NewsReel 23/10/08

From now on please send all press releases and news to editor@thereel.net. Sam@thereel.net has left the building.

Emma connects to the Mainframe
Motion graphics, animation and visual effects specialist Mainframe has appointed Emma Phillips as a new full-time producer. Emma has had stints at HHCL, where she was post production facility manager, at ITV Yorkshire and London production agency Minimart. She will be settling into the company’s new Farringdon HQ from 3rd November and it seems she’ll be busy from the off, as MD Adam Jenns explains, ‘…We’re being kept very busy with work for our long term broadcast clients like Virgin Media, Nickleodeon and MTV as well as some big new commercials projects through Hanrahan and Stink. Basically, we’re in urgent need of an extra pair of hands!’

Final notice of 2008 YGAward deadline
If you’d like to enter the 2008 YGAward, you’ve only got a week. Click here to get ‘em in.

Meribel 2008
Nearly 1100 delegates are expected to attend the 8th Meribel Festival on 12 – 17 December. The Film Cristal Jury was announced last week and here they are:

Presidents

Rober T Senior , CEO Fallon and Grégoire Champetier, Managing Director for Marketing, Communication and Development & Senior Vice-President for Brand Business Development, McDonald’s France and Southern Europe

Representing agencies :

Olivier Altmann, Co President & Executive Creative Director, Chairman of the Worldwide Creative Board, Publicis WW.

Xavier Beauregard, Vice President & Creative Director, Draft FCB Paris

Marco Cremona, Executive Creative Director, McCann Italie

Guillaume De Bary, Producer, Irene

Rene Hanke, Creative Director, JWT Dusseldorf

Michael Imberowicz, Creative Director, Young & Rubicam Brands Pologne

Xavier Mendiola, Co-Managing Director, DDB Paris

Olivier Moulierac, Creative Director, EURO RSCG C&O

Representing clients / advertisers:

Michael Aidan, Marketing Vice President in Charge of Mineral Waters, Danone Eaux, France

David Dargaud, Head of Communication, Audi France

Xavier de Naw, Head of Art Direction, Capitol Music / EMI France

Philip Rumbol, Marketing Manager, Cadbury UK

Katarzyna Szegidewicz, Marketing Director, CANAL+ POLOGNE

Reel Opinion: Rob van Vijfeijken

Rob van Vijfeijken is in the spotlight for this month's Reel Opinion. We gave the Creative Director at BSUR in Amsterdam five spots that caught our attention over the past month. Here's what he had to say:

Rob van Vijfeijken
Creative Director
BSUR Agency, Amsterdam

Samsung Electronics - 'Unboxed'

Agency: The Viral Factory, London

Production: The Viral Factory, London

Directors: Ben Wheatley and Jake Lunt

Ok, it's a viral! Funny, but it's got nothing to do with the brand Samsung I know so far.

A pile of 'hip' nonsense for a boring international brand that is always 'nearly' a real cool brand. They're all over the place - here and there - nice loose ideas are being ventilated but there's no coherence.

Samsung is throwing away a fortune without really building one strong iconic brand.

They were our client eight years ago, and they are more than welcome to have a good conversation and a cup of coffee with lots of cake in Amsterdam!

Levis 501 Jeans - 'Secrets & Lies'

Agency: BBH, London

Production: Sonny, London

Director: Jeff Labbe

Tasty broad: good face, great eyes, gorgeous body. The guy is not half bad. Good excuses, good lies, I know the story ;-)

But the jeans don't convey that feeling - they just happen to be there - so any jeans will do?!

Jeans are fashion - lifestyle. With this commercial this brand doesn't kick ass, Diesel and G-star do.

Come on Levis! They used to be a true icon...now they're just another brand! And the music is from somewhere before World War II...so is the brand, I guess.

The Sunday Times - 'Bunny'

Agency: Ogilvy, Cape Town

Production: Velocity Films, Cape Town

Director: Jeana Theron

This one's simple...

Save the rabbit?

Save the rain forest!

Read the paper online!

Hovis Bread - 'Go On Lad'

Agency: MCBD, London

Production: Rattling Stick, London

Director: Ringan Ledwidge

Advertising can, and should, be entertaining and this commercial is. Nicely shot, good atmosphere, nice young fellow, exciting adventure, life's an amazing journey!

Luckily there are still things that you can hold on to in these hard times...life isn't so bad after all.

I don't know the brand, we don't have it in Holland, please send me a loaf! Thanks!

Environmental Defense - 'Polar Bears'

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, New York

Production: Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles

Director: Tim Godsall

Dear mister media planner: What is this brilliant activation idea doing on TV? Come on!

If we would have activated this idea globally in one day it would have ten folded the PR/Roll-out effect!!

Magnificent! One day of global knock down awareness. Think it over!

NewsReel 17/10/08

Apologies to those that eagerly anticipated the arrival of The Reel newsletter into their inboxes on Friday (which should be all of you!) but we were scuppered by a technical hitch. Not wanting to tip you over the edge, after spending the whole weekend pining for your weekly hit of Reel goodness, but this is the penultimate newsletter that will be contributed to by Deputy Editor Sam Bonwick, as he is embarking on new adventures in Melbourne, Australia. In future please send any news and press releases to editor@thereel.net and we will continue to do our best to feature it here.

Happy 60th birthday Universal Declaration of Human Rights!
From the 31st October 150 cinema screens around the country will be screening a short film created especially to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The three-minute film entitled ‘Everybody’, starring a strange combination of Jeremy Irons and floppy haired radio presenter George Lamb, is a part live-action; part animated (by Reel favourites Sweet World) piece based on five illustrations from the children’s picture book ‘We Are All Born Free’ from Amnesty’s publishing division.

The project was funded with the help of the Co-Operative Bank’s ‘Customers Who Care’ scheme. The bank’s Campaigns Manager Melanie Phillips said, ‘The Co-operative Bank is supporting this film as part of its campaign with Amnesty to help people everywhere understand the human rights we should all enjoy. We know it is an issue important to our customers – with 98% supporting our Ethical Policy position on human rights. This film offers a valuable opportunity to take the message out to new audiences and bring the issues to life in a fun and accessible way.’ You can also see ‘Everyone’ online and it will be shown in schools across the country – also look out for it on The Reel in the coming weeks. For more info visit to www.protectthehuman.com.

A Russian Disqo
Post-centric digital production specialists Disqo have added a Russian programming company, InteractiveWorks, to their business. The addition of the Russian company strengthens the creative offering of the division of Golden Square and has helped secure big productions for the likes of DDB, Dare and Sony.

InteractiveWorks specialise in interactive design, application and software development and, with their UK team headed by Ian Bytchek and Konstantin Polozov in London, they will give Disqo access to their full resources in Togliatti, Central Russia. Disqo’s creative director, Ben Leyland, said: “We’re increasingly getting involved in projects where costs and timings have to be kept to a minimum. Rather than relying on several disparate companies, our unique access to wide-ranging facilities and expertise means we can cover the whole production ourselves – everything from directing to post production and programming.

Dennis is a Serious director
Jonathan Dennis, who was previously a multi-award winning director for the BBC and Red Bee Media has signed to Serious Pictures. Jonathan’s recent work includes Specsavers and the Euro 2008 ‘Who will you support?’ spots.

Sarah is Taylor-made for S-W-H
Amsterdam-based creative ad agency S-W-H has announced Sarah Taylor as their new Manager of PR and New Business. Sarah’s move to the independently-owned agency is with immediate effect. The Reel like Sarah very much and we wish her luck with her new job after four years with Wieden + Kennedy.

Addictive do it again
Video remix specialists Addictive TV have just remixed the new Hollywood movie 'Max Payne' for 20th Century Fox (out next month) and are currently in the studio having a go at British comedy ‘Easy Virtue’ starring Colin Firth and Kristin Scott-Thomas.

This month also sees the Amsterdam Dance Event host a special exhibition of Addictive TV's remix work at Concrete Image in the Dutch capital, where the guys will also be playing at the launch of the night on October 25th.

HD - Fragmented

Have you seen the latest showboating TV and cinema ad featuring Johnny Depp, Wayne Rooney and … er … a Brazilian Tree Frog? Don’t panic, it’s not a new all-star re-imagining of ‘The Wind In The Willows’ (although Rooney would make a fine Moley we’re sure) but the latest attempt to show us ‘stuck in the 90’s’ plebs what sumptuous HD looks like. And it bloody works.

It must be a hard task trying to describe the visual advantages of high definition viewing when your medium is standard definition, but when approached by Sky to do just that, London based agency brothers and sisters utilised a snazzo technique they’d become well versed in – fragment animation.

Granted access to an archive of still photographs from premium Sky content, including blockbuster movies, classic sporting events and ground-breaking documentaries, the creative team of Ros Parr and Tim Clark sifted through hundreds of images to select the few that would both sell the service and maximise the ‘fragment’ effect.

Once chosen, the team took the stills to UNIT post production facility for the time consuming process of animating. Separating out each individual element (blade of grass, fleck of mud, bead of rain) from its surroundings, the image was then divided into a series of layers, each of which being individually controlled to achieve the desired effect in the animation. Placed on a false z-axis, the resulting footage features depth, motion and clarity belying its ‘publicity still’ origins.
Speaking of the campaign, Andy Fowler, ECD of brothers and sisters, comments, “We wanted to convey the power of HD to the screen and chose fragment animation to demonstrate the visual power of high-definition television. With so much rich content to choose from on Sky, it is great to be involved and celebrate even a small proportion of this incredible service.”

Robert Tansey, Director of Brand Marketing, BSkyB, adds: “This campaign reflects the emotion, intensity and richness of life in high definition, focusing on the extra feel you get through a viewing experience which is up to four times clearer. With millions of HD ready TVs yet to offer an HD experience to their owners, this campaign will outline the quality of experience Sky+HD customers are enjoying right now.”

Achieving the enviable ability to improve with each viewing - betcha didn’t notice the splashing raindrop or Capt Jack’s swinging belt-buckle on your first watch – The Reel reckons this campaign does wonders for expressing the pin-sharp benefits of HD to non-early-adopters (HD boxes in the post, cheers Sky). The technique even manages to work outside of the gogglebox, with the campaign spreading over TV, cinema, outdoor, direct mail, press and digital – including both online and digital outdoor, such as electronic poster sites on the Underground.

The HD revolution is upon us, so it looks like there’ll be no escaping pixel-perfect renditions of the frog, the Sparrow or the Rooney.

Agency: brothers and sisters
Creatives: Ros Parr & Tim Clark
Agency Producer: Pat Stimpson
Agency Planner: Matt Boffey
Directors: Ros Parr & Tim Clark
Producer: Pat Stimpson
Editor & Editing Co.: Visual Effects Artist - Charlie Cassidy @ UNIT
Post Production Co.: UNIT
Audio Post Production: 750mph

NewsReel 10/10/08

As always, please send any news and press releases to sam@thereel.net and we'll do our best to include it here.

The UK MVAs are approaching
It’s only seven days until the UK MVAs. If you want to view the best in UK music video action this year then get reserving your tickets. You can download a reservation form from www.ukmva.com (go to ‘tickets’ on the left hand navigation) and fill it out for the lovely MVA team. Tickets are £100 + VAT, but before you choke on your latte, that includes the Awards ceremony at the Odeon Leicester Square, hosted by Adam Buxton, the after-show party from 9:15pm-3am at Orchid in Piccadilly and complimentary drinks at both events – so no need to smuggle in your hip flasks.

Psyop get crunched
Psyop’s potential merger with specialist acquisitions firm Fortissimo has been scuppered by the credit crunch, as Fortissiomo shareholders voted ‘No’ to the move. Despite the disappointment at not getting the result they wanted and indeed expected, Psyop CEO Justin Booth-Clibborn was able to take some positives out of the situation, ‘We experienced first hand the 'discipline' of going public, really focusing on our business and further maturing into a company with fantastic talent and the continued ability and resources to produce some of the best creative content in the world.’

In addition to the collapse of the Pysop and Fortissimo deal, the proposed merger of Stink with Psyop and Fortissimo has also had the brakes put on.

Rhino stampedes into the Europe
The visual effects peeps at RhinoFX have set their sights on expanding into the UK and Europe with the help of London based repping firm The Roster. The New Yorkers are known for their award-winning effects, animation and design in commercials, TV, videogame cinematics and feature films and started up in 2000. The Roster is led by former Producer and current Executive Directors Agent, Georgina Poushkine. RhinoFX Managing Director Rick Wagonheim said of the move, ‘We were immediately drawn to Georgina and the entire company’s experience…and are looking forward to doing more work in the overseas markets.’

George is Academic
Former 2AM Directors Rep, and all round nice guy, George Floyd is joining Academy on the 20th October to rep their roster of directors that include Jonathan Glazer and Nick Gordon.

Gali takes a bite out of the Golden Drum Awards
We were delighted to see that pretty much our favourite ad from last year, ‘Gali the Alligator’ for 13 Eme Rue, from Big Productions and BETC Euro RSCG Paris, was shortlisted for the TV and Film Promo category at this year’s Golden Drum Awards in Slovenia. To view the full list of winners at one of the world’s friendliest awards festivals click here. And you lucky subscribers can see Gali do his thing by clicking here.

RE: RE:EDIT

Fans of more credible ad remixes (sorry Fallon) will be no strangers to London’s visual mixing elite Addictive TV.

Addictive, who have gained a slew of awards, metres of national press and also run their own very successful VJ meet Optronica every year, are no slouch when it comes to the ad remixing game.

In fact, Addictive are the world heavyweight champs of visual remixes, having reworked Hollywood blockbusters such as 'Iron Man', 'Snakes on a Plane', 'Shoot em’ Up' and the Japanese master-work 'Tekkon Kinkreet'.

We were lucky enough to pinch an hour of Graham @ Addictive’s time and get his thoughts on the new trend that is emerging.

When was the first ad / trailer remix project that you guys did, and how did it come about?

A really switched on marketing guy at New Line Cinema saw some of our bootleg film remixes and simply got in touch with us, saying they had this Antonio Banderas movie, 'Take the Lead', and would we like to make a viral trailer for the release, by remixing the movie. It was based on a true story that's partly about hip-hop culture and partly about ballroom dancing and how they mashed-up the genres - hence getting someone to mash-up and remix the movie. They said we'll send you all the film’s rushes and we obviously leapt at the chance to make the first official studio remix! It was a great opportunity.

How did the project turn out – and were the clients surprised?

It turned out brilliantly. It was a big experiment for them, as no studio had ever done this before - actually getting an outside creative team to remix and rework a whole movie into a piece of music. It won an Adland award for Best Remix of 2006, and the clients were delighted with the results, and in the wider industry it really seemed to turn heads. They put it on the DVD release as an extra and then came back to us with a couple of bigger movies; the Samuel L Jackson cult hit 'Snakes on a Plane', for which we did the US television ads, and the controversial Clive Owen movie 'Shoot 'Em Up', for which we did another web viral.

Is this something that you are doing more of?

Yes, absolutely - this started a whole trend for us, and this year we've done 'Iron Man' for Paramount, 'Max Payne' for 20th Century Fox and there's more in the pipeline. We're now also getting far more advertising approaches too, via All Films in London who rep us for commercials, which is good. It shows the style of work we've been developing is beginning to hit the mainstream.

Are there any big or famous ads that you would like to remix?

Well for starters, we’d love to remix the EDF Energy recycled clips adverts and do them properly as they should be! They’re so 20th Century the way they been stitched together. Some of the recent Honda adverts like the ‘car choir’ commercial would be great – perfect for audiovisual sampling and remixing. The recent ‘Life flows better’ Visa ad was great too - not sure though how easy it’d be to remix audiovisually, but it would be great to take that idea and approach it from a much more audiovisual and musical angle.

What did you think of the Cadbury's remix project? (Where “Gorilla” was remixed for general release by a member of the public)

They were terrible! The original was brilliant and a fantastic idea - I loved it. But the supposed ‘remixes’ weren’t remixes at all, they were the same ad with different soundtracks! A very odd use of the word remix in my opinion. It’s a shame they didn’t get actual remixers involved to remix those ads audiovisually, that would have been a fantastic idea. Actually seeing the gorilla cut-up and banging out a drum ‘n’ bass rhythm on the drum kit during a Coronation Street ad break would have been brilliant, or maybe another where the gorilla is cut-up doing a Led Zep’s John Bonham style drum solo! The Fallon’s boys missed an opportunity there I think!

Do you think DJing culture has affected or become the catalyst for what you do? Is moving image merely an extension of this?

It's certainly a big influence, sampling and remixing has been big in music for ages, and we're simply taking it to its next logical step. But I don’t really see DJ culture as affecting us, it’s more like the other way round, artists like ourselves are affecting DJ culture, we see DJs all the time now wanting to integrate a visual aspect to their shows. Audiovisual remixing is now evolving in its own right into a whole new form. With what we do, we see moving images as an actual extension of the music, something completely new, not merely an added extension to existing DJ culture.

With the advent of platforms such as Youtube and cheaper digital technology – people are beginning to play with this technology a lot more, is this merely a current trend, or do you think that something bigger is growing out of this?

Definitely something bigger is growing out of this. As people become more media literate, and technology gets cheaper, then inevitably it's going to carry on. It's certainly a popular trend, but it now has strong roots embedded and will continue to grow and evolve. In the UK, since the early 90s and rave culture, there’s been a real lack of any major youth movement, it’s all become very fragmented and is now completely influenced by major brands, but generally not in a very radical, imaginative or meaningful way at all. I think ultimately, technology is what’s going to change this, I’m not sure how exactly but the whole adoption of download culture and user generated content is clearly only the start of things. Technology is definitely going to play a central role in a wider and immanent cultural revolution, I just hope it’s as socially transforming as rock ‘n’ roll, the hippies, punk and rave.

Can you name other people / VJ’s / Artists who are also pushing the boundaries? (apart from yourselves?)

Bauhouse from Germany are great, working with live orchestras and AV samples, blending them audiovisually in real-time to produce beautiful shows. They've always been a cutting edge outfit.

(Thanks to Graham and Addictive for the short notice interview!)

With ads becoming the building blocks for new creative it appears that nothing is sacred or safe from the busy little fingers of the remix brigade.

Not even Cillit Bang and the mighty Barry Scott.

Record Label Nukleuz and their legions of hard house fans across the country have been spreading the Barry Scott message and trying to get the loud mentalist to number one for a number of months now (good luck).

Agency ruse or just plain coincidence? We couldn’t be sure, but the time effort and interest proves one thing:

That the Ad Remix is here to stay.

And it's spreading.

NewsReel 03/10/08

As always, please send any news and press releases to sam@thereel.net and we'll do our best to include it here.

A short break

We are sad to report that Short and Sweet, London’s only weekly short film evening, is taking a break after 2 years and 5 months of showcasing some of the best short films, animation and music videos twice a week. Julia Stephenson, the event's tireless organiser, assures us that Short and Sweet will be back in some form in the not too distant future, but to enjoy a unique London event for the last time in a while head to Café 1001 on Monday 6th October or AKA on the 7th October for 7.30pm and give Julia and her team a round of applause for promoting short film so successfully over the past couple of years.

de Thame joins Therapy
Therapy Films have revealed the big name signing of Gerard de Thame for worldwide representation (excluding USA where he is represented by HSI). Among de Thame’s high-profile work is the iconic ‘Carl in New York’ ad for Pirelli Tyres. It seems negotiations to capture the signing of the experienced director were protracted, but Therapy MD Barry Hughes is pleased to have finally got his man, ‘Gerard is such a big name…we are very pleased he has chosen us to re-launch his career in the UK’.

Cut+Run NY cut ties
Cut+Run NY is no more. One of two transatlantic siblings of London’s Cut+Run editing house has gone it alone and will now be known as Cutting Room Films. The ownership of the award-winning shop is now in the hands of editors Chuck Willis and Mike Douglas, and EP Susan Willis. Apart from the name and ownership change, all remains the same at the company’s Avenue of the Americas HQ and Cut+Run’s LA shop is unaffected by the changes.

Another director
Another Film Company have added director Katie Bell to their burgeoning roster. Katie, who has previously directed campaigns for Persil, B & Q, Muller and Eurostar, will be produced by Jeff Stark’s long standing producer Cathy Green, who said of the signing, ‘Katie’s work is effortlessly stylish with a solid core of genuine confident performance and I’m really looking forward to working alongside her.’

A Very Small Office just got bigger
New York-based production house A Very Small Office have opened design and animation house Offspring. Co-founders Saffron Case and Mikon van Gastel have appointed newly minted creative director Adam Levite to lead the new venture. Case commented, ‘Offspring is a logical next step for Mikon and myself. We've developed such long-standing, deep relationships over the years it just seemed natural to offer those clients another creative opportunity.’ He continued, ‘AVSO was built on the passion to create highly original, game-changing work and we're taking that same approach and applying it to design and motion graphics.’

YGAward extension
The deadline for the 2008 YGAward has been extended to Friday 31st October at 5pm. The extension applies to both the Professional and Student Awards. Click here to submit your work.

Rushes' new Resolve
Rushes have got themselves a da Vinci, but it won’t be hanging in the Old Compton St offices of the post production and special effects masters, it’s a da Vinci Resolve R250 and it’s an impressive piece of telecine kit - apparently. To go with their shiny new machinery in the telecine department, they’ve got a shiny new producer, Alex Panton, who will assist clients to integrate Resolve into their working practices whilst promoting the existing C-Reality and Spirit suites and Rushes award-winning team of colourists.

BootB-licious
Disaronno have opened up the pitching process for their new TV campaign to all-comers on the innovative website BootB - the site that brings brand builders and creative brains around the globe together. All the information needed to pitch for the business is available here and the deadline is on the 12th October, so get your thinking caps on if you want to have a bash at it.