Santa Claus gets svelte and stylish as we see him upgrade everything from his suit to his sleigh in this epic year-long transformation for the 2019 Audi RS 5 Sportback.
Capturing the makeover is this online holiday short, New Santa, directed by Craig Gillespie of MJZ for agency M/H VCCP (formerly MUH-TAY-ZIK | HOF-FER).
Client Audi Agency M/H VCCP John Matejczyk, chief creative officer, co-founder; Joel Kaplan, executive creative director, associate partner; Allen Yu, Peter Neils, Eduardo Quadra, associate creative director; Michael Gallagher, sr. copywriter; Kinda Loughran, copywriter; Miranda Lee, art director; Tanya LeSieur, head of production, associate partner; Nicole Van Dawark, sr. integrated producer; Lexi Alaga, associate producer; Matt Hofherr, chief strategy officer/North America, co-founder. Production MJZ Craig Gillespie, director; Emma Wilcockson, exec producer; Debbie Tietjen, line producer. Bohemian Pictures Sherry Baumgart, exec producer; Daniela Bazgova, production manager; Lucie Vaskova, production coordinator. Editorial Final Cut LA Joe Guest, editor; Dillon Stoneburner, assistant editor; Suzy Ramirez, exec producer; Tamara Treu, producer. Music Squeak E. Clean Amy Crilly, head of production; Amanda Patterson, exec producer; Rob Barbato, creative director, composer; Drew Fischer, sound designer. Track title: “Making Progress” Audio Post One Union, Eben Carr, Matt Wood, sr. engineers. Color Company 3 Stefan Sonnenfeld, colorist; Gabriel Wakeman, producer; Ashley McKim, exec producer. VFX Eight VFX Shira Boardman, exec producer; Ryan Dahlman, producer; Jean-Marc Demmer, creative director; Julien Aucouturier, lead Flame artist; Joe Chiao, Philip Ineno, Flame artists; Alex Taylor, Shaun Tsou, Samuel Jorgensen, Marcelo Pasqualino, Nuke artists; Jaguar Lee, Yann Mallard, designers; Edwin Schapp, animator; Thomas Lopez, rigger; Yu Fuji, Houdini FX; Jarrod Avalos, motion tracker; Leticia Saldana, modeler; Ross Denner, lighter.
We’re eating microplastics. We’ll never be able to retire. Everything seemingly sucks. So today Pika, the social-first AI video platform that brings your wildest and weirdest ideas to life, has launched a campaign depicting how it gives you the power to change your reality. Maybe not for good, but for a minute. This campaign anthem film, “Pikapocalypse,” developed by the Pika creative team with production and marketing support from Ceiling Train, directed by RSA Films’ Marie Schuller and edited by Abandon’s Val Thrasher, shows users how swapping and morphing pieces of their world--their cat’s poop into a beautiful bonsai, for example--can make reality optional. And certainly more fun.
Pika CEO Demi Guo explained, “We wanted the piece to challenge who AI is for and what they can do with it. Unlike a lot of competitors, we focus on the everyday social creator – and we wanted the expansive creative possibilities of our platform to come through equally with the ease of use.”
“Pika’s take on how they position themselves within this word felt really refreshing to me,” said RSA director Schuller, “because they saw themselves as a token of irreverent, ridiculous, hilarious and desperately needed entertainment. ‘Everything is terrible. No, it’s not,’ is an incredibly dark humored line as we watch a meteor transform into a grinning dough face, but it made me laugh, and that’s exactly what I would like to get out of a brand like Pika.”
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