Axe Instinct, a scent introduced in 2009, is being promoted with a 3D animated television commercial featuring a woman in leather. The new Instinct has combined the fragances of cardamom, amber, and atlas cedar to produce a spicy scent of leather.
The Swedish team, Againstallodds, worked with Blacklist to produce the new commercial, beginning with the inspiration of a piece of leather and a set of print advertisements. What they came up with was the concept of a woman whose sensual movements are revealed in the rippling curves of dark leather.
Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)
Credits
The Power of Leather ad was developed at The Brooklyn Brothers, New York, and Againt All Odds, Stockholm, .
Filming was produced at Blacklist by executive producer Adina Sales,
Special effects and visual effects were produced at Milford Film, Stockholm, and Animation AB. Audio finishing was done at Audio Engine.
Music, “Moodswing”, was composed by Pedro Margues and Jean-Paul Wall and sung by Saphir Cristal Stoffels Fernandes Tavares. Sound was mixed by Carl Mandelbaum.
Behind the Scenes with Againstallodds
Q: This spot is a bit of a creative departure for you. Can you tell me about attracted you to the job?
againstallodds: To create this spot we were given a piece of leather and a print campaign and were told bring it to life. This spot is like nothing else on our reel and we were excited to create something we had not tried before. We really wanted to build on the dimensionality of the forms in the leather so that everything really moved naturally but had a enough definition and abstraction to draw people in. We were really attracted to the mixture of darkness and nakedness. It really seemed like something we wanted to see move.
Q: The texture of the leather is very detailed. Tell me a bit about how you created this look, what tools you used and if there were any challenges.
againstallodds: We began this project with a photo shoot with real actors and the leather laid out on a flat bed. We took moving references with naked models to show how the body moves and the leather reacts to different light setups. Then we edited everything together to make a rough timing. Animation and simulation followed and was a mixture of Maya nCloth and Houdini to make everything come together. The simulation was a great start and gave dimension to the leather but we really wanted to have control over some of the smaller details such as muscle and bone and they were getting lost in the simulation, so Milford lighting developed a special shader that took information from a more detailed mesh of the body and applied it to the leather simulated cloth.
Q: It’s a very sexy spot too. Can you tell me a bit about that?
againstallodds: That was something we really worked hard to keep. Doing sexy in 3d can be a tricky thing. Since everybody knows how humans move and are very sensitive to what’s not right even the most subtle movement can prove to be hard to recreate. We were very lucky to have a great photo model strip off and go through the timings and poses to block everything out so that we had great reference in the animation phase. On top of that we worked a lot with the shadows and lighting to reveal and cover sections of the body so that the silhouette and feminine curves really stood out and that the rest of the body became abstract.
Wrigley’s New Orbit Mist is being promoted with a print advertising campaign demonstrating the “hydrating sensation” experienced when chewing the gum. Three models pose for fashion photographer Nadav Kander with a packet of Peppermint Spray Orbit Mist, dressed in wearable art: adaptations of a shower curtain, umbrella and mop. The two flavours not represented are Mango Surf and Watermelon Spring.
Credits
The Orbit Mist campaign was developed at Energy BBDO, Chicago, and photographer Nadav Kander.
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is celebrating its 60th anniversary with a set of three videos designed to remind people of six decades of solidarity, collective defense and the shared goals of peace, security and stability. The three commercials show what at first appear to be situations of danger, each one resolving into peaceful activity. The treaty was signed on 4 April, 1949, by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.
Run
Children run and fall over. Dogs bark… People often take freedom and security for granted. We don’t.
Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)
Basement
Is this a prison? Is that the cold sweat of fear or the hot sweat of exhaustion? Freedom to do what you want. We help that happen.
Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)
Staircase
A woman closes her windows and checks security while outside the sky lights up with explosions. You want a life of freedom and stability. So do we.
Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)
Tinactin, an over the counter anti fungal treatment produced by Schering Plough Corporation, is being promoted in the Philippines with a print advertising campaign featuring boots. Two print advertisements, “Barbed Wire” and “Chains”, each show a boot with the warning, “Beware the Smelly Foot”, and the name of the active ingredient Tolnaftate.
Credits
The Tinactin campaign was developed at DM9JaymeSyfu, Manila, The Philippines, photographer Paolo Gripo.
Hyundai has launched an innovative website dedicated to music made using the sounds of the car manufacturer’s i30 model.
30beats.co.uk, is part of a ‘brand campaign’ attempting to revitalise perceptions of the i30 hatchback, appealing to younger audiences and drive sales.
Created by Brazen Productions, it also offers a competition enabling bedroom DJs and wannabe music producers to download samples recorded from the car to mix their own track and submit it via YouTube with the chance of winning their own Hyundai i30.
Wannabe producers can try out the sounds first on the toolbar and then download them for use with software of their choice – there are links and info available on the 30Beats site.
30Beats will moderate uploaded videos with successful entries added to the 30beats gallery for voting by the great British, music loving population.
Brazen Productions worked with Manchester based DJ Krysko to record his own track and music video to capture the essence of 30beats and launch the project.
The track, which features a variety of different sounds recorded at Salford’s Pie Factory including the sounds from the classic revving and horn to hydraulic ‘whooshes’ and clicks, derives its main beat from sound of the boot of the i30 closing.
“We were looking for something totally different to drive sales of the i30 in this challenging year for car sales,” said PR Manager for Hyundai, Tom Barnard,
“We are looking forward to seeing the creativity of our car loving nation as the entries start to come in.”
Don’t get angry, get Toshiba Oh and let this be a lesson to you kids, backpacks take up room behind your back. Please try and remember this folks, I'm tired of having your backpack smothering my face on the train.
Toshiba’s “No Matter What Guarantee” is worth getting excited about. Very excited. Because if you buy a Toshiba laptop you’re covered for just about anything. Accidents. Theft. Unemployment. No matter what. And your satisfaction is guaranteed. In addition, all Toshiba laptops come with the reliability and high quality you’ve come to expect. Find out more at nomatterwhatguarantee.com
Credits:
Agency: McCann Erickson Düsseldorf
Director: King Kahlil [Jens Junker & Simone Schirmer] Production Company: Bakery Films Hamburg
Client: Toshiba Europe GmbH Regional Marketing Manager: Goran Kurt Marketing Coordinator: Deborah Scharnhoo
Wow something strange is going on out there. I woke up this morning to find a FedEx package from some address listed in San Diego called PMB. Inside the envelope were two arcade tokens (see above) for the once thought to be mythical Flynn's Arcade. Yep, the very same Flynn's that is the "Home of Tron" from the movie, uh, Tron. If I can put two-and-two together, a San Diego location this week might mean that Disney is doing a little Tron 2 viral marketing at Comic-Con. Sounds good to me! In addition to the tokens, there was also a thumb drive with an image labeled "4.gif" that is a coded animated gif. Check that out below.
So after doing some snooping around on the web, I also found out that JoBlo has an image like this as well, but with some different code (not the same stuff above). Some of the code in my image is gibberish - stuff I can't even understand. But on the JoBlo one they actually have some standard HTML code and numbers and so on. As I said, something very strange is going on. This viral is really starting to kick off and I hope we can figure this out before Comic-Con starts up. We'll keep you updated on the progress. It looks like we might have to put a bunch of pieces together and decipher the code? If anyone can help, let us know! Stay tuned!
Update: So far I've found the following other viral pieces across the web. From the comments below, we have gif #1, JoBlo has #3, UGO and SlashFilm have #2, I have #4, so we're still missing #5 maybe? Here are those four put together below (pattern goes 1,2,3,4). See anything? I can't make any sense of this code yet?
Update #2: Over on MacHeist they deciphered the HTML code from the four gifs above as well as a fifth one from IGN. When the HTML is put together it creates a web page with a table in the middle containing letters and numbers to decipher the message below. When deciphered, it spells out "Flynn Lives." Awesome - but that can't just be it, can it? There might be more - something related to a countdown or location details at Comic-Con? Keep searching - and there might be some websites related to this as well. Have we tried flynnlives.com? Keep up to date in the comments. We'll let you know when hear more!
Update #3: Flynn Lives! The website is up and running at flynnlives.com. If you click the little bouncing spider thing at the bottom of the page, a countdown timer pops up (as seen above). We're guessing this counts down to the big event happening on Thursday night in San Diego. The timer counts down to 9:30PM on Thursday, July 23rd. There is a detailing about a "Flynn Lives" movement on the website as well with article clippings about Flynn. This is really starting to get good - an awesomeARG. Definitely check out the site - there seems to be a lot of good info on there! Let us know if you find anything else?
Update #4: The last site in this update (as far as we know) until Thursday night is homeoftron.com. This URL comes from the engraving on the arcade tokens that we first received. A quick glance around the site and it provides info on Flynn's old arcade from the original Tron movie but not much more. That's all for now folks - but of course let us know what you find! There may have more secrets - be on the lookout!
Flynn's Arcade is in San Diego - Amazing Tron Legacy Viral!
July 24, 2009
While I got to see footage from James Cameron's Avatar, Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass, and Tim Burton'sAlice in Wonderland today, my favorite part of the day had to be the awesome viral ARG (alternate reality game) for Tron Legacy, as it's now known (instead of just Tron 2), that I participated in tonight. We've been covering the early details but it all came together tonight in the ultimate reveal - Flynn's Arcade exists and you can even play Space Paranoids the game. And if that wasn't enough, hidden in a secret room in the back was an actual new lightcycle from the movie. But you have to hear about how we got there, first!
So it all began back during Disney's panel earlier in the day for Tron 2. Unfortunately they didn't have much new footage to reveal. They showed the test teaser trailer from last year (in 3D) and some new concept art and the designs of the new lightcycles and so on. But then they showed one odd scene from the movie "early on in it" that showed Sean Flynn, played by Garrett Hedlund, going back to Flynn's Arcade where it was shut down and dust covers were covering all the old arcade machines. But he finds the old Tron machine in the back, spins it out from the wall, and heads into a secret room behind it. Foreshadowing? It definitely was!
So jump ahead to 9:30PM and a huge crowd of roughly 500 people had gathered at the cul de sac located on J Street near 1st Street as was mentioned on the website FlynnLives.com. After signing a release waiver, we were given a small package that contained instructions, a handheld blacklight, a blue marker, and an extra Flynn's Arcade coin. The instructions explained that within a small area a few blocks in each direction from where we were, we had to find various "Flynn Lives" posters (as seen above) hidden on the walls and use our blacklight to find numbers. We needed to find 3 different posters and search for coordinates.
Eventually they let the masses go and off we went on a hunt for the posters. We quickly discovered (with the help of some others around us as well) that we would need to find six coordinates from three different posters (and they were very well hidden). Luckily we found all of those three posters within a block of each other and proceeded to draw out a map on a grid. That map would then pinpoint the final location (another few blocks away) which we would have to head towards to reach our final destination. We arrived not the at the front of the pack, but in the first group, and were treated to the grand opening of Flynn's Aracde.
But didn't end there! After venturing inside (and being locked inside by some very buff security guys), we proceeded to take some photos of the arcade, play some games, and walk around. A few staff kept telling us to play some Space Paranoids - the game that Flynn plays (where he fights the Recognizers from his tank) in the original Tron at the beginning. We noticed that every time you beat a level (which was remarkably hard), it would give you a unique code. We wrote this down but didn't think much of it and ultimately it wasn't used tonight - but it may have more importance sometime in the future. Again, this wasn't the end!
About 10 minutes in, the lights started to flicker and go out. All of a sudden the Tron arcade machine in the back swung open (like in the scene we were shown earlier during the panel) and revealed a secret backroom. I whipped out my iPhone and shot a short video of us entering the room behind the Tronarcade machine and walking past some badass concept art of the new lightcycles up on the wall. Watch that video below.
But the best reveal was just beyond that. Hidden in the back was a real-life fully realized blacklightcycle on a turntable - complete with trippy lighting and a sample of Daft Punk's score for the upcoming movie (which you can hear in the video). This was one hell of an awesome payoff. Not only was it great walking through the streets searching for clues on posters using blacklights, not only was it awesome stepping foot into a real life Flynn's Aracde, but then we got to see an actual lightcycle. I would love to say this thing was a working lightcycle, but of course, that isn't the case. But this thing is truly awork of art - see the video!
I've got to say - this could easily have been one of the greatest viral marketing stunts I've ever seen. You probably all heard about the joker scavenger hunt at Comic-Con a few years back - this definitely topped that one. We honestly didn't know what was happening every step of the way and it was so exciting to be a part of this. I really did get chills when I noticed that the sign above the inconspicuous building we were standing outside was a giant "Flynn's" sign. It's this kind of stuff that makes this so incredibly awesome - they know what will make fans just go crazy and they really blew our minds this time. Bravo, Disney!
We hope that there is still much more to come sometime in the near future. And we're going to see if we can find out what those codes from Space Paranoids really mean. We did end up getting a "Flynn Lives" t-shirt and poster on the way out as a bit of memorabilia. And I've heard that this might be repeated a few more times during Comic-Con if you're interested. But you'll need to check FlynnLives.com for details on that!
