Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/187650
postings Subway SerieS N EW YORK — César Pesquera of The Cortez Brothers (www.cortezbrothers.com) directed a new online project that's designed to communicate and connect New York City with the rest of the world. Hello from the Underground is an interactive film and design project that's based around NYC's subway. Upon visiting the site (www.hellofromunderground.com), viewers are prompted to type in a personal message. Each letter within the message corresponds to a short video. Collectively, they come together to create a personalized video message that is shareable across the Web and social media. The project was conceived and written by artist Christian Lopez. Pesquera and DP Jose Luis Bernal flew to New York from Spain for the shoot. They created 26 films underground — one for each letter — with each location predetermined based on an identified font within the MTA map. He worked with designers Oriol Massaguer and Irene Bonet to create the font. The team shot two to three letters per day over the course of 10 days with Canon 5D and 7D cameras. Melissa Buchiere and Bernardo Revilla at Bikini Edit NY cut the project. Both Final Cut Pro and After Effects were used. Angel Ernesto Anton handled Flash programing. Wild Honey and Anitek provided the music. 'SPectacular' Sound H OLLYWOOD — Team Detroit called on Musikvergnuegen (www.musikvergnuegen.com) to contribute to Ford's "Summer Spectacular" campaign. Directed by Prologue Pictures, the package of 15 spots pays homage to every major Hollywood film genre. Each spot takes on the appearance of a film trailer, with characters, drama and storylines that hint at an upcoming big-screen release. The commercials cleverly promote Ford's 2013 fleet of top-selling models. Musikvergnuegen created original music for each genre-driven spot. Themes range from superhero and apocalypsestyle action flicks to quirky comedy, horror and drama. The campaign launched on TV and online in July. CCO/composer Walter Werzowa and composer John Luker helmed the original music and sound design for the entire package of "Blockbuster Deals" presented by Ford. The campaign also includes various cut-down versions, combinations and Hispanic versions. The music gives the spots a bigger-than-life feel that quickly grabs the viewer's attention. Musikvergnuegen worked closely with Prologue from the project's outset, completing much of the work in three weeks. The studio called on Soundminer, Pro Tools, Logic, Spectrasonics Omnisphere, Native Instruments Kontakt, Waves, and Sound Toys. treaSure trouPe N EW YORK — Animation and design studio Nathan Love (www.nathanlove.com) completed work on a new CG spot for Froot Loops featuring Toucan Sam and his trio of nephews. The Froot Detector commercial promotes Kellogg's Froot Loops Treasures with strawberryflavored filling and marks Nathan Love's second recent outing for the brand (See Post's June cover). The animation studio handled layout, animation, modeling/texturing, lighting/rendering, effects and compositing on the spot, which shows the Toucan family searching for buried treasure along a tropical island coastline. The agency and client challenged Nathan Love to find creative ways to visually reinforce the new strawberry-flavored treasures throughout the spot, says studio CD Joe Burrascano. The animation house did so by creating an oversized strawberry jungle. The water effect, which appeared in almost every shot, was very challenging, since it had to look and act like a real body of water. The studio used Autodesk Maya for animation, Pixologic Zbrush for modeling and texturing, and RealFlow for water simulation. Rendering was performed using Vray. Compositing took place in The Foundry's Nuke. Gravity in outer SPace S ANTA MONICA — Brickyard VFX (www.brickyardvfx.com) completed color correction and visual effects for the short film Gravity, which premiered at the HollyShorts Film Festival in LA last month. The festival showcased short films (30 minutes or less) from around the world in various genres and technical categories, including 3D, animation, VFX and cinematography. Gravity screened in the VFX Shorts category. Directed by Chad Jackson and co-produced by Brickyard VFX producer Linda Jackson, Gravity focuses on a late night phone conversation between partners Jill and John. The short includes ethereal views of the Earth and outer space as the pair's conversation progresses. Brichyard VFX completed several key CG shots, as well as color correction, credits and other beauty work. Head of CG David Blumenfeld completed the VFX shots of the Earth and outer space using Maya. Brickyard's lead Flame artist, Chris Sonia, completed color correction using Autodesk Lustre. The project was edited by Chad Jackson and Jason Kothmann. 40 Post • September 2013 www.postmagazine.com