Commercials

Well known artist, skater and writer Michael Sieben has just finished teaming up with adidas to release a fun video/interactive site to promote his latest additions to their “Original” collection. He was originally approached by adidas to only design one shoe, however shortly after starting this task both sides realized the potential for more than just a shoe design and a creative partnership was born. Two shoes, a shirt, a hoody and three magical creatures later and you have the mini-film that was shot bringing to life the characters that Sieben features in his designs. The film can be found on the special micro-site that was created for this project - www.adidas.com/michaelsieben

Here’s what the two Sieben-designed adidas Superskates look like (he created both a high and low-top version):

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It was directed by Eric Noren for Juice Design with Jess Weinstein & Sara Clarkin as producers. Matt Uhry was the Director of Photography, Dan Wolfe was the editor and the music composition was by Johnnyrandom.

The mini-movie shows us Sieben accompanied by a few of his cartoon creations embarking on a treasure hunt that takes them all throughout the San Francisco Bay area.
“Behind The Scenes” footage of the making of this movie-clip can be found below:

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I couldn’t help posting this - it’s the latest trailer from Red Bee Media to promote a new BBC documentary on Saddam Hussein called “The House of Saddam.” From the chilling Godfather-reminiscent horn solo to the stunning special effects used to melt the characters, I’ve probably watched this a dozen times…

taken from the Finish website:

Focusing on the lives of Saddam’s closest family and an elite few, this intimate portrait into the world of Saddam’s inner circle charts the rise and fall of one of the world’s most terrifying regimes.

The series takes place against the backdrop of the larger tragedy of the Iraqi people, and draws out the story of the Middle East’s relationship with the West.

Working from supplied publicity stills and a small fx shoot for elements Finish’s brief was to bring the pictures to life. Using 2D to morph between stills to add movement and create contra zooms on the family portraits. In 3D we textured a head with the available stills and using maya fluids & maya particles ‘melted’ Saddam & his daughters face, with 2D additional compositing of plates from the fx shoot to give the overall ‘melting’ of the family.

Edel Erickson was the agency producer for Red Bee Media (where Mina Patel is Creative Director). This promo was directed by Wilfred and featured the folks over at Finish as the post-production outfit. It was edited by Alex Lea from Envy. Fi Kilroe was the post-production producer with Jason Watts/Steve Murgatroyd getting credit for the Visual FX. The 3D animation was done by Mark Gregory, Phil Jackson and Paul Wright (Byron Wooffindin was the Flame Assistant).

Last night ESPN hosted their 15th annual ESPY Awards, hosted by Justin Timberlake. On par with some of the ‘classic’ ESPN commercials from the past, the network has been airing five separate promo’s for the awards show, all featuring Justin Timberlake interacting with various on-air ESPN personalities. A pretty funny series of self-promo’s.

A little late but here’s the complete set of promo’s(below the fold):
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