben Stephens
Post: Concrete
Read More »
RESTLESS Director Wayne Holloway Turns a ‘Bad Day’ Into a Great Opportunity for NFL Fans
Comic vignettes convey the losing stats – and the most crushing moments – of Fantasy Football fans, in “Bad Day,” helmed by Wayne Holloway of RESTLESS and airing nationally. The good news for fans is that the dream is still alive – NFL.com’s Fantasy Playoff challenge is happening now, it’s free, and contestants can win a trip to next year’s Super Bowl. The contest ends February 1, so wipe away that wet mascara and enter now.
Client: NFL
Spots Title(s): “Bad Day”
First Air Date: 12/29/08
Agency: Mering Carson
Creative Director: Greg Carson
Agency Producer: Liz Ross
Production Company: RESTLESS
Director: Wayne Holloway
DP: Jonathan Brown
EP(s): Bryan Farhy
Producer: Marla Whittaker
Editorial: Union
Editor: Jim Haygood
Editorial EP: Michael Raimondi
Telecine: Union
Colorist: Stephan Sonnenfeld
Shoot Location: Burbank, CA
Read More »Heineken ‘Blind Date’ Spec is a Thing of Beauty
David Incorvaia helmed this spec, in which a man goes to great lengths to keep his last Heineken from falling into the clutches of a "Blind Date."
Credits:
Director/writer: David Incorvaia
Production company: Big Fish Film production, Germany
Producer: Robert Gold
DP: Peter J. Krause
Production Design: Claudia Sembach
