Visual Effects/Animation Studio Teams With Agency Rotter And Toy Retailer To Launch New Toy Line
Monster 500, the post-apocalyptic mega-race is on, and animation/visual effects studio Clockwork VFX is the creative winner. The studio — led by Creative Director/Co-Founder Jason Tomlins and Executive Producer Nina Davenport – teamed with agency Rotter Creative Group, New York, and Toys"R"Us to launch the new Monster 500 brand. The result is an engaging minute-long spot consisting entirely of beautifully detailed 3D animation that introduces kids to six of the ten vehicle characters in the Monster 500 family.
While used to working under tight-deadlines, this assignment was different for Clockwork. With 13 team members working for five weeks to complete the complex animation sequences, Clockwork’s creative skills – particularly their lighting, texturing and rendering capabilities — were tested. Despite the creative and technical process on display, Tomlins says the key to success was “torturously strict production management.”
“There’s a reason you rarely see 60 second CG ads — they’re difficult to get done on a typical commercial production schedule,” Tomlins notes. “The agency and Toys “R” Us wanted to make the aggressive timeline work, and for us that meant adhering to a detailed production schedule and handling fast turnarounds on revisions. The agency and the brand showed a lot of trust in us to get this done and that trust was rewarded with a cool spot that introduces this new brand in a fun way that resonates with kids.”
The spot opens to the sound of typically creepy pipe organ music and a Dracula-styled voice over that introduces the Monster 500 race and the contestants. As the race begins we meet such characters as Zoom Zombie, Flattop Frank, CrocPot and Captain Heinous as they swerve, jump and crash their vehicles at breakneck speeds through a creepy, moon-lit post-apocalyptic forest. The action is comically highlighted by several dramatic, ESPN-like slo-mo sequences.
“The spot is action packed, so the story-telling challenge for us was finding the balance between creating the high intensity race sequence, while also allowing each of the characters the time to be introduced to and recognized by the viewer.”
About Clockwork VFX
Clockwork is a visual effects and CG animation company. For the past 8 years, our core business has been the creation of high-end CG visual effects and animation for the commercials market. We characterize ourselves as an ‘Artist Driven’ company – and we mean exactly that. Each member of the team is highly skilled in their fields of fine art, sculpting, motion graphics, compositing, modeling, and texturing, animation or character animation. For more information visit http://www.clockworkvfx.com
Web Resources:
http://www.clockworkvfx.com/live/portfolio/monster-500/
http://rottercreativegroup.com/
http://www.monster500.com/
Video Credits
Client: Toys “R” Us
Project: “Monster 500: (:60)
Agency: Rotter Creative Group, New York
Chairman/CEO: Steve Rotter
President: Steve Stetzer
Senior Creative Director: Julius Weil
Animation/Visual Effects: Clockwork VFX, Dubai and New York
Creative Director: Jason Tomlins
Executive Producer: EP: Nina Davenport
VFX Director: Marc Greyvenstein
Lead Compositor: Rob Abrie
Lead Character animator: George Villaflor
Right Word Media
Ray Ecke
p. 973.726.3797
f. 973.726.3798
c. 201.741.1092
Contact Ray via email
A Tale of Two CG Cities at Post Asylum/Element X
It was the best of times in 2021 for animation at Post Asylum/Element X. The Dallas based creative content studio created CG cities both small and large for two recent broadcast promos. AMC Networks in New York tapped PA/EX...
Greyscalegorilla Launches Cloud-Based ‘Greyscalegorilla Plus’ Creative Subscription Platform For 3D Motion Designers
Greyscalegorilla, the leader in providing professional training and tools to help motion designers and 3D artists, announces the launch of
PluckStudio Launches Animation Division with “Duck & Snowman’s Christmas Adventure”
PluckStudio has added an animation division to bring short and long-form animated commercial production and original entertainment to the content studio’s clientele of brands, agencies, and Fortune 500...
Meet Lord Thunderloin: Next-Gen Nutrition Company Runtime Taps Calabash To Animate Social Media Shorts
Making the best food choices is a lot harder than you might think. Enter Runtime, the next-gen nutrition provider designed to optimize performance for everyone. Looking to reach...
The “Nanosphere”: Midnight Sherpa Visualizes Our Hidden Frontier For Applied Materials
Creative studio Midnight Sherpa animated a brand anthem for Applied Materials – the leader in materials engineering behind virtually every new chip and advanced display in the world. Titled “
Light Sail VR Scales Creative Business with OpenDrives Data Management Infrastructure
OpenDrives, Inc., a leading provider of software-defined media storage workflow solutions, today announced that Light Sail VR, a pioneer specializing in immersive media storytelling has selected the Atlas storage platform to modernize and scale its creative production business. Atlas boasts superior performance, enabling customers like Light Sail VR to increase data storage and processing on the fly, accelerating creative workflows by as much as threefold. The transition to Atlas has greatly improved the team's productivity, streamlined their workflows, and optimized their data management capabilities. With features like mount management and containerization, Light Sail VR was able to effectively scale their existing storage and add resources, thus enabling them to onboard more commercial projects effectively and swiftly using various third-party tools available through OpenDrives’ containers marketplace. Light Sail VR Co-Founder and Creative Director Matthew Celia, a recognized leader in virtual reality, comments on the transformation OpenDrives has brought to its operation, "OpenDrives was our most important investment at the very outset, as the new infrastructure would set the stage for greater efficiency. The... Read More