Crush, Toronto and Random House Canada have come together to create
nine clips to promote Douglas Coupland"s latest novel The Gum Thief.
This project, which brings selections of the novel to life in
creative short clips, is the first of its kind for both Random House
Canada and Crush.
Three of the clips have just been released on YouTube. The remaining
six clips will be released over the course of this month.
The narration, on all nine clips, is by Douglas Coupland himself.

General note from Crush, Toronto:
Back in the summer, we talked to our good friends at Random House
Canada, about doing something for Doug Coupland's new book. Didn't
know what, just, something. We had done some work before for Souvenir
of Canada, a pop-culture biographical rumination on well, you have to
see it, and should really. Back to The Gum Thief. We wanted to do a
series of short pieces, which would then find their way out into the
world the way all things do now. There are three series, featuring
passages from the novel. Roger and Bethany are the two main characters
in the novel, and Glove Pond is the novel within the novel. We shot in
an unspecified office supplies store, taught ourselves how to animate
piles of staples and took a crash course in mid century advertising.
Doug Coupland does the narration for all of them and Dave deCarlo from
Sons and Daughters helped us out with sound design.

Additional comment from Crush"s managing director/creative director,
Gary Thomas:
First off, we loved the book and we all love Doug"s work. We felt
that the nature of the narrative lent itself to a less traditional
form, and we thought Doug"s readers would be visually sophisticated
and net savvy enough to appreciate this approach. We wanted the three
strands to have a unique look, but when viewed as a group would feel
coherent. Our designers, Stefan Woronko, Adrian Lawrence, Chris Rolf
and Greg Dunlop each used a wide variety of techniques, and brought
their varied design aesthetics to their pieces.

The Gum Thief is a story of love and looming apocalypse set in the
aisles of an office supply superstore.
More on Douglas Coupland here http://www.douglascoupland.ca/
Credits:
Title: Roger: Part 1
Client: Random House Canada / The Gum Thief
Creative Director: Gary Thomas
Producer: Patty Bradley
Director: Gary Thomas
Online/compositing: Greg Dunlop
Production Company: Crush, Toronto
Sound Design: Dave deCarlo
Random House: Sharon Klein

Title: Bethany: Part 1
Client: Random House Canada / The Gum Thief
Creative Director: Gary Thomas
Producer: Patty Bradley
Directors: Adrian Lawrence, Chris Rolf
Online/compositing: Greg Dunlop
Production Company: Crush, Toronto
Sound Design: Dave deCarlo
Random House: Sharon Klein

Title: Glove Pond: Part 1
Client: Random House Canada / The Gum Thief
Creative Director: Gary Thomas
Producer: Patty Bradley
Director: Stefan Woronko
Online/compositing: Greg Dunlop
Production Company: Crush, Toronto
Sound Design: Dave deCarlo
Random House: Sharon Klein

The latest campaign for Lavalife, via Zig and OPC director Brian Lee
Hughes, divides the men of the world into three groups; stable
relationship guys, casual daters & the luxurious lovers of intimate
encounters. This "Orgasm" spot highlights the intimate group and be
sure to watch the delicious bonus multiple orgasm outtake.

Titles: Orgasm, Orgasm Outtakes
Client: Lavalife
Agency: Zig, Toronto
Creative Director: Martin Beauvais
Associate Creative Director: Stephen Leps
Associate Creative Director: Aaron Starkman
Copywriters: Steven Barr, Melanie Hurst
Art Directors: Craig Ferguson, Laura Rogers
Producer: Anna Tricinci
Team Leader: Emily Robinson
Planner: Jennifer Breton
Coach: Andy Macaulay
Production Company: OPC, Toronto
Director: Brian Lee Hughes
Executive Producer: Harland Weisz
Producer: Jeff Low
Director of Photography: Tico Poulakakis
Editorial: Aaron Dark, The Jugernaut, Toronto
Music/Sound Design: Mr. Tunes, Elliot Fienberg

Agency Due North and Head Gear Animation work together to create
these tiny tv spots for the Dairy Farmers of Canada.

In total there will be 50 spots in this campaign - all by Head Gear
and they won"t all be done until Christmas (or so). As each spot is
completed, it begins airing.
Although short, they are full commercials. Through testing the agency
discovered that teens (the target audience) have a low attention span
and so
they decided to make a whole bunch of very short ads.

The agency requested that they be made odd, quirky yet also rich.
The concept is to have a different look for each spot, which was a
wonderful opportunity for Head Gear as they got to pull out all the
animation stops and dig deep into their artistic brains. The campaign
draws on the full range of animation styles: stop motion, claymation,
cel, 2D, collage, etc, etc.

You can view the completed/airing ones here (& download using
quicktime pro):

Brad Tucker, creative director for bicoastal creative production
company Stardust Studios (www.stardust.tv), has just directed a new
set of stylish animated HD spots for Pontiac via Leo Burnett Detroit.
The campaign's broadcast elements consist of a :60 spot entitled
"Details," a :30 spot entitled "GXP G6," and another :30 version
entitled "Halo" which features a tie-in with the much anticipated
release of "Halo 3," the final game in Microsoft's Xbox 360 "Halo"
Trilogy, which is due out worldwide later this month. The "Details"
:60 debuted this month on ABC and ESPN during college football
broadcasts, and each spot will air widely over the weeks ahead.

In the campaign's stylized black-and-white footage, all of which is
3D animation created at Stardust and finished in HD resolution,
Pontiac's 2008 G6 GXP Coupe, Solstice GXP Roadster and Torrent GXP
Crossover are featured racing through high-contrast urban cityscapes -
and revealing key design details through creative transitions. Each
spot is tagged with voiceover from Matt Dillon.

"The idea for this spot was born from one simple, key visual and one
simple thought: It's all in the details," says Leo Burnett Detroit
creative director Jeff Cruz. "Stardust really embraced that, not only
as the concept of the spot, but in the way they executed it. Their
attention to the little things is a big reason why these spots turned
out the way they did - and for that, we're thankful."

"The agency presented us with the great of idea of bringing out the
details of the Pontiac GXP series through these spots," Tucker
explained. "After we won the pitch, we concentrated on the look of
the background environments and the transitions. From there, we
handled the spot as though it was a live-action job."

Continuing, Tucker added, "We did hand-drawn storyboards to develop
the story and editorial sense of the spot, then we did pre-vis on the
entire spot with low poly models. Once all of our shots were locked,
we built out all the environments, and started to add the high-res
vehicles, working closely with the agency to achieve perfect lighting
on the cars everywhere they appear."

Here"s the latest for Farmer"s Insurance from Biscuit director Noam
Murro, Campbell-Ewald and Animal Logic

Agency: Campbell-Ewald
EVP, Executive Creative Director: Debbie Karnowsky
VP, Agency Executive Producer: John Haggerty
SVP, Associate Creative Director: Chip Kettering
VP, Senior Copywriter: John Dolab
Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Noam Murro
Executive Producers: Shawn Lacy,Eric Stern
Co-Producer: Jay Veal
VFX: Animal Logic
VFX Supervisor: Nick Ponzoni
VFX Producer: Nerissa Kavanagh
VFX Production Coordinator: Kate Stenhouse
Lead Compositor: Nick Ponzoni
Senior Compositor: Leoni Willis, Angus Wilson, Kim Fogelberg
Compositor: Howard Hill
Assistant Compositor: Jodi Tyne
Lead Shake Compositor: Vaughn Arnup
Shake Compositor: Charlie Armstrong, Laura Dubsky, Jamie Nimmo
Director (Pneumonics): Toby Grime
3D Lead (Pneumonics): Feargal Stewart
3D Artist (Pneumonics): Paul Braddock, David Hyde, Paul Perrott,
Bhakar James, Sandy Sutherland, Sotiris Bakosis
3D Artists (Pneumonics): Tristan North
Colorist (Commute): Eric Whipp
Music & sound design: Nylon Studios

The spot, "Todd"s Life", features a doll-sized guy who throws off his
twist-ties, breaks out of his box and escapes life"s pre-packaged
options to explore "Virgin" territory.

Credits:

Agency: Cummins & Partners Brisbane / Creative Directors: Nancy
Hartley, James Burchill / Writer: Nancy Hartley / Art Director: James
Burchill / Agency Producers: Georgina Toole, Imogen Dick / Account
Management: Blair Burchill, Rachael Burrough / Client: Darren Wright,
Stephan Pichler / Guillotine Editor: Stewart Reeves

Production Company: Good Oil / Director: Hamish Rothwell / Producer:
Juliet Bishop

Fuel VFX supervisor: Paul Butterworth / VFX producer: Dave Kelly /
Pre-viz artist: Anders Thonell / 3D Lead: Chris French / Flame artist:
Edwin So

"Roadkill" is part of a major campaign initiated by Almighty for the
NB Zip technology. It was made in conjunction with the site
http://www.nbzip.com/ [1]
Developed by Almighty, New Balance"s Digital and Non-Traditional
Agency of Record, the campaign focuses on the "Positive Energy" of the
NB ZIP(tm) shoes, playing on an "Energy In, Energy Out" message.
Title: Roadkill
Brand: New Balance
Advertising Agency: Almighty, Boston
Creative Director: Chris Smith and Joe Polevy
Associate Creative Director / Art Director; Chad Portas
Writer: Andrew Jasperson
Producer: Liz Shook
Executive Producer: Matthew Charde
Production Company - live action: Biscuit Filmworks (Los Angeles)
Director: Russ Lamoureux
Executive Producer: Shawn Lacy and Eric Stern
Line Producer: Lisa Stockdale
Director of Photography: Joost Van Starrenburg
Production Company - Animation: Shilo (New York)

Creative Director: Andre Stringer / Jose Gomez
Lead Design: Evan Dennis
Executive Producer: Tracy Chandler
Producer: Jeremy Yaches
Animation & compositing: Evan Dennis, Dave Hill
Design Assistant: Stieg Retlin
Assistant 3D Artist: Warren Heimall
Music: Apples in Stereo [2]
Title: Energy
Post House: Engine Room (Boston)
Editor: Matt Rogers
Color Correction/ Film Transfer- Nice Shoes (New York)
Colorist: Gene Curley
Sound House: Soundtrack Boston
Audio Engineer and Sound Design: Howard Carle


Links:
------
[1] http://www.nbzip.com/
[2] http://www.applesinstereo.com/

The "Raccooni Brothers" is the first in a series of new spots for
telecommunications company Optus that continues their trademark use of
animals to promote their services. Befitting a company that is
invested in the latest technology, the Optus spots now regularly
feature 100% CG animal characters.

Fuel VFX supervisor Dave Morley says this is "a sign that digital
animation has really come of age, with its development of photo-real
characters that are imbued with the same animated charm as traditional
animation. Now you get the best of both worlds - great performance and
execution."

The brief from Filmgraphic's director Phil Meatchem was that the
"Raccooni Brothers" are a classic double act - straight man and fall
guy. The brothers share similar physical traits but they have very
different personalities: one is smaller, more anxious and very serious
while the other brother is larger, easily distracted and a shameless
extrovert.

Credits
Agency: M & C Saatchi, Sydney
Agency Head of TV: Rod James
Agency CD: Ben Welsh
Agency AD: Paul Carpenter
Agency Copywriter: Ben Welsh
Agency Producer: Loren August

Production Company: Filmgraphics
Director: Phil Meatchem
Producer: Jo Jordan

Fuel Credits:
VFX Supervisor: Dave Morley
VFX Producer: Dave Kelly

"The Line" is a co-branded effort by Nike and Dick's Sporting Goods
and is running nationally in the US market.
The spot features celebrity football star Troy Polamalu and was
created to pay homage to Troy Polamalu's reputation of being a sweet
gentlemen off the field and a feared warrior during the game.

The live action was directed by Cisma (Blacklist) and Eben Mears
(Psyop).
The animation was directed and executed by Cisma and his team.

Title: The Line
Client: Nike/Dick"s Sporting Goods
Agency: Wieden+Kennedy, Portland
Creative Directors: Tyler Whisnand, Mike McCommon
Art Director: Jay Berry
Writer: Caleb Jensen
Executive Producer: Ben Grylewicz
Producer: Andy Murillo
Production Company: Psyop/Blacklist, New York
Director: Cisma
Psyop Creative Director: Eben Mears
Executive Producer: Adina Sales
Producer: Jen Glabus
Live Action Producers: Paul Middlemiss, Dan O'Brien
Editor: Cisma
Compositor: Daniel Dias
Lead 3D Animation: Ricardo Bardal, Alfredo Hisa, Francois Puren,
Guilherme Alvernaz
Storyboard: Renato Baschi
Flame Artists: Jamie Scott, Theo Maniatis, Ella Boliver
Rotoscoping: Hyunjeen Lee, Leslie Chung
Music & Sound Design: Sound Lounge, New York
Composer: Roman Zeitlin
Sound Design: Marshall Grupp
Mixer: Tom Jucarone

Dell has taken a whole new approach with these new series of ads for
the launch of its new XPS notebook. Whereas previous ads were very
matter-of-fact, these new ads are an attempt to redefine the company
and help it sport a hip image. With support from ad agency Mother,
New York, Dell has launched this TV spot called Engine which features
the song "Work It" by the mega cult classic band Devo, the same who
brought you "whip it." The song is Devo's first major release in 17
years. In the ad, models equipped with ultra sci-fi jetson's style
outfits and various household tools, hammer out an engine to the beat.