Bianca Bartz
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 Zune Tron Ad in Times Square One of the latest and greatest campaigns to hit New York City’s Times Square recently was for the Microsoft Zune. Stardust animations created “Zune Tron”, a 15 second video which was aired on the Geoffreytron billboard above the entrance of the enormous Toys “R” US. The 20 ft LED ad was aired over the holiday season along with creative print and online ads, all which were created by T.A.G., San Francisco “Stardust was really able to bring out the most from a silent medium. This campaign is all about music, and bringing it to life without sound was not an easy task. However, they were able to continue the story we began from TV and execute it in an incredibly fresh and iconic way,” Scott Duhon said. A video of it can be seen here. The press release follows:  HOLLYWOOD and NEW YORK--(Jan. 7, 2008)--Bicoastal creative production
company Stardust Studios (www.stardust.tv) recently produced a dynamic :15
video installation piece for a Zune account creative team from newly
established shop, T.A.G., San Francisco, which included group creative
directors Scott Duchon and Geoff Edwards, art director Rey Andrade,
copywriter Joe Rose, director of broadcast production Jan O'Malley and
agency producer Lee Anne Weldon. The finished piece entitled "Zune Tron"
ran on the famous 20-foot LED "GeoffreyTron" video billboard located above
Toys"R"Us in New York City's Times Square throughout the recent holiday
season, and Stardust's artwork created for the project has also been used
in the agency's campaign print and online banner ads.
Stardust's project team consisted of creative director Jake Banks, art
director Jonathan Wu, producer Lisa Pierce, designer/2D animator Bill Bak,
designer Emie Lee, 3D animators James Anderson and Brian Broussard, and 3D
modeler Chris Eckardt.
"The agency let us know they were interested in producing a video piece for
the Zune player on the 'Geoffreytron,'" Wu explained. "The brief essentially
called for us to express all the things the Zune artistically. In our
approach, we came up with 20 different styles using abstract ways of
representing the Zune player's capabilities using sound waves and other
designs. The creatives asked us to mix and match a few of the boards,
representing different artists' work."
Wu also confirmed that one of the styleboards created by Stardust's artist
Ling Feng was selected for a print ad which has run in recent issues of
Rolling Stone, Wired and many other high-circulation consumer magazines.
That artwork has also been used in some online components of the campaign.
After getting the green light to proceed, Stardust assembled their team of
3D designers and modelers, relying on Bak for design, animation and 2D
compositing. As the artwork was completed in Maya, Bak artfully composited
the elements together in After Effects.
"The biggest challenge of producing this project was that we had to
visually show music without using sound," Wu continued. "Key parts of the
solution were adding a lot of color to make it vibrant and lively, and also
getting this nice slow musical rhythm to it. In the different animated
sequences, there were a lot of dynamics involved in Maya in creating how
things fell; a lot of those effects were a mix of Maya elements with 2D
After Effects elements. The After Effects elements typically were created
with Trapcode plugins like 3D Stroke and Particular. Another big trick was
how we handled the lava in the background. Using a three-step process, we
were able to make the lava morph from one object to another."
"Stardust was really able to bring out the most from a silent medium," said
Scott Duhon, Creative Director/Partner, T.A.G. "This campaign is all about
music, and bringing it to life without sound was not an easy task. However,
they were able to continue the story we began from TV and execute it in an
incredibly fresh and iconic way."
For T.A.G., a unit of McCann Worldgroup San Francisco, campaign credits
also include account director Michael Zlatoper and account executive
Lyndsey Corona.
About Stardust Studios
Stardust is an award-winning creative production company, specializing in
motion design, animation, visual effects and live-action production. Led by
founder and executive creative director Jake Banks, Stardust's Santa Monica
and New York offices continually redefine creativity for commercial,
on-air, music video and in-store presentations. Their recent work –
including projects for the world's top ad agencies, brands and recording
artists – has earned numerous awards and worldwide editorial exposure.
For more information, please visit www.stardust.tv.
(stardust)References: stardust Comment: on LED Video Billboards |
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