Academy Award(R) Nominee Angus Wall And a52's Andy Hall Co-Direct HBO HD "Entourage" On-Air Promos for Verizon FiOS Network via 180LA

 

 

 

Scene from HBO HD Entourage "Phone" courtesy of Elastic.

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Publicity Release Posted: February 20, 2009 09:00:02 EST

 

Santa Monica, CA, February 20, 2009 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | --- Rock Paper Scissors' co-founder and editor Angus Wall, who together with his fellow RPS editor Kirk Baxter is nominated for the Academy Award for the Best Film Editing Oscar(R) for their work on director David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," recently co-directed two on-air promo spots with Andy Hall of visual effects boutique a52. The two spots entitled "Champagne" and "Phone" were conceived by ad agency 180LA specifically to promote HBO's award-winning original series "Entourage" to the nearly two million subscribers of Verizon's FiOS television network. 

 

Co-directors Wall and Hall teamed to shoot the live-action and facilitate all facets of finishing through RPS's full-service design company Elastic. Additional contributions from within the RPS family of companies include RPS editor Damion Clayton cutting both spots and a52 lead Flame artist Andy McKenna handling visual effects compositing and final color. Both spots can be viewed online at www.elastic.tv.

 

"Angus and Andy were great," said 180LA's project art director Peter Vattanatham. "They brought a lot of ideas to the table, always seeing how far we could push the initial concept. And it was great having RPS, Elastic, and a52 under one roof. It made the overall process incredibly collaborative and seamless from start to finish."

 

The "Champagne" spot begins on a black screen with text appearing as in a teleplay. "INT. ARI'S OFFICE - DAY. ARI: It's YOUR choice. It's YOUR life. VINCE: Okay........ I'm gonna do the movie." On the side of the screen, a bottle of champagne appears, and after Vince's words appear, the cork explodes from the bottle and in amazingly sharp high-definition slow-motion footage, the champagne pours forth and viewers see the words, "Entourage in Epic Detail," followed by HBO's HD logo.

 

In a similar setup, "Phone" begins by showing an angle on a concrete wall as text appears on-screen: "INT. OFFICE PARKING GARAGE. ARI: My phone's dead! Lloyd: Company phone, I think they turned it off." With Lloyd's final words, appearing once again in brilliant high-definition slow-motion footage, a cell phone flies across the screen and smashes into pieces which spin in the air as the same end-tag text and logos appear.

 

The high-speed live-action cinematography for both spots was lensed by director of photography Jim Matlosz at Hollywood's Source Film Studios.

 

"This was a really fun assignment from the agency where we were challenged to capture in a microcosm HBO Entourage and relate the details you see when watching HBO in HD through a visual methaphor," said Andy Hall. "After exploring the concepts further, we decided to shoot with the Photosonics camera, as what we were after required us to shoot at well over 2,500 frames per second. The project was a great team effort here, including Andy McKenna's addition of subtle details and flourishes that tie the campaign together."

 

"The big challenge here was 'seeing the world in a grain of sand,' or representing the show with a minimum of elements," added Angus Wall. "It was great fun working with Andy and the agency to do this while not using anything explicitly from the show except the actual written words."

 

For 180LA, along with Peter Vattanatham, the creative team included creative director Joel Rodriguez, copywriter Eric Helin and producer Dave Stephenson. Elastic's credits include executive producer Alex Gorodetzki and line producer David Wolfson. a52's project team also included executive producer Ron Cosentino, producer Jenny Bright, and 3D animator Eli Guerron. Rock Paper Scissors' executive producer is CL Weaver, and the project's producer was Chris Noviello. Campaign sound design and music are courtesy of Human, and Lime created the final audio mix for both spots.

 

About Elastic

Elastic is a full-service design company launched in Santa Monica in 2008 by the founders of editorial company Rock Paper Scissors and visual effects company a52 offering creative production solutions ranging from type treatments, logo animations and motion graphics to full-service production. For more information, please call Alex Gorodetzki at +1.310.586.0680, or visit www.elastic.tv

 

Contact Info

Roger Darnell

DWA for Elastic

rd@darnellworks.com

+1.828.264.8898