
| by: | Jan 1, 2002 |
The four-spot campaign illustrates how newyorkmetro.com can help New Yorkers find everything from the right bar, restaurant, health club to even the right store to buy pants. Each spot features ink-drawn '50s-inspired clip art against a monochromatic yet slightly textured background created with watercolors by animation director Pat Smith. The animated characters make simple moves in time to the droll dialog.
"Bar" has two sailors in a bar marveling over how many beautiful women there are. "There's so many, they even have to dance with each other," states one, while the other puts dibs on a particular clip-art looker, oblivious to the fact that it's a lesbian bar. "Beauty" involves two Jersey beefcakes complimenting each other's physique to the point of arguing about it. "Restaurant" has a couple rhyming off their favorite foods whilst engaged in a passionate tongue tango, and "Shopping" has an overly keen-yet-skivvy-clad employee getting kudos from his boss, not to mention some fashion advice.
"Everybody agreed that simple animation would be funny. There are a lot of funny things in how the animation pauses," says Pitch executive producer Russ Dube.
"A lot of the humor comes out of the way they move," says Smith. "We basically brought clip art to life, which was fun because you couldn't do much with the images or else you'd lose the clip art feel. So we tried to keep it minimal, but at the same time it had to be convincing that they were actually speaking and moving."
Pitch turned the campaign around in three weeks and Smith animated the clip art with After Effects. Pitch's Steve Katz was the creative director on the campaign, Sal DeVito was the agency creative director and Barbara Michelson was the agency producer. Erik Farenkopf, Scott Kaplan and Mark Teringo conceived the witty copy while Anthony DeCarolis, Chris Turner and Barbara Eibel art directed the minimalist campaign. Music services were provided by McHale Barone.
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