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STARDUST AND FALLON
TAKE
THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE TO WONDERLAND
HOLLYWOOD, NEW YORK
and MINNEAPOLIS—(Sept. 24, 2007)—Bicoastal creative production company
Stardust Studios (www.stardust.tv)
recently produced a set of wondrous new brand ads for the New York Stock
Exchange via Minneapolis-based advertising agency Fallon. The campaign’s
three animated spots, consisting of a :60 entitled “Portal Universe” and
two :30s entitled “Brand Products” and “Brand Listings,” debuted on Sept.
17 during ESPN’s broadcast of Monday Night Football (MNF), and will continue
to air during MNF and other high-profile broadcasts into November.
“We’ve done a lot
of work with Fallon before, including last year’s New York Stock Exchange
listing spots,” said Stardust’ founder and creative director Jake Banks.
“This year, to take the campaign in a new direction, Mike Gibbs and his
team wanted to create an epic, three-dimensional, metaphorical world for
all these different offerings from the New York Stock Exchange, like futures,
bonds, equities and options. They wanted this really interesting
take on the content… not straight 3D, not ultra-realistic… a little bit
of stylization and lots of visual surprises.”
“Because Stardust
had already done extensive work for NYSE listings commercials, their familiarity
with the brand’s vision really gave us a jump start on this project,” said
Gibbs, Fallon’s group creative director. “Credit goes to the client
as well for understanding the need to stand out visually, especially in
the insanely cluttered financial category.”
Banks also explained
that everyone in Stardust’s Santa Monica and New York studios contributed
during the project’s early phases, before he and senior art director Kinda
Akash combined their efforts with other members of Stardust’s staff to
see the campaign through.
To lock-down the
specifics of the visual storytelling, creatives from Stardust and Fallon
collaborated extensively. “The worlds created were clearly very abstracted,”
Akash explained, “so we had to make sure they were also conceptually strong
– so that knowing nothing about Options, or everything about them, you
would understand the metaphor of the never-ending drawers exchanging calendars.
We worked very closely with Fallon's team to really tie the graphics and
story together, maintaining the feel of an epic journey throughout.”
The first step of
Stardust’s production workflow was to make a pre-vis of the entire spot,
laying down basic placement of objects in scenes and exploring camera moves.
Next, animators and modelers mapped out each world with low-resolution
basic models, and completed models were swapped-in as animation progressed.
“Compositing was our final step, and we spent a lot of time affecting the
straight CG, giving it a more dreamlike appearance,” Akash added.
Given the complexity of the scenes, Akash also explained that a team was
put in charge of monitoring the renders. The team used Photoshop
and Cinema4D for design work, Maya for pre-vis, animation, lighting and
rigging, and After Effects for final compositing.
“The biggest challenge
on this project was the length of the animation itself,” Akash continued.
“At the end of the design phase, we had seven worlds that spanned from
an outer space scene and an underwater world to scenes high above the clouds…
all to be addressed in 60 seconds. The whole project became a short
film of sorts; we were always going back to the story, trying to strategize
against time. In the end, very few things were sacrificed, and we're
all stoked with the final result.”
Along with Mike Gibbs,
the agency’s creative team consisted of art director Daniel Burke, copywriter
Paula Biondich, head of broadcast Vic Palumbo, producer Amanda Revere,
account supervisor Mark Belot and account director Drew Hack. Stardust’s
credits include executive producer Mike Eastwood, producers Lindsay Yacura
and Amber Ventris, designers 3D artists Joseph Andrade, Brian Broussard,
Kyle Cassidy, Chris Eckardt, Forbes Hill, Hai Ho, Robin Roepstorff and
Sam Sparks, and online editor Michael Merkwan. Campaign music was
courtesy of Elias Arts, with POP Sound mixing “Portal Universe” and Modern
Music handling the final mix for the two :30 spots. The featured
voiceover artist is Henry Strozier.
Fallon Worldwide,
one of the world’s most critically acclaimed, creatively driven branding
companies, manages the consumer voice of some of the world’s leading brands,
including Sony, Nestlé Purina, TIME Magazine, Holiday Inn, Holiday
Inn Express, Asda, National and Alamo Rent-A-Car, and Orange. Fallon Worldwide
is a global network of Publicis Groupe, based in Paris, and 500 employees
worldwide. The company has offices in Minneapolis, London, Singapore, São
Paulo and Tokyo. Additional information can be found at www.fallon.com.
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.
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QuickTime for "Portal Universe" :60
Scene 5 from NYSE "Portal Universe." Image courtesy of Stardust Studios. 300 dpi version here.
Scene 6 from NYSE "Portal Universe." Image courtesy of Stardust Studios. 300 dpi version here.
Scene 7 from NYSE "Portal Universe." Image courtesy of Stardust Studios. 300 dpi version here.
Scene 8 from NYSE "Portal Universe." Image courtesy of Stardust Studios. 300 dpi version here.
