Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/221535
Advertising & the Internet Zoic helped Intel and Toshiba create the six-episode Web series, The Power Inside. "We built 13 bookshelves and used five — we only messed up one take," Koriakin recalls. "But we smashed up some at the end to capture elements to comp in later; we also shot plates, falling papers and other items separately to comp in." The scene with the fire hose could only be done once, however, due to all the water clean up involved. "We got almost everything in a single take timed perfectly," he says. "The shoot couldn't have gone any better." The second shoot day consisted of a greenscreen shoot with the presenters — the Cleese-like Englishman for the Englishspeaking market, plus Mandarin- and German-speaking presenters for other international markets. Koriakin shot the spots with an Arri Alexa in Log C and approached the project no differently than had the campaign been for broadcast. "I blocked the end use out of my mind and concentrated on the storytelling," he says. "I wanted to make the spots as nice, clean and professional as possible. A lot of times Web spots turn into broadcast spots, so we aim for the highest quality product that can live anywhere." Since the creative editing was done by Iron Claw editor Danielle White on Apple's Final Cut Pro, Koriakin was able to see a cut of all the stunt performances 24 hours later. "I brought the cut in for day two" of the shoot when the presenters worked without the set behind them. Afterwards, Koriakin had the flexibility to adjust the background plates, shot as separate elements and seamed together, to fit "the quirky performance of the spokesman," he explains. Ryan worked with Orlando Costa, Laury Santosa, Tripp Watt and Jihyae Ham, using Adobe After Effects to blend the plates and composite additional elements. Koriakin says the campaign, which debuted 20 Post • November 2013 on the Symantec Website just a few weeks ago, is getting "really positive feedback. It's what everyone was hoping for." RDIO With a catalog of more than 20 million songs, Rdio has broken new ground as an ad-free music subscription service available on the Web and mobile devices. Last June, it launched a yearlong series of :15 promos heralding a new music offering each week. With the theme "new music inspires new art," the promos stand on their own as unique animations or mixed-media pieces accompanied by song clips. They play on the Rdio Website and on Vice magazine's and Pitchfork's Websites, among others. "They're not, strictly speaking, advertising, which is one of the reasons Rdio came to us," says Andrew Linsk, executive producer at New York City-based production company, Blacklist (www.blacklist.tv), whose artists have done the bulk of the promos. "They knew that our directors often work outside of the advertising context on their own short films and art projects, and that the diversity of styles and techniques that we have access to was well suited to the project." Linsk says the campaign has been "the most free and openly creative" he's done since his music video days. Sometimes Rdio "had us present treatments that our directors wanted to do, then paired the work with the perfect song," he says. Sometimes Rdio submitted a track, like Dismemberment Plan's "Daddy Was a Real Good Dancer," which inspired Dvein, a Barcelona-based animation and live-action studio led by creative directors Carlos Pardo and Teo Guillem, to develop Symbiosis, where a whimsical character dances in an empty swimming pool. More recently, Rdio has been sending a www.postmagazine.com selection of tracks so directors can choose which one they feel works best with developing visuals. Blacklist acts as the producing entity for the directors on its roster. Regarded as "kind of rock stars in the world of animation and design," Dvein has been known for its "complex fluid simulations and photoreal CG," he notes. But its work for Rdio has taken a more mixedmedia and character-based approach that's "a bit of a departure." Their Symbiosis promo for Dismemberment Plan is a lighthearted piece in which the dancing character "controls" the camera using a proprietary tracking technique that puts him "in symbiosis" with the camera, Linsk explains. Dvein's Sculpture promo for a Haim track is a mixed-media piece that combines a live octopus with a machine and two-headed model to form a sculptural creature combined in post using After Effects. Holbrooks, the directing team of Tom Brown and Daniel Gray, crafted a rotoscopestyle promo for Icona Pop and transformation animation for a Gogol Bordello promo. The partners designed, directed and animated the pieces, with Brown working in New York at Blacklist with a support team of animator/compositors and Gray working remotely from Budapest. The duo employed Adobe Photoshop and After Effects, and Toon Boom on the projects. Toronto-based Tendril used a multimedia approach on a promo for Bloc Party and created retro-style hand-drawn animation for a Michael Franti piece that had an "appropriately lysergic feel," says Linsk. They deployed Flash, After Effects, Autodesk's 3DS Max, Side Effects' Houdini and The Foundry's Nuke, with Chaos Group's V-Ray for rendering. Upper First, a studio based in Sweden, opted for a full 3D treatment for the Typhoon promo, while Paris-based studio