Fresh ideas and boundless optimism are the weapons of these renegade BD companies where creative growth is the business plan. These players exist off the beaten path, finding their niche in quirky cable shows and mixed-media projects. They may be small, but they've got moxie.

MOTION THEORY

Two years ago, Matthew Cullen and Javier Jimenez merged their respective design and film production experience into 1,000 square feet in Venice, CA and called it Motion Theory.

Their goal, says CD Cullen, "was to see how far we could carry the diversity of the projects."

That diversity is reflected in the staffing choices housed at their new space, a 2,000-square-foot beach house; Jesus DeFrancisco is an art director fresh from Vogue Spain and Marie Claire magazine, and senior writer Grady Hall counts TV's Twilight Zone among his credits.

The new space was needed to accommodate growth from five to 10 staff since December 2001, primarily based on increased workflow from DirecTV. About 40% of Motion Theory's work comes from broadcast clients, 40% from agency clients, and 20% from "other creative stuff," adds Cullen.

All the work is produced on 10 Mac stations running After Effects, Lightwave and a suite of Adobe products, with two cutting seats running uncompressed FinalCut Pro.

Jimenez says that bringing on nontraditional talent, "helps keep the breadth of the work wide." Recent examples of that range include insert shooting, editing and repackaging for Nike's "The Secret Tournament" campaign for Weiden + Kennedy Japan, branding for DirecTV and SciFriday for Showtime, and an ongoing type and animation assignment for Toyota's Times Square billboard ads.

ASSOCIATES IN SCIENCE

Tribeca's Associates in Science has extended its creative design philosophy and independent ethos beyond print into the BD world, selling an urban-hip lifestyle, snagging some prize jobs for clients like MTV, and finding a niche with quirky cable clients.

AiS landed their first BD gig for the SciFi Channel's Good vs. Evil two years ago. Since then, the small creative house has grabbed MTV packages for Becoming and Dismissed (with a third in the works for Sex Quiz), a branding pack for Conduit (a new cabler about video games), and package, poster and menu design for the Boogie Nights platinum edition DVD.

Creative director Adam Levite says he and his partner Francine Hermelin founded the studio on a philosophical model that included the concepts of "high retinal emersion, public appreciation of wonder and the transmission of knowledge."

The five-year-old studio operates out of "a loft packed with people, books and G4s. We run like a collective, stay in constant flux and try to keep the work as diverse as possible," he says.

Levite and Co. designed posters for Todd Solondz's Happiness and Storytelling, and are also deeply involved with advertising and designing Burton Snowboards' new Korda clothing line.

iN8Skils

"You name it, we do it: direct, shoot, edit, design, packaging," says Jen Watt, creative partner at iN8Skils, a six-year-old design and animation epicenter that moved to Brooklyn from Chinatown after 9/11.

Watt, along with iN8 founder Brian Caiazza, focuses creative energies on broadcast design, commercial work and corporate pieces. They recently completed an in-store opus for DKNY that combines still, film and DV footage built entirely in After Effects and assembled in Avid.

"It is a style that is going to define 2002 for iN8Skils," says Watt of the mixed-medium nature of the piece, which they were responsible for shooting, design, compositing and editing. A second in-store DKNY project with production company/client/executive producer Good Films is scheduled for the spring. "In-store advertising is definitely a growing segment of the broadcast market," she adds.

Watt joined Caiazza last year after two years at Shooting Gallery/GFH. The duo function as a creative team and pull in freelancers when needed.

Caiazza, a graduate of Parsons, says his company started out in the mid '90s doing a lot of post work but has evolved into a creative partner getting inside the client's creative process earlier.

IN8Skils' reel is a dense collage of broken design rules and fresh ideas that defy categorization: ESPN show opens live beside promos for MTV, M/2 spots and National Geographic bumpers; A WWF Raw spot shares tape with Barclay's and Time Warner Cable. The studio is currently in post on Watts' first feature-length documentary, Whatever Don't Rhyme, scheduled for completion this spring.

Webfiles:
Motion Theory> http://www.motiontheory.com
Associates in Science> http://www.associatesinscience.com
In8Skills> http://www.in8.com