Post Magazine

June 2013

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Broadcast Design The studio is nominated for 10 awards at this month's PromaxBDA show. Its work for HBO, Chiller TV, Animal Planet and SyFy are among the nominations. REDHOUSE Keith Kyak is an independent designer who runs Redhouse (www.redhouse.tv) out of his home studio in Harrison, NJ. He got his start in 1998, working in the Manhattan post community, and is skilled on Adobe's suite of tools, particularly After Effects, as well as on Maxon's Cinema 4D. As a oneman shop, he'll call on freelancers when extra muscle is needed, while still maintaining a low overhead. "Everyone works remotely," says Kyak. He'll go to the client when needed, but with Redhouse created a show open, bumpers, lower thirds, segment titles and video frames for NB90s. 24 conference calls and Skype, he finds it increasingly less necessary. Kyak started out as a Mac user, but made a switch to PC about five years ago. Today, he works on a high-end Boxx workstation and couldn't be happier with the company's product and service. "There's an overwhelming difference in service," he says when comparing Boxx to Apple. "If I call them right now, I would be speaking with someone in five minutes who knows the software." At press time, Redhouse was working on a show package for NB90s, a five-part series for the National Basketball Association that looks back at the 1990s and the culture surrounding the sport. The one-hour show is driven by interviews and includes off-the-court commentary from players, coaches, actors and comedians. There is a sarcastic tone and the package helps reflect that feeling. Kyak was working on the entire show package, which, when complete, will consist Post • June 2013 of a show open, bumpers, lower thirds, topic segment titles, and video frames. The graphic style, he says, was "inspired by product packaging used in the '90s," and is both colorful and tacky. The open is driven by video and has a foreshadowing theme, with footage that teases what might appear in the episode. He was given a rough cut and then built it out with graphic treatment. In total, Kyak anticipates spending six to eight weeks to complete the NB90s package. LOYALKASPAR Loyalkaspar (www.loyalkaspar.com) in NYC is celebrating its 10th anniversary this summer. The company got its start as a motion graphics boutique and has evolved over the years into an entertainment branding agency. hotel's dark basement, stopping on a shot of an old sink. A slow zoom out reveals a woman's arms, her hands chained to the pipes below it. In another, a group of crows are on the shore of a peaceful lake nearby. One crow is pecking at something, which is revealed to the viewer to be a man's severed hand, a wristwatch still attached. All of the teasers rely heavily on live action. The viewer, says Dörnemann, realizes "there's a lot more to this," when reflecting on the promo imagery. The spots were shot over a four-day period and all of the imagery is unique to the campaign. Live action was captured using a Red Epic camera. Some was shot on the show's set. Editorial was competed using Final Cut Pro and Cinema 4D was used to create the iconic "We found our home in network branding," says creative director Daniel Dörnemann, noting the studio's work for Fuse, Lifetime and Disney. But they also take on smaller projects, as was the recent case for A&E — the studio created a tease and launch campaign for the series Bates Motel. The show is a modern-day prequel to the classic movie Psycho. The tease campaign revolved around moments that suggest the history of the Bates Motel, its inhabitants and the people who get killed there. Loyalkaspar produced and posted five spots for the package, going on location to Vancouver to shoot much of the live action with the show's stars on-set. In one spot, Norman and his mother sit still on a bed. The camera slowly pans to close-ups of their faces. The mother turns to Norman and says, "I love you Norman." The creepy factor is enhanced when Norman suggestively looks into the camera and smirks. In another, a camera pans across the neon sign of the hotel. The promos began rolling out in late 2012, airing during broadcasts of Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy. Loyalksapar also created the show's open, a :10 segment based solely around the hotel's neon sign. "The idea was fairly clear," says Dörnemann of the use of the iconic image. Each shot shows a different angle of the sign — created in Cinema 4D — until ultimately the entire sign is revealed to the viewer. "The idea was to make it more ownable," says Dörnemann of the open, noting that the flickering light adds a sense of nervous energy to underscore the show's dark story and balance between struggles and normalcy. "[We] had to find balance," he says of the lighting effect. "It could not distract from the drama of the show, yet still had to have character." The open for Bates Motel, says Dörnemann, reflects a trend that seems to be taking place across the television market. It's compact in length and, like other programs, www.postmagazine.com

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