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July 20, 2005
VBS Hugs the Road with Nitto Tires "Original Article by Linda Rosner of Artisans Los Angeles— Jeff Hixon, VideoBox executive producer, "Choice came to us and asked if we would create and produce a few broadcast spots for Nitto. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get our feet wet in production but was then told we had three weeks to complete the spots before they began airing on MTV." The challenge Choice offered VideoBox was considerable. There were no scripts or boards, a day or two of shooting involved and an enormous amount of graphics and animation needed on the post side. Director, Cameron Hopkins and director / editor, Justin Hixon co-directed the spots and quickly found themselves doing much of the creative work usually handled by the agency. Dennis Suggs, partner Choice Internet "Nitto is aggressively targeting the MTV market but up to that point we had only been doing print and web campaigns with them. The jump to broadcast required a signifacntly different approach and together with VideoBox we delivered some great spots." Hopkins "We had to dive right into it. The air date was approaching and we immediately began working with Dennis Suggs, Choice's creative director to pin down the creative. Jason Hearne, Creative Director of Video Box Studios "We pitched many ideas to Dennis, but none seemed as tantalizing as the prospect of being in a surreal city with your tires firmly on the ground. I mentioned how the city could dance and bounce to the music. And the digital camera could go places the real camera could not. After that pitch his imagination was swimming." The two spots involve two difernt group of gen yers out on a night on the town in an Escalde and Scion. Animated cityscapes pass by in the windwss and reflections on the surface of the cars. Skyscarpers pulse to the heavy bassline in the spots soundtrack. The genyers just enjoy the ride as tred shots and the Nitto logo is revealed throughout. Doug Kluthe "The combination of Cameron's years of directing experience and Justin's significant post knowledge worked really well for this project and we avoided many of the pitfalls of the hand off from production to post." Cam Hopkins "We relied heavily of digital stills. We shot the car footage entirely on green screen and took a scaled down crew to downtown LA to shoot all the background plates." Jason Hearne, Creative Director "In order to meet the air date, we had Eight artists working long days while our Render farm crunched. Each tasked with separate pieces of the spot. It was pretty intense but we delivered" Ko Maruyama, veteran VFX Artist and trusted friend to VBS, was intrumental in visual effects supervising the production and streamlining the post. Along with Rob Garrott, Masan Yi, and a crew of 5 other extrodinarly talented broadcast designers. Justin Hixon VideoBox Creative Director and Co-Director, "Aiming to provide a complete, one-stop solution for digital production, Video Box Studios has expanded, adding graphics, visual effects and animation to its core post production services. The company's new graphics department features the latest in desktop imaging technology, including five Apple G5 workstations, Maxon's Cinema 4D software for animation and Adobe's AfterEffects for visual effects, compositing and rendering. Combined with existing services that include creative editorial and editorial finishing (including HD), digital color correction, and audio recording and mixing, the additions allow the company to manage digital media projects from concept through delivery. "Graphics and animation were the only pieces we were missing," said Video Box creative director Justin Hixon. "We now have all of the resources our clients need to produce high quality commercials, broadcast graphics, video kiosks and other media. Clients today are looking for facilities that can offer them choices and solutions. Our model allows us to give them want they want: high impact, cost effective productions." Heading Video Box's new graphics department is Jason Hearne. Hearne has a background in animation and broadcast graphics, with a list of credits that includes ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and Universal. In the first application of its new production pipeline, Video Box has produced a national television advertising campaign for Nitto Tire and its advertising and marketing agency Choice Internet. For the two 30-second spots, which show young people driving through a virtual city, the company assisted in concept development and provided production, editorial, visual effects, animation, sound design, audio mixing and final post services. The spots are currently airing on MTV and elsewhere. Video Box creative directors Jason Hearne and Justin Hixon worked with Choice Internet creatives in developing concepts for the spots designed to appeal to the campaign's target audience of "tuners," young custom car and SUV enthusiasts. "We needed to produce two spots in just two weeks," Hixon said. "With such a tight deadline, there was no time to arrange to shoot the spots on city streets. Rather, we chose to film the vehicles and talent against green screen and composite them into digital environments. That approach also had creative benefits as it gave us complete freedom to design the city and the way the vehicles move through and interact with the environment." The urban environments were produced via Cinema 4D and AfterEffects and consist of high rise office buildings arranged in pop-up fashion along asphalt roadways. The buildings are animated and sway to the relentless rhythm of the spots' hip hop soundtracks. Chrome colored graphics, composited over the live action, accent the movement of the tires and contribute to the energy and look of the colorful spots. "We created an urban community that is cool, hip and fun," said Hearne. "We boosted the lighting and colors of both the live action elements and the CG so that it looks really magical. We wanted to create that feeling you get when you're heading out on the town and expect something great to happen." For close-up shots of the tires, CG replacements were used. This allowed the artists to better highlight product details and to create camera moves that would have been difficult or impossible to pull off practically. "The production environment we've created allows us to apply the best tools and the best talent in every phase and facet," Hixon said. "Digital solutions are now often more dynamic and more affordable that practical methods. This project is a good example of what is fast becoming a standard mode of production." Credits for Video Box Studios go to... The Spot is available for viewing in our latest Section under Graphic Animation in the Portfolio section. July 13, 2005
Production + Post...UNITE! Video Box Studios and 47 Pictures (production) combine forces to create 47P+P, a one in all solution for show creators and advertisers looking to maximize their time and budgets for emplementing their projects.
Point 360 West
April 2008 
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