Click 3x helped Washington D.C. agency RTC Relationship Marketing craft a dynamic vision of the world of broadband for a new, national ad campaign for Road Runner High Speed Online. The studio provided on-set visual effects supervision as well as computer animation, digital matte painting, compositing and graphics design services for the three :30 spots, which promote the company's new user interface as "a totally new online experience."
Each of the three spots opens on a self-standing door in a cartoon environment reminiscent of the desert landscapes seen in Warner Bros. ROAD RUNNER cartoons. In each spot, a person walks through the door and is instantly swept into a digital realm of Web pages representing various features of the Road Runner service. The spots end with a tag featuring the Road Runner character.
Click 3x produced the backgrounds for the opening scenes as multi-plain digital matte paintings. Matte painter David B. Mattingly based the environments on Warner Bros. cartoons and photographs of real Western landscapes. The talent and the door were shot live, although artists affected the latter, giving it a cartoon look to match the backgrounds. Derek Horn of Avion Films, Toronto, directed the live action with Dean Cundey (WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?) as DP.
As each spot focuses on a different aspect of the Road Runner service, Click 3x was tasked with creating a different look for each Web section. In the spot CUSTOMIZABLE, Web pages appear like giant billboards that sweep passed viewers as they speed along the information superhighway. In KITCHEN SINK, Web graphics loom up like the sides of towering buildings with the camera executing quick shifts of perspective in moving from one to the other.
"Click 3x developed three modern approaches to showing screen shots," said RTC creative director/art director Bronwen Kennedy. "They had great ideas, and they executed them with superior quality, in record time."
"We recreated actual Road Runner Web pages at high resolution in PhotoShop so that we could apply camera moves in CG and Flame," added Click 3x visual effects supervisor Peter Corbett. "Our aim was to create the effect of a high speed journey through the Web."
Click 3x worked with Marshall Grupp Sound Design and Sound Lounge in coordinating the production of original music for the campaign and the audio mix. Warner Bros. Animation handled the cel animation of the Road Runner character featured at the end of each spot. In final post, more than 100 versions of the spots were produced for use by individual cable operators in promoting Road Runner in their regions.
New York-based Click 3x (www.click3x.com) provides visual effects, computer animation and broadcast design services to the advertising and television industries.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
