Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/7700
18 Post • March 2010 www.postmagazine.com A project that launched early this month is a Website for Kick-Ass, a new Matthew Vaughn film from Lionsgate based on the comic book and starring Aaron Johnson and Nicolas Cage. DeHaven describes it as a super hero film with a twist — these heroes are teenagers and there is humor throughout. For the site, Ignition created an interac- tive experience where users can train to be an everyday super hero like one of the four- some in Kick-Ass. Visitors are encouraged to take par t in the overall experience to gain access to a surprise payoff. After registering on the site, users are im- mersed in a 3D experience that takes them through the city where Kick-Ass takes place. "As you fly through the city you engage in four unique mini-games to 'up your status' as a super hero," describes DeHaven. "The higher your points, the higher your status. Once you win a game you get thrown into an environment seen in the film, such as Kick Ass's bedroom, and are asked to find hidden items, which help up your status as well. Once you have finished all accomplishments you will reach 'The Real Motherf&#*ing Deal' sta- tus and the surprise payoff is revealed." Because social networking plays a huge role in promotion these days, Ignition is using Facebook and Twitter to update peo- ple with new content in the experience and to enable users to show off what they have accomplished in the game. DeHaven calls social networking's impact on marketing campaigns huge. "For us it is a major aspect to every campaign's strategy." And those adver tising strategies are be- coming easier to accomplish thanks to tools like Adobe's Creative Suite, says DeHaven. "If you look back at the Adobe Suite, even a few years ago, there were tons of limitations, but most of those have diminished over time and now the limitation is your imagination." DeHaven walks us through their creative process: "We use Adobe Creative Suite for almost everything, even down to wirefram- ing a project, because it goes back to the days of sketching, where you got to experi- ment with user interaction and design ideas as you plan out the project." After wireframes/sketches are done, they go into the comping phase, using everything from Photoshop to After Effects, along with XSI for 3D. "It is ver y impor tant for us to think of animation in this design process and that is where After Effects is key," says De- Haven. "For technical advancements on pro- jects we go straight into prototyping in Flash, Flash Builder and Flex to make sure the con- cepts are feasible." DeHaven emphasizes that even though a lot of the stuff they do is for interactive mediums, the finishing process is still part of the project. "You deliver a beta to a client, but it does not stop there because this is when we step back and ask ourselves what can we do to make it even better before it goes live for the world to see." Ignition's motto is to make it remarkable — people should view something they have created and make a remark. F I X I T I N P O S T If you want it bad enough, you really can make it happen, thanks to the Web. The creators of The Bannen Way, a new, highly stylized independent Web series, shot the first two episodes, shopped it around town, landed an agent at ICM who knew people in the digital depar tment at Sony, and Crackle (www.crackle.com) bought it. (Crackle is a Sony proper ty that distributes digital content, including original shor tform series, like The Bannen Way, and Sony-owned TV series and films.) Zack Arnold, president/creative director, of Fix It In Post (www.fixitinpost.net), got in- volved in the project in June of 2008 after answering an ad on Craig's List for an editor to cut the first two pilots and a promo trailer. "The show's creators, Mark Gantt (star/executive producer) and Jesse Warren (writer/director/executive producer), shot around 10 pages of material, and had some raw footage," explains Arnold. "We put to- gether a DVD package of that and from there they sold it to Sony and turned it into a real production with some real names." Some of those names include Rober t Forster, Michael Ironside, Vanessa Marcil, and Michael Lerner. The Bannen Way was shot on Red by cin- ematographer Roger Chingirian, dailies were transcoded to ProRes by assistant editor New Media Ignition's Evan DeHaven: Promoting movies, like Alice in Wonderland, using interactive games and a social media component. TEAK TAKES A PASS AT BEAR NAKED SF-based content creation specialists Teak completed a :60 banner ad promoting Bear Naked Granola cereal for frequent collaborator Amazon Advertising. Teak (www.teakdigital.com) handled produc- tion, editorial and post for the ad, which features rotating scenes set against a variety of terrain and a large cast playing parts as di- verse as a firefighter, a skateboarding teenager and a soccer mom. They shot it using a Sony EX3 HD camera and cut it in Final Cut Pro. Creating a split screen that shows all three characters at once created timing and syncing challenges.