Twisted was opened in partnership with Twist's brother, director Michel Gondry and producer Julie Fong. The Gondrys have worked on several projects, Michel directing and Olivier inventing effects solutions for their oft-surreal film collaborations. Recent projects have included Earthlinks' "Privacy" and Levi's "Bellybuttons" (both for TBWA/Chiat/Day) as well as "Knives Out," the latest Radiohead video.

Dating back to his days with Buf, Paris, Twist's effects have frequently augmented Michel Gondry's visuals. This continued when Twist moved to LA to work with Method (where he continues to freelance). Twist writes proprietary software applications to realize otherwise untenable effects. Using C++ running on his PC, he induced belly buttons to belt out Diana Ross' classic "I'm Coming Out." Earthlink's "Privacy" questions the possibility of anonymity in the 21st century by smoothly cycling through a myriad of individual's images through one sequence of action.

"The Earthlink spot, it was 800 shots to this 30 second commercial. The 400,000 frames were too big for *flame and a nightmare to do on Avid," explains Gondry. "I wrote a program making it very easy to select the best frame for each character. Each character was doing almost exactly the same action but we had to pick the best frames. On Avid it is a lot of work to do this with the camera in synch."

Buf synched up the transitions between the four motion control cameras used by Gondry on the shoot; Twist says he was easily able to make all the necessary changes and tweaks via his software (after loading all 400,000 frames onto his PC).

As for Levi's "Bellybutton," the Gondry's filmed singers mouthing the lyrics to "I'm Coming Out," focusing from both side and frontal angles and tracking the mouth movements and shapes. Using more specially coded software, Twist applied the mouth movements to the rendered bellybuttons that star in the spot.

Fong, Michel Gondry's longtime producer at Partizan, says the seeds for Twisted were planted during the Earthlink job, with the biggest goal being to have the two brothers working together on all projects.

"As of right now, it's a Gondry affair, but we are branching out," says Fong. "We are planning to look out to other directors."

Radiohead's "Knives Out," in production at press time was described as a surreal, slightly comical nightmare set in a hospital.