FlickerLab finished the animated TV commercial for MoveOn PAC, dramatizing the Republican effort to change Senate filibuster rules on Federal judicial appointments, in 44 hours for its debut April 26, 2005.
Featuring a herd of Republican elephants invading Washington, the concept developed from top political advertising agency Zimmerman & Markman, Santa Monica. Zimmerman & Markman worked with Fenton Communications to bring in Z Creative, a New York ad agency specializing in political, issue and image advertising, to overcome the challenge of execution in a critical time frame.
Fueled by passion for the message and for great creative, the FlickerLab animation team worked around the clock from Wednesday the 27th, at 5:00 pm, to final delivery on Friday. Inspiration fired the machine, said producer Sally Anne Syberg. Our biggest problem was deciding what to eat at 2:00 am. Creating the animation worked like clockwork.
Z Creatives creative director and exec producer, Sarah Callahan Zusi, was up all night for days managing this creative challenge. Callahan Zusi said, It was a powerful concept that needed to be executed fast without compromising quality. FlickerLab was the only call. They are the most talented and professional group of animators in New York City. It was a huge team effort.
Using photomontage, the spot is highly manipulated, with still images, hand matted, composited and painted. Building one model in Photoshop, a single elephant was devised of pieces of 10 elephants. Wed take an ear from one elephant and put it on a trunk of another elephant, to get certain angles and expressions, and then animate them in After Effects, explains Harold Moss, creative director, FlickerLab, and director of the spot.
To create the herd, that final elephant was placed in different positions sideways, front three-quarter pose, front back and pose, and back. That gave us a full rotation, so we could hit the elephants coming from any direction, says Moss. Its puppet-style animation, where you move things around instead of redrawing, says Moss. The elephants are noticeably textural, achieved by handpainting via photographic elements.
Backgrounds and elements, such as threatening skies and chunks of buildings, were taken from different photographs and then painted to create a generic federal courthouse.
The photographic images were from many sources personal photos, photos in the public domain, and from stock house Getty Images. Sound designer Tom Lino, a frequent collaborator, added all the sonic flourishes in an on-site recording studio.
This was one of those cases where you really get to throw yourself in fully, where an issue of concern for us all, propelled getting this done to get out the message, states Moss. It was important to communicate the emotional content of the message that there is a real and present threat to our rights in this country in terms of the Republicans and what theyre trying to do with the Supreme Court.
Software used included Digidesign Pro-Tools, Photoshop CS, After Effects 6.5, Flash MX 2004 and Apple Final Cut Pro HD.
Credit List:Radical Rampage (:30) for MoveOnPac.org
Flickerlab Animation CompanyDirector: Harold MossProducer: Sally Anne SybergAssociate producer: Franklin S. ZitterStoryboards: Nikolay NachevArt director: Zartosht SoltaniAnimators: David Michael Friend, Eric MerolaAssistant animators: Erin Kilkenny, Scott Brewster, Robert Jan DeVriesEditor: Harold MossSound design: Tom LinoSpecial Thanks: Sloane Brewster
Zimmerman & Markman, Santa Monica, California Ad AgencyProducers/Writers: Bill Zimmerman, Pacy Markman
Z Creative, New York Production CompanyExec producer/creative director: Sarah Callahan ZusiProducer: Christopher Seward
Fenton Communications, New YorkChairman: David Fenton
FlickerLab, New York, is a multimedia design and animation company working on commercials, film and television. For more information, visit www.flickerlab.com/.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
