Animation production house Acme Filmworks and director Bill Plympton have hit a grand slam with three spots for Wilson Sporting Goods by way of ad agency Euro RSCG McConnaughty Tatham of Chicago. The three spots revolve around tennis players mistreated by opponents using a Wilson Triad tennis racket. Their experience on the court becomes so traumatizing that the athletes seek psychological help. "The agency had these psychological Freudian subconscious drawings," said director Bill Plympton. "The concept was to not make the drawings realistic. The artwork becomes more emotional and less rational as the stories are played out." Flash animator Andrea Breitman traced Bill's drawings directly into the Macromedia Flash V.4 program on a Macintosh G3 computer. After the advertising agency signed off on the color models, the entire piece was color matched and exported into Flash and Quicktime formats. Euros art director Jeff Dechausse said, "What attracted us to Bill was his twisted and child-like sense of humor that is really geared for adults. At the same time he gave us simple yet thematically serious illustrations. Bill has a great sense of timing and comedy and his passion for art and humor really brought the clear and simple ideas that we had, along with the characters, to life." The three spots are now online at the Wilson Sports Website (www.wilsonsports.com), and one of the spots will soon debut on television.
AWN hosts Bill Plympton's Website. Find out all about Bill and his upcoming films and appearances at http://www.awn.com/plympton/.
