Part of a three-spot commercial campaign, with print and direct mail elements, the Time Warner Cable project enabled the Gasket team to collaborate once again with FAME. The creative team had already collaborated on extensive broadcast packaging for Time Warner Cable. Once it was determined that a character was needed for this new campaign, Gasket created the original 3D character, nicknamed “Digit.”
  
  

 
Gasket concepted the three spots, which began with the main character and then included the creation of his little digital adapter buddies. The characters needed to be cute, non-threatening, and the process super easy and not complicated. The characters also needed to play well across multiple platforms since it was a complex campaign including broadcast, print, and online.
   
  

 

 
The three-spot “Wave” campaign aired throughout Fall 2011, just in time for the January 2012 All Digital transition.
  
  

  

(AICP stands for Association of Independent Commercial Producers.)
 
  

 

 
Conceived as a fully integrated spot with live action, design, animation and visual effect, Gasket leveraged its team approach to the fullest, creating a tight pipeline to produce the multilayered project.  The storyboards and animatic were on a fast track for the shoot in late June to catch the summer prairie flowers in full bloom.  Shooting on the Canon 5D camera with macro lenses and mini-dolly rigs, Gasket captured the microcosm of the prairie for the sea creatures to inhabit. At each location HDR images of the environment were sourced to recreate realistic lighting for all the models and visual effects.

 

 

 
The 19th Annual AICP Show was played at the ultra modern Guthrie Theater on the riverfront in downtown Minneapolis, MN.  Agencies, clients and the production community came across the country to watch the touring show, which first played in New York at the Museum of Modern art in June.
   
  

   

 
The sponsor reel is broken into the various sponsor levels; bronze, silver, gold and platinum. We kept with the idea of presenting exciting, vivid, memorable visuals.  The boards were vital to the process since we needed to shoot live action plates as well as animate our characters within a fully composited world.  Initially the number of sponsors were unknown, so we had to keep our options open for when, where, and how sponsors would be introduced, just in case someone wanted to sneak in at the last minute.
 
 

 
When the color script was created, we looked at the whole picture from the beginning to the end and figured out where the climaxes were in each individual scene.  The script starts out with calming colors, then becomes more vivid during the climax of the reel, and finally returns to calm colors at the very end. By paying extra attention when and how we used the colors, we tried to connect with the viewer on an emotional level to drive our story and enhance the drama of each scene.
 
 

 
 

 

 
We had been experimenting with a whale dressed in a Victorian ruff and clown makeup, swimming through flower garden, with rich, vivid colors. That was the foundation idea for the AICP sponsor reel. We wanted an art and performance piece that would show the versatility of the Gasket team.

We concepted an old magical traveling show, replete with miniature sea creatures that swam through the air, traveling the rolling prairie in hot air balloons, performing in amongst the flowers and hollows. The posters and other art had to look a bit weathered and outdated, with a hint of modern flavor to support the sponsor logos.  We research vintage posters, gramophones, typefaces, and other bizarre sea animals.

The animation style was considerably different than previous work we have done. We wanted the motion to hit a sweet spot between realism and the fantastical while maintaining a graceful and entertaining vibe. We also wanted to make sure each of the characters had their own specific character traits. For example, the zebra seahorse was timid and shy, while the knight and dragon were bold and strong.
 

 
The seahorses were initially inspired by synchronized swimming teams. Then we thought about giving each seahorse a unique look, much like carousel horses. As we designed the costumes, their characters developed various warriors, from an African Zulu fighters, to civil war calvary, to a knight in shining armor fighting a dragon.
 
 

     

 

 
For the print and email campaign, the designs needed to be fresh and light with a sort of weightless feel, but featuring some of the fantastical performers from the piece, as if the were famous actors in a broadway show. 
 
 

 

 
Behind the scenes at the live action shoot.  When shooting with a macro setup, your stage is only about 3 feet, so timings and action become crucial.  Insects were constantly buzzing the camera, but they seemed like 747s at that scale.  The wind had a gale force quality at that size.  The mirror ball was used to capture HDR images to project reflections and lighting on the scenes and models to integrate them environment.  Camera rigs and crew were removed in post. 

The campaign ran across nine SuperValu banners nation-wide, along with Spanish and Polish language versions with ethnic food items, and alternative shopper marketing versions featuring specific name-brand products.
 
  

  

  
In a first for SuperValu, the iconic lemon, which is the theme for the spot as well as the anchor for the logo, is entirely digital.  The goal was to create a real lemon that says "fresh off the tree," ready for your summer lemonade.
  
  

  
The final rendered lemon had extensive effects enhancements and moisture droplets. 
  
  

  
English, Spanish and Polish language versions.
  
  

  

  
The live action food photography was shot by Buck Holzmer, with vfx supervision from Gasket. This is the setup for the burger scene, which was highly engineered.
  

  
The burger sequence was the most challenging as it had to look flowing, seamless and amazingly flavorful, yet still come together in a pleasing arrangement.
  
  

  
Using flame, extensive tracking, color correction and animation, the burger patty flips in the air, then reconstructs itself, falling on the bun, followed by lettuce, tomato and onion slices.  Magic!
  
  

  

  
An alternate version of the spot for shopper marketing was suppose to include a 4th of July themed can of Coca-Cola, one of the sponsors.  Unfortunately, the cans were not yet ready.  We shot the plate without the can, then built it in 3D from the packaging art.  Lighting and vfx information was gathered at the shoot, then used to integrate the can back in the shot.
  
  

  
Wire frame of 3D coke can.
  
  

  
The hero Coca-Cola can was composited with the final color corrected shot, married with background graphics.

Long, sweeping extrusions paired with bold colors and clean reflections attract a more mature audience, while the playful arching extrusions coupled with saturated colors and soft textures are geared for the younger generation. Although each spot has a specific audience in mind, all have similar movements to guide you through the animation, and remain clean and simple so that the message is easily communicated to a general audience.
  
  

  
The look of the Time Warner environment was intensively crafted with light and compositing effects. We first created the environment using a colored ramp, sampled from the new Time Warner color palette, designed by FAME. We made a colored HDR for the ambient lighting on the type, which gave it some initial color and helped blend it into the background.  The main shader we used for the type was a black, then a reflective shader, lit with colored lights, helped achieve the colorful and shiny look of the extruded type.  The front faces of the type were then rendered separately and layered on top.  We also layered in ground reflections, shadows and occlusion to achieve the final look.
  
  

  

  
Working with FAME's initial concepts for the brand package, we created individual looks and animation for each promo.  "Free On Demand" was originally slated to be the color "grass" and have a fresh, lively animated style to the extruded type, targeted at a younger demographic that enjoys the "VIP Backstage Pass" type of content. The color was eventually switched to "sky", and given more of a water theme with the type causing light ripples in the floor as it landed.
  
  

  
The Gasket concept for "Premiums On Demand" showcased the epic feel of block busters and wide-screen interest of a theatrical experience.  The type moves in dramatic zooms and sweeps, with moody lighting and effects. Targeted at a broader, high end audience, "Premiums" are one of the cornerstones of Time Warner's subscription services.
  
  

  

  
"Entertainment on Demand"
  
  

  
"Premiums on Demand"
  
  

  
"Free On Demand"
  
  

 
In addition to the broadcast graphics package, we also created a series on in-stadium banners to play at LA Dodgers games in the LED "ribbon" that wrapped the field in the new branded look.
  

For Gasket, the spots were an exercise in subtlety. The ball needed to have some character attributes, but only enough to be interesting. The ball had to feel like a real rubber band ball AND a living thing simultaneously.  It proved both fun and challenging to add humor and character to a logo that is normally static. "Preston Kelly struck just the right tone with the ball concepts, giving the spots a nice smile that elevated the message. We were honored to work on a national brand icon like OfficeMax," noted creative director, Greg Shultz.
 

  
"Bag Push" spot featured our hero ball pushing a giant bag of discounted office products.  The ball had to be strong, but not overly "squishy," maintaining the integrity of the shape.
  
  

  
In the "Copier Tray" spot, the printer kicks out progressively better and better prints of the ball, becoming more vivid as it goes, with the tag line "We've go your ink."
    
  

  
The "Printer Ball" spot shows a plan tan ball "absorbing" multi-colored ink on it's way to becoming the OfficeMax icon.
  
  

  
The ball was also animated for various end tags and offers, unifying the look of the campaign. Using the reference from the live action spot, we chose to light and render the ball in a more realistic style.  We included ambient occlusion to add shading and depth inside the rubber bands. We also used soft shadows on the ground to keep the ball in a well lit, clean feeling environment. Then we placed specular highlights to match the light direction of the original logo.

  
  

  

  
For the live action spot "Little Helpers" we replaced the printer in the middle of the spot, along with several of the rubber band balls.  Using the ball model from the logo animations, the animators matched the balls movement to the live action plate.  We referenced the light direction from the plate and incorporated it into the lighting for the CG ball.  We rendered mattes for each color of rubber bands so I could change the colors to match the live action reference as closely as possible.  We then added occlusion, specular highlights, shadows, motion blur and film grain to integrate it into the live action plate.  Rendering reflections of the CG ball into the printer also added realism to the final composite. The agency and client were thrilled that they could extend the life of the spot by changing out the printer brand.  Their exact words where “WOW!”
  
  

01/01/11 – Best Buy, Monster Cable and Interscope Records called upon design & visual effects house Gasket Studios to finish a national commercial that showed the power and quality Beats by Dr. Dre headphones can deliver.  Beats are a range of over-ear and in-ear high-quality headphones created and branded by the multi-skilled rapper and record producer, Dr. Dre. These headphones were constructed to play music the way it was meant to be heard: The way producers created it. The commercial features a real Best Buy 'blue shirt' employee who takes a high energy, Beats-fueled journey into a thumping, music filled club world hosted by none other than Dr. Dre.  Our hero blue shirt mixes it up with dancers, rappers and clubbers before being transported back to the store when he removes his Beats headphones.
 
   
  
Live action director Jim Zabilla and Gasket creative director Greg Shultz worked on set and in-house to create the right look and feel for every aspect of the spot. Designing and supervising visual effects, typography and color, Gasket created 'visual sound and energy' from store, to club and back again. "We wanted to capture the lifestyle and quality of Beats headphones. Using in-camera and digital visual effects, we showed that hearing music in the highest quality possible makes for a more fulfilling and exciting experience," noted Greg Shultz. "Working with Jim and the Best Buy team was great. Everyone brought their best creative to the table."
 
   

 

 
 
 

As the user’s mouse hovers over the ad, the clown comes to life, chasing the user’s cursor with a chainsaw, cutting and slicing up the page as he takes over. Luckily for the now-irate user that just wants to read their daily PC Mag articles, Webroot comes to their rescue by crushing the clown with a giant Webroot software box and smashing the takeover banners, perhaps saving your computer in the process. The banner proudly states in a classic Webroot green: “Protection from online threats.”

Originally slated to run for only 24-hours on PC Magazine’s website, PCMag.com, Webroot extended the run for 72 hours through midnight on Halloween due to high click-throughs on day one.

Inspired by TDA's original circus clown horror concept, Gasket expanded the visuals to include a very scary, very crazy 3D clown character, replete with a ridiculously big chainsaw. Enhancing the character in 3D, the clown truly jumped off the page, using the dimensions of the page like a window with internal depth.

"We felt this would catch users attention, simultaneously nnoying and entertaining them, letting Webroot save the day," noted Gasket creative director, Greg Shultz.  "The TDA creative team were great to collaborate with and really pushed to make the clown creepier and creepier. One of our animators even voiced his crazy laugh."
 
 

 

 
The boards also inspired the outcome of the banner and sidebar frame.
 
We felt their vision was pretty in line with a believably scary, but also somewhat cheesy horror film: The gratuitous blood splatters, the tagline, the small print, and even the burntout lights in the word “circus” gave it a realmovie feel. It felt like the perfect place for a creepy clown to live! When we remade the title type, we drew a lot of our inspiration from antique circus posters and general 80s horror films.
 
 

   

 
We did a lot of research on chainsaws and the villains that wield them.
 
 

 

 
Eventually, we came up with our crazy, evil character: A clown that eerily never stops grinning, taking pleasure in the mayhem he creates with his trusty chainsaw until Webroot helps to catch him.
 
  

 

 
 

 

 
A little progression from concept to completion: On the left we have a sample of the boards we got from the client. On the right is a frame from the final spot.
 
 

 
In the end, the Clown is no match for the might of Webroot.
 
 

We love live action shoots because they get us out of our office.  Sweet.

As the commercial’s title suggests, Gasket created a high-energy, action-packed, V8-powered spot that utilizes dream sequences to encapsulate the thrill of that signature moment when winners scratch off that final symbol and victory is in their hands. Called on by SKAR partner/VP of Creative Strategy Mark Carpenter, Gasket was asked to not only entice viewers to lay down their hard-earned cash for a chance to win it all: but also to raise visibility; and get people thinking and talking about “Trucks & Bucks.”

According to Carpenter, he had admired Gasket’s work for some time, but needed just the right project for their talent. “When this Nebraska Lottery spot came along, I knew it was a perfect fit.” However, as Carpenter points out, because the client was a government agency, Gasket was among a small hand-selected group of companies that had to pitch for the project. It was Gasket’s approach that pushed them to the front of the line. “We were very impressed with the extensive questions Gasket asked us,” details Carpenter. “They were very thorough about the brand and our plans for this spot and beyond. They came back with new ideas and helped to ‘plus’ our boards.” 
  

 
Gasket partnered closely with the live-action production company, The Great Plains Motion Picture Company. The creation of the spot consisted of a live-action film shoot on location at a convenient store. Prior to production, Gasket created a full-motion, 3D animatic, including the shooting boards and camera direction. On-set to supervise the shoot, as well as capture visual effects reference plates and HDRs on-site, Gasket then took the footage and the tracking data obtained from the shoot, and used 3D so0ware to place and animate a toy Ford F-150 truck in miniature scale throughout the store. In the spot, the truck interacts with other real-life objects from the store itself while careening about on various shelves and displays. Working together, the Great Planes and Gasket teams completed 22 shots in just 12 hours.
 
For Gasket, led by Creative Director Greg Shultz and Executive Producer Tammy Kimbler Weber, this is just the right kind of visual effects project that their team loves to undertake. “Although it was a wild ride, up against a very aggressive timeline,” concludes Shultz,” it was our ability to utilize heavy pre-visualization that made this spot and its schedule possible. We like to think we can execute projects in lightning speed, but this spot for Nebraska Lottery made us prove it!”
 

 

 

 

 
Many of the interactive sections were designed and created entirely at Gasket, post-shoot, and tracked into the scenes.  These included the "Forest Fresh" tree air freshener shot, "Jalepeño Dog" hotdog background (but the hotdogs are real!), and the "Marshmallowphant" gumball avalanche. See if you can find them within the spot. (Tiger Sauce is probably the hardest one to find.)
 

 
On the left is the original shoot footage.  On the right is the final product. 
 

 
Sample of images and setups used for shoot board references.
 

 
Staged at a local convenience store with a model truck, we shot references for perspective, depth of field, lighting and scale. 
 

 
Behind the scenes stills from the shoot. Greg gets the thumbs up from SKAR client, Mark Carpenter.

The new online piece for Payless.com focuses on today’s Every Woman, who — thanks to the Champion Shoes from Payless — can integrate exercise into her daily activities. Whether it’s doing time on a treadmill, running errands on the city streets, or buying flowers at a local market; these are all opportunities that can “give your walk a workout.”
 

 
Martin/Williams’ CD David Richardson asked Gasket to create a piece that tied in visually to the bright colors of the Champion Fitness brand palette, but still had a warm, human element. The design also had to be somewhat restrained so the talent would really pop.
 


 
Gasket designers/animators infused a keen sense of fun and humanity into the heightened reality of the energy-packed spot with a few special, “a-ha” moments like: a bouquet of flowers exploding into a group of ascending butterflies and a beautifully re-created sunset.
 

“Our detailed preparation is what really made this project so successful,” comments Gasket Creative Director Greg Shultz. “We used pre-visualization as a creative communications tool to let the agency and the clients know exactly what we had planned, so there would be no surprises once we got to the shoot.”
 

 
The talent, Brazilian model-actress Amanda Salvato, featured in the Payless Champion Fitness print campaign, was flown from New York to Minneapolis (just slightly delayed by a mid-winter blizzard…) for the 12-hour shoot. Shot walking on a treadmill in front of green-screen, the Gasket team was able to complete 17 shots in just one day — a very aggressive timeline for a fashion client.
   

 
“The clients liked the results so much for this interactive, online piece, they decided to create multiple broadcast spots as well,” adds Gasket Executive Producer Tammy Kimbler Weber. 

In the end, Gasket created the signature, 50-second, online piece for Payless.com, as well as two 15-second spots and a 10-second spot for broadcast, airing this summer nation-wide.
 

 

 
Here's the content on the Payless website.