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Following a number of recent collaborations with Animal Planet on projects including a tribute to the late Steve Irwin and promo packaging for the hit series ‘Meerkat Manor,’ the image makers at ZONA Design have once again partnered with the network to create brand identity for the network recently launched national non-profit campaign R.O.A.R. (Reach Out. Act. Respond.). ZONA Design established a number of key elements for the animal advocacy campaign, including the logo, color branding, font family and style guide. The R.O.A.R. initiative was established to lead the way in taking action on being a voice for animals, with major campaign elements first launched on-air in mid-October.

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ZONA Design, the New York-based innovative design agency, is known for its creation of distinctive marks and the way in which Creative Director/Designer Zoa Martinez, and her team, integrate color branding, typography, composition and choreography – attributes which ZONA clients repeatedly seek out.

R.O.A.R. aims to inspire individuals to make the world a better place for all animals that inhabit the earth, sea and skies, wild or domestic. Simple things like volunteering at shelters, spreading the word about conservation, or supporting a favorite animal cause all have a positive impact. To this end, Animal Planet has aligned itself with a powerful roster of leading animal and environmental organizations including: The American Humane Association (AHA); The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA); The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA); The Earthwatch Institute; EcoZone; The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS); The National Wildlife Federation (NWF); Roots & Shoots, a program of the Jane Goodall Institute; Steve Irwin Wildlife Warriors; and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

‘We created an identity and mark that complimented the existing Animal Planet logo and also stood on its own for this new non-profit venture. We created a corporate brand that would take into account the identities of Animal Planet powerful partners, a roster of leading animal and environmental organizations,’ explained ZONA Creative Director/Designer Zoa Martinez. ‘The Animal Planet logo has the silhouette of an elephant and to extend that identity I felt that for R.O.A.R. we would bring in the rest of the animal kingdom. We kept the same horizon line and extended the geometry to fit the landscape ratio. The design is bold and simple and reflects the brand in print and on-air,’ she continued.

‘Our creative partnership with Zona proved to be a perfect match for the R.O.A.R. project,’ stated Animal Planet VP/Creative Director Gheri Arnold. ‘Their innovative approach really brought this wonderful animal advocacy initiative to life.’

‘We are image makers who create solutions for a wide range of audiences in all forms of media communication. ZONA has designed everything from award winning sets and custom furnishings to programming and promotion packages for broadcast. In addition, clients have come to rely on us for creating unique high profile identities like R.O.A.R. Our many logo and identity design awards from GDUSA, Logo Lounge and PROMAX/BDA show that our peers and clients recognize this strength in ZONA Design body of work,’ added ZONA Design Vice President and Executive Producer Dennis Fluet.

The ZONA design team, known for their distinctive and effective designs, was led by Creative Director/Designer Zoa Martinez, and included Executive Producer Dennis Fluet, Senior Designer Mark Lee, Designer Agnes Nowakowska, Senior Compositor/Animator Andre Sam and Editor Supara Sophnowasu. ZONA utilized Adobe After Effects, Illustrator and Photoshop, and Apple Final Cut Pro in the execution of this project.

Representing Animal Planet were VP/Creative Director Gheri Arnold, Creative Director Brad Branch, Supervising Producer Rich Malave and Marketing Manager Zoe Paglee.

About ZONA Design
ZONA Design , founded in 1999, is an award winning multi-disciplined design agency creating results driven work that is bold and direct for all points of contact with the consumer in the general, Hispanic, and youth markets. The company portfolio includes high profile projects for Disney/ESPN Networks, AOL Time Warner Networks, 5Boro Skateboards, Discovery Communications, Encore Media Group, Rainbow Media Holdings, Chrysler, Dodge, and the various A&E Networks.

About Animal Planet
Animal Planet , available in more than 89 million homes nationwide, is the only television network dedicated exclusively to the connection between humans and animals. The network brings people of all ages together by tapping into a fundamental fascination with animals through an array of fresh programming that includes humor, competition, drama and spectacle from the animal kingdom. Animal Planet is a property of Discovery Communications, the leading global real-world media and entertainment company.

Popularity: 3% [?]

New indie film and television production company Romantic Troubadour Entertainment is up and running. Certainly not an ordinary company name, Romantic Troubadour founder Jerry Schram believes the human eye must see through the heart, and music is the window to the soul.

“Romantic love is often dismissed as blind, mindless, irrational, immature and transitory. But I believe the opposite is true,” Schram said. “Romance is full of visionary thoughts and feelings, often characterized by freedom of original form and spirit; it integrates the mind and body,” Schram explained. “When you add original music, you end up with one of life’s most important achievements.” In considering projects, he asks himself, “Will the story impact the way somebody understands the world or interprets the changing times we live in?”

Romantic Troubadour’s production of “Insidious,” a visionary and compelling story with a strong message, is slated to begin shooting next month in New York City.

Rounding out the principals of the company are Glenn Wenzel, an entrepreneur who was involved with the merger or acquisition of over one hundred companies while working for a major Wall Street investment bank, and James Schram, a recent university graduate, and up-and-coming actor/director/writer, in New York City.

In addition to “Insidious,” Romantic Troubadour has several other projects in different stages of development. To learn more about the company, its projects or its philosophy, visit www.romantictroubadour.com.

Popularity: 3% [?]

LOOK Effects today announced it was the sole vendor providing visual effects for the upcoming Sylvester Stallone picture, Rocky Balboa (Sony Pictures). LOOK worked on over 150 shots in the movie, which is produced by and stars, Sylvester Stallone, and is scheduled for release in December 2006.

In Rocky Balboa LOOK Effects sought to recreate the atmosphere that accompanies a sold out world-title fight. In bringing this atmosphere to the screen LOOK ensured that Rocky Balboa is far larger in scope and scale than any other boxing movie. LOOK’s crowd duplication work in the film allowed Rocky to fight in front of a sold out house at Mandalay Bay enabling audiences to truly experience the intensity and electricity of a world championship title bout.

In a separate sequence, the movie’s culminating fight scene, further enhancing the movie’s atmosphere LOOK actually stitched footage of a Stallone fight onto stock footage taken in the MGM Grand. The ring replacement meant that Rocky was able to fight against a live audience that was actually watching an Oscar De La Hoya title fight, adding a level of reality to the bout that’s often missing in movies solely relying on wide stadium shots or stadium extras.

“We were delighted to be the sole vendor working on Rocky Balboa,” said Mark Driscoll, President and Founder of LOOK Effects. “Working creatively with Stallone to put his vision on screen has been a real pleasure. At LOOK, we consistently strive to work collaboratively with directors from the onset, and I think this is reflected in the quality of our final product.”

About LOOK Effects
LOOK Effects is a leading provider of digital effects solutions for feature film, entertainment television and commercial projects with its services including digital effects design, supervision and production, 3D animation, including full 3D character animation and compositing services. Its team of diversely talented artists, designers and producers has pioneered a flexible production model that enables them to achieve stunning results to efficiently realize creative visions. Look Effects is available on the Web at www.lookfx.com /.

Popularity: 2% [?]

ILM just launched a flash based VFX website showcasing their work on the second installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series! Its loaded with VFX articles and behind the scenes information. This is really the first site of its kind and it goes in depth into the visual effects process and behind the scenes like never before!

It includes a awesome, full scale textured 3d browser that showcases the main characters they created, Davey Jones, Clanker, Koleniko and Maccus and includes behind the scenes trivia about the creation of the characters.

“Because director Gore Verbiiski was worried that the animators couldn’t reproduce Bill Nighy’s eyes in tight close-ups, Nighy wore special makeup during filming so that the effects crew could insert his real eyes into the CG character.

But, that was never necessary. Giving Davey Jones the best CG eyes ever seen in a film was a team effort by modelers Geoff Campbell and Jung Seung Hong, look developer Damian Steel, and painter Steve Walton who paid meticulous attention to Bill Nighy’s eyes.”

The site also includes an interactive viewer that allows you to see what the footage looked like when it was shot, and what it looked like after the VFX magic was done and the scene was finished!

“As beautiful as the island of Dominica is, director Gore Verbiniski felt that the skylines were not dramatic enough. So ILM replaced the backgrounds for almost every shot on Cannibal Island”

It also has a great section on artists technique that goes in depth into the art direction and different ways the artists helped to model the outcome of the movie!

“In any visual effects film, someone has to transfer the ideas in the filmmakers’ minds into something the visual effects crew can make real. Often, that someone is an art director or concept artist.”

The site is awesome, check it out here! You can also visit the officail movie website here http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/pirates/ or see the trailers here http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/piratesofthecaribbeandeadmanschest/

www.ilm.com/theshow

Popularity: 3% [?]

Most people associate champagne with celebration. This year, Korbel, America’s #1 selling California premium champagne, takes the iconic New Year’s beverage to new heights in a beautifully produced series of video banner ads that invite the viewer to imagine “what your Korbel will become.” The ads entice us to imagine two champagne cocktail treats – the Korbel Blue Hawaiian and The Korbel Royale. Both will appear above the crowds on the Times Square Jumbotron and the ABC SuperSign and online as web banners. The project is a result of collaboration between Carmichael Lynch and GASKET Studios.

For a brand that has been “turning moments into memories since 1882,” the agency (Carmichael Lynch) wanted to evoke imagery that had year round appeal while still appropriate for New Year reveling. Having worked with animation production company Gasket on an integrated campaign for A.G. Edwards, Carmichael Lynch turned to animation again to realize the concept.

Gasket wanted to create a “visual taste” –what a Korbel Blue Hawaiian tastes like in animation, evoking all those relaxing tropical experiences. They knew the final animation product would lend itself to other media beyond web banners. So Gasket went to work pouring creative and layering into the spots so they would leap off the screen. The concepts were creatively pushed beyond expected standards for a web campaign. Once Korbel and Carmichael Lynch saw the result, they wanted more. The ABC SuperSign & JumboTron were the next perfect incarnations of the campaign.

“One of the most exciting aspects of this project was that it required a lot of R&D, on the fly, to create web ads that had an incredible amount of depth and an intensive amount of integrated elements,” says Gasket Studios founder Greg Shultz. “Fluidity, fun, Americana and nostalgia are mixed with a very current aesthetic – the very essence of the Korbel champagne cocktails.”

CREDITS
Client: Korbel
Spot titles/Length: 15 sec Web Banners
Times Square JumboTron & and ABC SuperSign

“Blue Hawaiian” & “Royale”
Jumbotron Launch: December 15
Web launch: December

Advertising Agency: Carmichael Lynch/Minneapolis
ECD: Tim Brunelle
AD: Bill Lee
CW: Ryan Inda
Developer: Marc Bloomquist
Interactive Producer: Paul Aaron
Animation/Visual Effects Company: Gasket Studios
Designer/VFX Director: Greg Shultz
Animators: Justin Greiner, Dan Helgemoe, Matt Sattler
Producer: Tammy Kimbler Weber

Popularity: 3% [?]

Luma Pictures helped to recreate the world of Pre-Columbian America?Äîin all its breathtaking beauty and grim violence?Äîin providing visual effects services for Apocalypto, the new, epic feature film from director Mel Gibson and Buena Vista Pictures. The studio produced nearly 70, visual effects shots for the film, including its opening scene, a stunning, 1300 frame sequence showing Mayan hunters pursuing a taper through the jungle. Luma also contributed to many scenes depicting brutal warfare and other violence, among them one of the film most powerful sequences depicting, in explicit detail, a ritual human sacrifice.

For the film opening scene, Luma Pictures created a CG butterfly and composited it into a live action background plate. The camera follows the butterfly as it nimbly threads its way through the dense foliage of the rainforest until it chances upon the scene of the tapir hunt. Luma also digitally retimed the sequence, from the moment of the tapir first appearance, to increase its dramatic impact.

The butterfly sequence was among a package of some 30 visual effects shots that Luma was initially awarded for Apocalypto that also included a digital waterfall, enhancements to animal stand-ins and some of the most difficult wire and rig removal shots in the film. Its success in delivering the initial sequences helped the studio to win a second, more complicated, group of shots.

‘Ted Rae (the film Visual Effects Supervisor) and Kim Jorgensen (the Visual Effects Producer) were very impressed with the realism of our work and the way we were able to accommodate their needs quickly,’ explained Luma Pictures Visual Effects Producer Glenn Morris. ‘They had some additional shots that included CG weapons and gore enhancements, and they felt that we were one of the only vendors with the capability to execute within their time and budget constraints.’

Among the most challenging?‚àö√ë‚àö√Üand memorable?‚àö√ë‚àö√Üof those scenes is one depicting a human sacrifice. In the film, a man is bound, painted blue and taken to the top of a pyramid where his head is chopped off. For this riveting sequence, Luma role was to digitally remove the head of a stuntman (playing the executed prisoner) and replace it with a CG stump complete with blood spurts. ‘Removing the stunt actor head and making it look like he was actually decapitated as his body topples down the temple steps was a real challenge,’ added Compositing Supervisor Justin Johnson. ‘It required an extremely accurate match move and realistic 3D integration but we pulled it off.’

Luma also worked on a series of shots for a sequence in which a group of prisoners is set free, only to have to run for their lives as their captors hurl rocks, arrows and spears at them for entertainment. Most of the shots in the sequence were filmed without any weapons at all, so Luma’s job was to add CG projectiles of varying types for dramatic effect. It also simulated weapons penetrating fleeing prisoners using CG stand-ins, blood and other gore effects. In one of the more gruesome examples, an arrow penetrates the back of a man skull and runs through his mouth. Luma finessed this shot by adding CG elements that included the incoming arrow, blood spurts and teeth that fly toward camera.

Although Luma Pictures is probably best known for the amazing creature effects that it has created for such films as Underworld: Evolution and The Cave, the studio takes great pride in its ability to craft realistic visual effects elements that audiences, swept up in the dramatic action, accept wholeheartedly as real.

‘This film is truly a visual masterpiece and most of our work was intended to intensify the action or facilitate storytelling that would have been difficult to shoot through practical means alone,’ explained Luma Pictures Visual Effects Supervisor Payam Shohadai. ‘But it needed to do so invisibly. If audiences suspect that a fight sequence has been digitally manipulated, it loses some of its impact. We don’st want people walking out of the theater marveling over the visual effects, we want them to be caught up in its incredible story.’

About Luma Pictures
Luma Pictures is a leading provider of visual effects services to Hollywood with a reputation for artistic integrity, technical innovation and efficient production. The company served as lead visual effects provider on Underworld: Evolution, one of the biggest hits of 2006 and widely acclaimed for its incredible creature and environmental effects. Some of the studio other credits include Apocalypto (Buena Vista/Icon), The Cave (ScreenGems/Lakeshore), Revolution’s ‘Zoom’, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Paramount), Crash (Lions Gate) and Ray (Universal Pictures). Current projects include First Snow for Furst Films, Touchstones ‘Primeval’, The Cohen Brothers ‘No Country for Old Men’ and Anthony Hopkins ‘Slipstream’

Popularity: 2% [?]

FlickerLab, the New York-based design and animation studio, has created a pair of humorous, elegantly line-drawn, animated commercials for Frangelico, the distinctive premium hazelnut liqueur, and its distributor Osborne (Spain). Conceived by agency TBWA\Madrid (Madrid, Spain), the two branding spots, the :30 ‘Comida empresa’ and the :10 ‘Con Frangelico, nunca se sabe’ will begin airing throughout Spain, on television and on the Internet, in mid-December.

The agency concept was beautiful and simple. The unique monk shaped packaging of Frangelico Liquor reflects its intriguing monastic legend and authentic 300-year old recipe. The bottle sports a cord around its middle which comes to life to write the story of a new employee who goes out to a company dinner, falls in love, and dances the night away with a beautiful women who, it turns out, is his boss.

The story is drawn with one continuous, moving line ?‚àö√ë‚àö¬® a cord that has neither a beginning nor an end. ‘To achieve the effect we were after we decided to give the spots a handcrafted flair. We planned very carefully which, of course, is one of the great reasons to work with FlickerLab,’ explained director Joel Marsden of BUS Animation (Madrid), which represents FlickerLab for commercial work in Spain and is a division of the commercial production company BUS. ‘We began with numerous pre-tests to create the handmade look that sold the agency on the execution. Once awarded the project, the spots went through a lot of layers and the hands of many talented folks. Everything was meticulously planned out, but everybody had the freedom to breathe at bit. Designers shaped the look. Flash animators created the basis of the movement. Stop motion animators embellished that look with the cord, and lastly, compositors brought it all together adding shadows and backgrounds. The FlickerLab team brings all the talent, all the facets, to the table – the designers, line animators, stop motion folks and compositors. In the end, the elegant simplicity, and the flow of the lines, makes these commercials absolutely beautiful.’

Harold Moss, Founder/Creative Director of FlickerLab, added, ‘The idea was to create something that felt like it could have been unearthed from an archive of 50 Polish stop motion animation, that had a genuine organic feel. However, the complexity of the animation required that we use a sophisticated digital pipeline combined with many days of traditional stop motion animation to achieve the look. The spot looks simple, clean and like an artifact but the complexity is such that it really required a very modern process to bring the animation to life; We pre-visualized everything, shot hi res digital still images, and used Flash animation and computer assisted stop motion. The same concept was employed to animate the tag line, ?‚àö√ë‚àö‚â§with Frangelico you never know,’s for the :10 spot.’

The FlickerLab creative team, led by Creative Director Harold Moss, included Senior Producer Melissa Johnson; Animation Director Peter Wallach; Designers Zartosht Soltani and Max Porter; 2D Animators/Storyboard Artists Phil Lockerby and Nikolay Nachev; After Effects Artist Kat Llewellyn; Producer Franklin Zitter; and Stop-Motion Animators Jeremy Bronson and Matthew Amonson.

FlickerLab utilized Adobe After Effects and Photoshop, Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver; Panic Transmit; PowerMac G5 Computers; iMac Intel Computers; Apple Display 20′ monitors; Dell Ultrasharp 24′ wide-screen displays; Wacom Intuos 3 tablets, Wacom Cintiq tablets and Nikon D70 camera in the execution of package.

Representing the Spanish production company BUS Pro (Madrid Spain) were Director Joel Marsden and Producer Claudia Mayer.

TBWA\Madrid creative team included Creative Directors Jose Antonio Bosch and Chano Coronil; Creative Team Peru Saiz and Jorge Pezzi; Account Supervisor Javier Garc??a; Account manager Claudia Pou; Production Director: Enrique Dom?©nech; and Producer M??nica Marcos.

Osborne, the distributor of Frangelico, was represented by Yago Mellado, I?±igo Aberasturi and Melisa Kindelan (titles not available).

The musical underscore and sound design were created by David Wilson of David Wilson Audio (New York, NY).

About FlickerLab
Founded in 1999 as a development, design and animation studio, today FlickerLab principals, long-term collaborators and strategic partners employ their skills, technology and industry experience on a variety of projects be they concept-to-screen development and production, or design and execution of commercials or broadcast promotions. In addition to high quality creative digital content development, FlickerLab works with clients to extend their project reach through advertising, Internet impact, online marketing, and merchandising.
www.flickerlab.com

Credits:
International spot (Spain)
Product: Frangelico Liquor
Title: :30 ‘Comida empresa’ and the :10 ‘Con Frangelico, nunca se sabe’ Length: one :30 and one :10

Description: The unique monk shaped packaging of Frangelico Liquor reflects its intriguing monastic legend and authentic 300-year old recipe. The bottle sports a cord around its middle which comes to life to write the story of a new employee who goes out to a company dinner, falls in love, and dances the night away with a beautiful women who, it turns out, is his boss.

Production/Animation Company: FlickerLab
City/State: New York, NY
Creative Director: Harold Moss
Senior Producer: Melissa Johnson
Producer: Franklin Zitter
Animation Director: Peter Wallach
Designer: Zartosht Soltani and Max Porter
2D Animators/Storyboards: Phil Lockerby and Nikolay Nachev
After Effects: Kat Llewellyn
Stop Motion Animators: Jeremy Bronson and Matthew Amonson

Hardware/Software:

Adobe After Effects, Photoshop
Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver
Panic Transmit
PowerMac G5 Computers
iMac Intel Computers
Apple Display 20′ monitors
Dell Ultrasharp 24′ wide-screen displays
Wacom Intuos 3 tablets
Wacom Cintiq tablets
Nikon D70 Camera

Advertising Agency: TBWA\Madrid
City/State: Madrid, Spain
Creatives Directors: Jose Antonio Bosch / Chano Coronil
Creative Team: Peru Saiz / Jorge Pezzi
Account supervisor: Javier Garc??a
Account manager: Claudia Pou
Production Director: Enrique Dom?©nech
Producer: M??nica Marcos

Spanish Production Company: Broadcast Union Services (BUS)-Pro
City/State: Madrid, Spain
Director: Joe Marsden
Producer: Claudia Mayer

Client: Osborne (Spain)
Yago Mellado
I?±igo Aberasturi
Melisa Kindelan
No titles available

Music/Sound Design: David Wilson Audio
City/State: New York, NY
Composer/Sound Designer: David Wilson

Popularity: 3% [?]

Nagi Noda through Nexus Productions has directed the latest Coca Cola film, titled ?‚àö√ë‚àö‚â§What goes Around’s for UK advertising agency, Mother. The spots is for TV and will air globally. All post production was carried out by MPC.

The film opens on an interior shot of a house focussing on a solitary girl holding a bottle of Coca Cola. As the camera pans through the house, we see the same girl, at minutely different stages of movement. The camera then moves outside, where more characters Рagain shown in different stages of movement ?√Ñ√¨ appear. In each case, the viewer thinks he watching a very clever time slice of each character. However, in actual fact, multiple actors play each of the characters.

All shot in two motion control passes, the camera takes us on a seamless journey from inside the house to a park area outside. The path is illustrated by a bluebird and the signature glass bottle of Coca Cola, which is initially passed to a jogger, then on to other characters including a business woman, tramp and a child playing outside. With the help of music written especially by Jack White of The White Stripes, the viewer is fluidly transported from one character to another and finally back to our lead girl, re-enforcing the title ?‚àö√ë‚àö‚â§What goes around comes around’s.

MPC were heavily involved in discussions from the outset with VFX supervisor Tom Harding advising on the studio shoot in South Africa. Back in the facility, matte paintings were tracked into shots in 3D to extend the set and studio ceilings cleverly replacing clearly visible motion control track. The young boy and the bird featured in the film were both shot before green screen before being neatly composited back into the film by the VFX team.

Similarly, a separate pass of the opening scene was shot to allow the VFX team to replace the image on the TV screen with a tennis player (also treated to the ?‚àö√ë‚àö‚â§physical time slice’s effect) and to cleverly remove the outline of the actresses waiting to appear from behind the lead. Extensive rig removal was necessary to cover cables suspending many of the characters and other objects.

The commercial airs firstly in the Australian MTV Music Awards and will be on general global release throughout 2006.

Credits:

Director: Nagi Noda
Production Company: Nexus Productions
DOP: Peter Suschitzky
Editor: Ben Stephens @ The Whitehouse
Advertising Agency: Mother
Agency Producer: Richard Firminger

Post Production Co: MPC
Post Production Producer: Julie Evans
VFX Supervisor: Tom Harding
VFX artists: Dan Sanders, Alex Harding
Telecine:Jean-Clement Soret

The Moving Picture Company

Popularity: 3% [?]

Have a look at the hot new demo reel for Sparkle Media, a UK based 3d animation, compositing and motion design visual effects company based in the United Kingdom.

Sparkle Media are an innovative Liverpool based visual effects company delivering high end quality products for broadcast/corporate projects. With our expertise and in house facilities we aim to deliver the best in post production and animation.

Sparkle Are now please to announce that they now offer full uncompressed HD service.. Full 1080HD!! Also real time monitoring available on their new 32″ HD monitor.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Boutique facility GrapeVine Productions recently completed production on two Disney Little Mermaid toy commercials. Ariel Magical Talking Kitchen and Ariel Magical Talking Salon spots are currently airing through the holiday season.

CDI Toys, the developers and manufacturers of both products, turned to GrapeVine Productions for a second year, for their reputable commitment to creating fun and energetic promotions with technical expertise. Known in the industry as a one-stop-shop, GrapeVine strategically organizes projects from beginning to end. The Little Mermaid spots were carefully crafted from the children cast, to the hardware and software used to complete the project.

Director of Photography, Kent Hughes, used a special HD Sony 900 Cinealta camera with a P+S Teknik lens adapter custom modified by Clairmont Camera for both commercials. The camera allowed Hughes to adapt his Zeiss High Speed prime lenses.

‘The combination of camera equipment gives us great control over the depth of field and depth of focus, creating a much more cinematic look,’ says Director and owner of GrapeVine Productions, Tony Carenzo. ‘It really allows us to steer the viewer eye and highlight just those parts of the product we want to emphasize.’

GrapeVine faced its biggest challenge when it came time to shoot a 180-degree shot of the Salon. The mirror on the top of the toy created a reflection of the camera as it passed. The small actors were also passing in front of the mirror at many times during the shoot, which caused minor difficulties in compositing the final mirror and character image onto the toy. To fix the camera issue, the mirror was blacked-out with fabric, and fixed later in post.

‘We had to rotoscope the actors out of the shots and recomposite them over the graphic image. We also had to track the camera motion so it would all work seamlessly,’ says Lead Graphics Designer, Mychael Lederer-Morihisa.

Digital Fusion was the tool of choice for the completion of the commercials.

Lighting was also an issue, as the lights on the Salon toy were out-shone by the bright lights on set. Lederer-Morihisa corrected this also in post, with After Effects.

Director and co-owner of GrapeVine Productions, Erin Carenzo, directed the second commercial, ‘Ariel Magical Talking Kitchen.’

The facility celebrated its sixth year of business in 2006, and is recognized by those in the industry as a talented production company, which can put together high-end animation, graphics packages, commercials and promos, within the constraints of tight deadlines and less-than big budgets.

‘We know there are hundreds of companies who can do what we do,’ says Erin Carenzo. ‘It how we do it that sets us apart.’

About GrapeVine Productions:
This one-stop-shop facility understands the demands of the commercial industry, and knows that million dollar budgets are well out of most companies’s reach. Tony and Erin have built a company committed to turning out high-quality results, regardless of time or dollar constraints. For more on GrapeVine Productions, please visit www.grapevineproductions.com.

Popularity: 3% [?]