Rhapsody, the online music service run by MTV and Real Music, featured Seattle blogger Dave Knight in “Rhapsody Moments”, an advertising campaign launched in December 2009. A Rhapsody moment is when a song ties in to a certain place/time/event in your life, and you’ll forever associate the two. Dave, as Rhapsody user since 2006, responded to a talent scan run through the Rhapsody Facebook Fan page and Twitter channel. A film crew followed Dave for a day, catching him making breakfast (My Morning Jacket, The Way That He Sings), cycling through the city (The Temper Trap, Sweet Disposition), catching the sunset at South Lake Union Park (The XX, Islands), working late at the office (Thievery Corporation, Lebanese Blonde), and hanging out with friends (Passion Pit, Smile Upon Me). When provided with a track from Lamb of God Dave thought of Heavy Metal, the guy who works in his local corner store.

Click on the image below to play the Sweet Disposition Cycling video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Lamb of God video in YouTube (HD)

Credits

Filming was shot by Brennan Stasiewicz.

via Dave’s Faves and Real Network Blog.

LG has launched a television advertising campaign for the LG Infinia television, combining footage from the Thailand jungle and sea with photoreal CG animals. “Butterflies” shows us a single cocoon releasinig tens of thousands of CG butterflies. An elephant, with the help of CG magic, learns to climb a tree. Lure sees a CG fishing lure find its freedom whilst following a playmate in the deep blue sea. What if something amazing became infinitely amazing?

Click on the image below to play the three videos in YouTube (HD)

Credits

The LG campaign was developed at Y&R New York by agency producer Robert Beck.

FIlming was shot by director Dante Ariola via MJZ, Los Angeles, with producer Nathalie Richardson-Hill.

VFX and telecine were produced at Framestore by VFX CG supervisor Diarmid Harrison Murray, VFX 2D supervisor Alex Thomas and producer Sarah Hiddlestone.

Framestore provide their commentary on their side of the work….

In Butterflies, the main challenge was to create thousands of butterflies that looked real as a swarm, whilst retaining the intrinsic beauty that these fascinating insects possess, particularly during flight. The 3D team had to find the right balance between naturally chaotic flying and choreographed flying that could neatly tell the ad’s story of ‘infinite flow’. Caution was taken to ensure the butterflies didn’t become too stylised and bird-like, especially in the more crowded shots. The opening hero butterflies were hand animated for a smooth and organic feel, but the wider shots used a particle system to disperse the insects when they begin to number in the thousands. Range of colour and attention to detail were crucial, so the team created unique butterfly designs and added touches like rendering a fine layer of fur to avoid a plastic or solid look. Meanwhile, the 2D team painstakingly rotoscoped around the foliage so the butterflies could ‘fly’ behind some of the leaves. The 2D brief required a delicate hand to enhance the film’s magical lighting in Flame with subtle effects like lens flares and volumetric light.

Although Elephant’s eponymous animal seems to be climbing skillfully, it maintains an arduous sense of weight. Alex Thomas and Diarmid Harrison-Murray worked closely with Dante Ariola on set, shooting a variety of setups with real elephants, so that as often as possible, the real animal could be used, even if the background had to be rebuilt. At times the final shot is a combination of real elephant and CG. Considering the elephant’s climb was entirely unnatural, it was given amazingly authentic-looking movement through careful 3D animation and convincing 2D compositing. Given the intense schedule, raw CG renders of the elephant struggled in extreme close up, so tight shots were enhanced with 2½D projections of the real elephant. The 3D team also worked on augmenting the tree to make it appear more climbable and generated the tree trunk base to replace the elephant’s live action step. The jungle canopy needed to be closed in selectively in 2D and soaring CG parrots were added to draw attention to this sole opening. The final vista was built as a labour of love in Flame using location stills as a base. Flame was also used to create quiet but enriching visual effects like leaves that fall as the elephant strikes the tree.

Lure sees a fishing lure meets its doppelganger and so had the strongest narrative requirements. The animation challenge was in conveying a seemingly inanimate object being propelled by underwater currents, without it coming across as cute Pixar-esque character. Both the lure and the fish were designed in CG, with iridescent colour being a client priority. The underwater footage provided no tracking markers and few lighting references. Fortunately, though, a solid track wasn’t appropriate due to the fluid environment. In the absence of HDRs, fish and lure reflections were based on procedural HDRs generated by creating an artificial environment that emulated underwater colours and movements. The shoal required a delicate balance between natural movement and narrative choreography and the light that comes through it was built using shaders to create a sense of light travelling through the fishes’ bodies. CG elements were degraded in Flame to mimic the backplate’s natural imperfections. For example, a chromatic aberration effect -- where the channel splits at the edge of frame in underwater footage -- was applied as a blue blur to the edges of the fish and lure.

Volkswagen’s “Like a Golf” has won a Gold award in cars category at the British Television Advertising Awards. The television commercial, launched in August 2009, was designed to position the Volkswagen Golf as the top of the hatchback car class. From a witness to a road traffic incident to a woman renting a hire car, the public are seen using the word ‘Golf’ as a descriptor for a hatchback car that isn’t actually a Golf.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

Credits

The Like a Golf campaign was developed at DDB London by executive creative director Jeremy Craigen, copywriters/art directors Feargal Ballance and Dylan Harrison, and agency producer Lucy Westmore, with account planner Georgia Challis, business directors Jonathan Hill and Paul Billingsley, and account director Paul Mitcheson.

Filming was shot by director Seb Edwards via Academy Films, London, with producer Juliet Harris.

Post production was done at Framestore, London.

BMW has hit paydirt with the most watched BMW YouTube video ever (1.6 million views since March 5) in “Dinner for Double R”, a promotional video for the S 1000 RR superbike. Most of us have seen the oldest trick in the book, removing a table cloth from a table and leaving wine glasses and plates in place. Would it be possible to pull of the same trick on a large banquet table using a BMW S 1000 RR bike going from zero to 100 km/h in just 2.9 seconds? The video provides links to Planet Power, BMW TV (bmw.tv), and the BMW Motorrad Facebook fan page.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

Compare.com’s 2009 Meerkat campaign has won Gold at the 2010 British Television Advertising Awards, earning recognition for Jingles, Sergei, Puppets, Jacuzzi, The Sun Interview, Aleksandr Bloopers, and Sergei Bloopers. Aleksandr Orlov, Russian mascot for the “Compare the Market” campaign, uses his own YouTube channel to remind viewers not to confuse his “Compare the Meerkat” site and comparethemarket.com, which is for humans searching for cheap deals on their car insurance. Also check out the Facebook page, Twitter channel.

Click on the image below to play the first advertisement in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Jingles video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Sergei video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Puppets video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Jacuzzi video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play The Sun Interview video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Aleksandr Bloopers video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Sergei Bloopers video in YouTube (HD)

Credits

The Compare the Meerkat campaign was developed at VCCP, London, by creative directors Steve Vranakis and Darren Bailes, copywriters Rich Connell and Matt Lloyd, art director Clem Woodward, agency producers Olly Claverley and Carly Parris.

Filming was shot by director Darren Walsh via Passion Pictures with director of photography Olivier Cariou and editor Jamie Foord.

Audio post-production was done at Wave Studios.

Jingle won three Gold awards for Best 10-20 Second Commercial, Financial and New Creative Team, and a Silver award for Direct Response. Sergei won a Silver for Financial. The campaign won a Gold award.

Pedigree Petfood Canada has launched “Catch”, a multimedia advertising campaign featuring the efforts of dogs to catch Healthy Pocket pieces of Pedigree Vitality. Muscles are tensed. Tongues are let loose. Saliva drips. Bodies are launched. Some are not. Canine expressions of all sorts are captured at 1000 frames per second to take 3 seconds of action into 30 seconds of anticipation. All inspired by “Birds”, the Vitalic music video produced by French digital production house Pleix.

Click on the image below to play the Pedigree Catch video in YouTube (HD)

Credits

The Pedigree campaign was developed at TBWA\Toronto, by creative director/copywriter Mark Biernacki, creative director/art director Steph Mackie, and agency producer Margaret John.

Filming was shot on a Phantom camera by director Bob Purman via Imported Artists Film Company, Toronto.

Sound was produced by Joey Serlin. Editor was Chris Parkins. Flame artist was Mike Bishop.

Music is “Lower Your Eyelids to Die With The Sun” from the M83 (Anthony Gonzalez) album, Before The Dawn Heals Us.

Purman was initially charged with shooting two spots, a “Catch” and a “Jump” execution. Purman tells us how the two spots ended up as one.

“The ‘Catch’ spot was to be a series of shots of dogs looking with anticipation as a piece of dog food is flying through the air towards them. We shot close-ups of the dogs at 1000 fps. The result was really wonderfully anthropomorphic. The super slow motion really captured this intense sense of desire in the dogs’ eyes. To me it was equal parts awe inspiring and hilarious to see so rich a palate of personality in a dog’s facial expressions. A few days after the shoot I started to get emails from Mark, Steph and the editor Chris Parkins with the different iterations of the spots cut to different music selections, all of them interesting for different reasons. But then they put footage from the two spots together to form this new greater whole that really exploits the dynamics of the dogs’ athleticism and their emotive personality in slowed time.”

Vitalic Birds

Here’s the film that inspired the Pedigree Catch campaign. Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

Hewlett Packard has launched a $40 million dollar advertising campaign this weekend, “Let’s Do Amazing”, featuring hip hop producer Dr Dre, New Zealand comedian Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords), and photographer Annie Leibovitz. The eight week campaign, online at HP, Twitter and YouTube, includes TV, print, online and radio. The goal of the campaign is to demonstrate HP’s collaboration with and HP capability, putting a “lense” on what HP has done to help customers excel.

Click on the image below to play the Introductory video in YouTube (HD)

Dr. Dre’s commercial features the Aftermath Entertainment CEO in his recording studio expounding on the benefits of the HP Beats computing system. The producer’s HP ENVY 15 Beats limited edition notebook PC is a collaboration between Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine of Interscope and HP’s engineers. “The laptop is the new stereo for a lot of people and that’s why we’re putting out this computer with incredible sound,” Dr. Dre said of his new notebook PC. Click on the image below to play the Dr Dre video in YouTube (HD)

Rhys Darby talks to the director of IT at The Venetian, Las Vegas. “I basically run a city. HP built us this rock-solid network that runs everything you see here.” Click on the image below to play the Venetian Guy video in YouTube (HD)

Darby asks a guy at UPS what’s happened to his arm. “Its a system we developed with HP to get packages on the trucks fastersaves a couple million pounds of paper a year.” Click on the image below to play the UPS video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Rhys Darby Interview video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Michael Mendenhall, CMO Campaign Background video in YouTube (HD)

Reebok has launched a new television commercial advertising “Reezig” in the American market, another element in the “Ree” marketing platform. The US version of the “Reezig” TV spot features Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco (also known as Chad Johnson) running through a fitness track in animated form. The campaign uses the unique, iconic “geometric zig zag shape” outsole to reinforce the benefit ZIGTECH technology provides as it absorbs the impact of heel strike and sends a wave of energy along the length of the shoe to help propel the athlete forward with each step. “The energy drink for your feet”.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

Rich Prenderville, Reebok’s Head of Global Marketing, talks about the thinking behind the Reezig advertising campaign…

“With the ZigTech ad, we leveraged the most noticeable visual element from the product and created a whole animated world of fun and sport that is powered by this technology. The discovery elements within the spot, and Chad’s smile at the end, reinforces the brand’s fun approach and attitude and differentiates us from the way many other sports brands would approach the same story.”

Credits

The TV spots were created by DDB Berlin.

Viral Activity

Reebok is the brand said to be behind the viral video featuring Ochocinco running naked through Hollenbeck Park.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

Microsoft is running a series of television commercials promoting Bing’s new sponsorship deal for The Simpsons on Channel 4. The deal includes sponsorship credits before and after episodes, as well as during ad breaks. The TV advertising campaign features a family who use Bing to resolve their own dysfunctional differences. The husband, rather than eating the salad left in the fridge, looks up Chinese takeaways on Bing. When quizzed about the dry cleaning, the wife quickly calls up Bing on her laptop. And Bing becomes the centrepiece for a discussion on the merits of doing aerobics together.

Click on the image below to play the Chinese Takeaways video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Dry Cleaning video in YouTube (HD)

Click on the image below to play the Aerobics video in YouTube (HD)

Credits

The Simpsons family ident campaign was developed at Duke and Earl, London. The deal was planned and bought by Universal McCann.

Aircel, one of India’s largest mobile service providers, has joined the fight to save India’s Royal Bengal tiger population from extinction. In partnership with Dentsu Communications and WWF India, Aircel has initiated a ‘Save Our Tigers’ project to get the public behind the protection of the country’s national animal. The tiger population has dropped to a current total of 1,411 in comparison to 40,000 tigers a hundred years ago. Aircel is using print, outdoor, online, radio and television advertising encouraging people to not only make donations but join the movement and spread the news. The campaign is centred on the website www.saveourtigers.com as well as on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The Save Our Tigers campaign portrays the world as it’s seen through the eyes of a six-months old tiger cub named Stripey by Dentsu Communications. In the campaign’s video Stripey is shown to be waiting for his mother that will never return, probably killed by poachers. Like any child, he’s lost, and hungry. The story of the cub provides a different angle on the poaching problem and provides a connection to the horrifying statistic that there are 1,411 tigers left in India. The commercial ends with a listing of some of the things people can do to help the Save Our Tigers cause.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)

People can join a fun pledging section on saveourtigers.com called ‘Join the Roar’. Participants can pick from a series of tiger pictures, choose a square in a mosaic grid and enter their contact details to fill the piece and complete the photo. So far 190,831 people have joined.

Credits

The Save Our Tigers campaign was developed at Dentsu Communications by national creative director Shivanand Mohanty, creative director Sangeeta Velegar, art directors Samson Samuel, K. Nagalakshmi, copywriters Sangeeta Velegar, Harish Arora, Mohanarangan. K , concept designers Shivanand Mohanty, Sangeeta Velegar, Samson Samuel.

Filming was shot by directors Rickii Kapoor at Cutting Edge, Rajesh Saathi at Keroscene Films and Shiva Shiv at Tellywise. Post production was done at Prime Focus.

Indian celebrities behind the campaign are Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni, footballer Baichung Bhutia and actors Suriya, Kabir Bedi and Shernaz Patel. Voice-overs are provided by Kabir Bedi and Shernaz Patel.