With San Fran ad house Odiorne Wilde Narraway and Partners' (OWN+P) recent reincarnation into See, it would be understandable if the creative spirit got temporarily exorcised while the letterhead was reprinting. Judging by recent work for EA, however, that's far from the case. During the creative rejigging See CD Peter Crosby and now-indie Mike Lewis spun out "Traveling Mural" for EA's NFL Street Football, which, even in the explosive world of game advertising, is a creative coup.

The spot, in which giant animated football players crunch their way across the faces of city buildings to demonstrate the power of pigskin taken to the streets, was the product of countless days playing the game, and more significantly, the creative shorthand developed between Crosby and Lewis over their eight-year partnership.

Crosby began life as an art director at Hutchins/Y&R, NY, prior to being reborn as a copywriter. After New York came stops in Indianapolis, Tampa and Miami before he headed west to hook up with art director Mike Lewis at OWN+P in '96. "This is the longest I've ever held a job," he says. "Usually I have a reason to leave before now. But since we've had the little turnover here, it's like working at a new agency altogether."

Lewis began his career at the Portfolio Center in Atlanta, graduating to become one of OWN+P's first hires. He remained at the agency for seven years before returning to Atlanta to freelance a year ago. Now based outside the traditional ad centers, Lewis spreads the word with partners around the country, hooking up with Crosby for three projects last year: EA Games' NFL Street, EA's Street Need for Speed Underground and Grand Marnier.

Lewis' new freelance status suits See to a T. With the agency in transition and plans to bring on another creative director, See didn't want to hire permanent talent that might not jive with a new CD. Instead, they turned to Lewis, a gaming fanatic who knows the industry inside and out. "Mike's the obvious choice," observes Crosby. "He knows what the client is trying to do. He jumps right in knowing exactly what the expectation is - what he can do, what he can't do. It saves a lot of wheel spinning."

The team's work on "Traveling Mural" shows a chemistry developed over the half-decade they were stationed together at OWN+P. "We go our separate ways first, just to get all the obvious shit out of our own heads," says Lewis, "then once we come together it's very collaborative."

Crosby says Lewis, unlike many junior creatives, has an intuitive understanding of the product. "He can cut directly to 'here's what's cool about the game'."

EA Nuclear Strike - "Do It Yourself" - was one of the first jobs the pair attacked when they were put together in the mid-'90s, and it remains memorable. After all, it's not everyday you get to recreate a nuclear war in a :30 format, although Crosby recalls having a hard time finding footage of nuclear explosions. They ended up using free Bikini Island footage from the National Archives and dropping CG of rolling cars and melting telephone poles on top of it.

NFL Street is also what's known as an EA "Big Title" with more of an arcade feel. Lewis played the game for eight straight days to capture the proper camera angles and moves (he rarely plays a game again once the spot is complete).

When he doesn't have a game pad in hand, Lewis spends part of his time freelancing and part co-helming a company he started in San Fran called Plan C, an outfit that supplements agency offerings with events, short films, documentaries, grass roots marketing, etcetera - all the gray-areas most agencies would like to offer but aren't equipped to handle in-house (see pg. 12).

Crosby, meanwhile, is hard at work for EA on the Sims 2 launch and Fight Night Boxing, as well as some new business pitches. He says the toughest aspect of developing creative for video games is that "they allow a level of action that you can't show on TV." Or, as Lewis puts it: "We're always pushing it so far we have to ask for forgiveness [from the client and agency]. We [can't] use a lot of those big nasty hits that really show off the game."

STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

Age: Lewis: 34; Crosby: 40

Psyching for the job: Lewis: "I'm a magazine comber. I'll go out and get magazines that are completely random just to clear my mind." Crosby: "I watch a lot of the Cartoon Network" - especially Space Ghost.

Hobbies: Lewis: "I game a ton." Crosby: "I work a lot."

What would you buy if money wAS no object: Lewis: "I'd buy an island and be a pro bass fisherman. I'm not kidding."

Favorite Game: Lewis: "I've been playing Quake: Arena and I've been playing a ton of Halo. But I play so many. The flavor of the month is playing with 16 or 18 guys hooked up on Halo."