11/11/11 – News Flash!  The AICP Show Open wins AdFed Gold & Silver Pin awards for best self-promotion branded content.  The Gold Pin went to Gasket for the stunning visuals and Silver Pin went to BWN Music for their fantastic original music score.  Congrats teams!
   
09/22/10 – Gasket performs for an audience!  Kicking off the19th Annual 2010 AICP Show with a grand performance of wonders, Gasket created a magical opening sponsor reel.  Intended to entertain and engage the audience awaiting the "Art of the American Television Commercial" show, the spot included a performing clown whale, dance-fighting sea horses, elegant pink jellyfish and "octocolossus."  Sponsor logos were featured on high-flying hot air balloons, sea horse armor and rings of fire.  The epic music score by BWN, added depth and scope to the spot.  Branding the entire event from email marketing, to show signage, t-shirts and other collateral, Gasket sought to elevate the annual show profile and celebrate the talented agency and production community.

(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. 

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