Alex Weil, the founder/creative director of Charlex has a similar role in Grain, which is housed in Charlex's facility. Interactive designers Erik Karasyk and Jeff Stevens, specialists in animation programs such as Flash and 3D Studio Max create what Weil calls new media with texture. Karasyk and Stevens are at the core of the operation and will work towards "making Internet technology invisible to agency creatives and clients."

"The goal of Grain is to create advertising for the Web that retains the spirit, texture and brand feel of some commercials and print advertising," says Weil, reciting the company mantra. "At Grain we've created an atmosphere where agency creatives can collaborate with new media designers and technicians in almost exactly the same way that they currently work with Avid editors, flame* artists and type designers. We believe new technology, though compelling to us, should be made invisible to our clients so the process can be focused on creativity and communication."

Weil says that Grain will create ads that are "as cool as in other media, instead of these stilted things," as well as make interactive or Internet ads an integral part of, and perhaps a starting point in the creative process. Weil says the seeds for Grain were planted when Charlex was redesigning a site for its client, Moviefone.

"I had never done a Web site but was not afraid of the technical challenge," says Weil. "The Web is no more difficult than digital production. I tackled it with the same advertising, branding and entertainment mentality as with all our work. Their site was drab so we redid it and realized there was this whole area that techies controlled and used some of their power to keep creatives at bay. It happens at the beginning of all new technologies and mirrored my own experience with video."

Grain's concept of creating commercials for the Web has resulted in a Web spot for Sprint developed in conjunction with McCann Relationship Marketing.

McCann had been working with Charlex on branding the Sprint arrow for TV, so Grain took up the task of moving the symbol to Sprint's Web site. Grain created a relatively small (300K) 45-second Flash ad that matched the style of the TV and print executions.

Set to a walking bass score, the animated arrow is in constant motion, moving through a number of animated communications media and accented with sound effects. Created in Flash 5 and 3D Studio Max, Karasyk, Stevens and Weil produced the ad in less than six days. "The biggest challenge was getting the Flash file size down to 300K so it would work for the average dial-up Web user while retaining the full creative impact," said Karasyk.

"We used 3D Studio Max to create the swooping, in-depth motion of the arrow, and hand-optimized the images frame-by-frame. It's a lot of work, but this way we can make the motion perfect, create realistic effects and save file size in every possible place."

Stevens adds that the team endeavored to play the Web spot as if it were to play on TV. "Flash pieces tend to drag in terms of momentum," says Stevens. "Flash characters are also hard-edged, which works against realistic motion, so we used motion-blur effects to compensate. To get a lifelike appearance for the arrow itself, we created a 2D pencil sketch and then traced it into Flash." View the spot at www.sprintbiz.com by clicking on small business challenge.

Charlex> www.charlex.com

Grain> www.grainmedia.com