Boards Magazine - January 1, 2001

2000 Moments

Board Flow is a regular feature that will act as a gauge to monitor the activity of upcoming commercial production. The following chart is intended as a snapshot view of the level of "board flow" (i.e., potential scripts from ad agencies) that commercial production houses in various markets across North America experienced during the preceding month. The synopsis of each market is based on conversations with anywhere from six to a dozen production house executives in each market who were asked to comment on the number and type of "boards" they had received from ad agencies over the most recent month. The chart reflects "board flow" from mid-November to mid-December.

Summit Coverage

Return of the Sweatermen "Shopping with Amazon is a tradition, just like the ones you used to know," comments Foote, Cone & Belding creative Matt Reinhard on the return of the Singing Sweatermen. "Remember all of those Christmas specials of years gone by? Well, we have that Christmas spirit too; it just happens to be online shopping as opposed to your traditional bricks and mortar."

Talkin' Turkey

Cave Anholt Jonason: The 3rd Innovation It's a ballsy move to finger your own start-up as the third of only three ad agency innovations of the past century; but at the very least, the transnational mind-set espoused by the partners of Cave Anholt Jonason delivers some top names in international strategy and creative.

McCallion: Brogue Rogue Score one for the villain. Abundantly adorned with devilish ink, he lounges in the lobby of the Chateau Marmont cloaked in rumored spirits of Hollywood legends.

The Marrow of Murro "Adrenaline runs through everyone's veins on set and people think you're doing something important, but that doesn't give me a boner," explains a candid Noam Murro. "As long as what's in front of the lens is of consequence, who cares how much money is put into the job."

Spanish Fly In January of Y2K, global ad conglomerate WPP took a 30 percent stake in *S,C,P,F, but the Spanish agency's aesthetically honed and comedy-rich work continues to set the creative standards for Spanish advertising.

Iberian Ad Aesthetics A focus on aesthetics in the structure of both visuals and narrative has brought agency favor upon Spanish creative talent, while the undervalued peseta and a well developed infrastructure are making the Iberian Peninsula a focal point for transnational shoots and opening new revenue streams for local production companies.

Filming Art That Speaks Pep Bosch lives in Barcelona for the climate, but roams far beyond Spain in search of worthwhile directing opportunities.

No Guff Images As a 15-year-old pioneer, effects shop Mac Guff Ligne in Paris remains at the forefront of French creativity, excelling at photorealistic computer-generated imagery, seamless live-action integration and 3D character animation. Over the years, Mac Guff Ligne has brought its distinctive touch to several international projects, servicing filmmakers, agencies and content producers in Asia, Europe and the US.

Vive L'Esprit Attempting to uncork new French talent is a daunting challenge, but tasting the grapes of three distinctly vintage directors leaves one content; Philippe Andre, Jean-Pierre Roux and Eric Coignoux are three such directors whose reels reveal unique visions of the contemporary world.

Agency Louis XIV "At the beginning we used to get a kick out of it, when a receptionist would announce us with 'Louis XIV is at the front desk,'" says Bertrand Suchet, co-founder and creative director of the Paris-based agency with the royal name. Six years later, people in the industry associate the name with the agency's achievements, rather than with the Sun King.

Let's Get DigItalia Milan-based Interactive Group is an audiovisual service company, touted to be the first Italian structure to offer digital technology in audiovisual production and post-production to a host of homegrown clients. Farther afield, Interactive supports clients in North Africa, Egypt, Holland and Turkey.

Lure of the Limelight Hollywood stars abound in Italian commercials, but you won't see them outside of the country's airwaves due to tight constraints implemented on each spot. Far from the eyeballs of their American fanbase, carefully constructed contracts allow actors to maintain their celebrity star power.

Italy: Ripe for Change The phone rings at midnight. A man with an Italian accent offers some off-the-record information about how Italian production companies work and proceeds to tell stories of brown envelopes filled with cash and "favors."

Demo -- Lition $1.5K: hardly a drop in the spot bucket, but for some vocal commercial composers, this long standard demo fee is insufficient, if not out-and-out insulting.

Nonspotrock

Primal Scream Scores Composers

The H&K House of Swank From the seminal Minneapolis new wave/funk punkers, The Wallets arose the consistently swanky music house Hest & Kramer.

Sound Business Practices

Big Ups to the Massive

Disco-tech? Out of the fractured musical stylings of today's commercial soundtracks, composer/sound designer Craig Snyder of NYC-based Snyder Music produces surprisingly seamless digital meets analog tracks.

Big Finish

Final Cut Pro Makes Democracy Work Forget Florida. Dismiss Dubya Bush. Strike those dimpled, dented, pregnant and hanging chads forever from your mind. Want to see democracy in action? Look no further than the proliferation of Final Cut Pro, Apple's video editing, compositing and special effects application.

Ramdom Access "Non-linear has changed the entire industry," says Livio Sanchez, editor at The Lookinglass Company in Santa Monica, touting the benefits of random access.

A Democratic Decade: Discreet celebrates ten years of animation Upon discovering that Discreet was about to celebrate "a decade of animation," something just didn't ring true. Sure, the Montreal-based company's high-end compositing and editing systems -- flame*, inferno*, smoke*, fire*, etc. -- have been industry leaders for a while, but ten years? How could that be possible?

Discreet or Discrete?: A short history of the better part of valor

Wall to Wall Art

Cliff and Ringan go to the races

Blind Spot opens on concrete foundations

New York Welcomes Remedy Studios

Prouk's great leap forward

One & All

Cylo links with MVBMS/Euro RSCG for ITV creative

Propaganda Opens Extension Films

Partizan Hires New Talent

Eyeballnyc polishes Rawkus music videos

Inventory A look at who's making the moves.

Exploding Desktops