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December 2006

BESTIES MUSIC VIDEO "PRISON SONG" BREAKS OUT WITH HELP FROM NORTHERN LIGHTS

Brooklyn-based pop band, The Besties, just finished its long-awaited debut video "Prison Song" at Northern Lights. The track, which is widely tipped to go Gold by the end the year, was brought to life by the heavyweight duo of Editor/Smoke Artist Christopher Harrison of Northern Lights and Director Adam Reid of Flycollar Films.

In "Prison Song," shots of the insanely good-looking Besties clumsily stripping are juxtaposed with the musicians "doing time" in a community recreation center doubling as the prison yard. Wearing their orange jumpsuits, the band's message becomes increasingly seditious as the trio fights with inmates and stages a prison break.

The trick was keeping the video low-fi in keeping with the band's homemade-quality music. Editor Harrison worked closely with The Besties on the cut. "We were careful that not to 'slick it up.' It's funny, but preserving the homemade flavor is harder than polishing." Thousands upon thousands of YouTube hits later, the video is popular where it really counts, with the fans.

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LIGHTBORNE DIRECTS & ANIMATES HASBRO'S NEW TOOTH TUNES SPOT FEATURING KISS

Motion design and production collective Lightborne created ambitious CG and animation in a new spot for Tooth Tunes by Hasbro. "Revolution" features a totalitarian Orwellian world where hundreds of kids mundanely brush their teeth as a "Big Brother battle-ax" keeps time from a projection screen. A heroic boy appears holding up the new Tooth Tunes brush as it emits a sound wave and transforms the old environment into a state-of-the-art concert arena as KISS' "Rock and Roll All Nite" plays in the background. Released from bondage, the kids go wild with excitement as they brush and rock out to KISS.

Lightborne created a pre-vis animatic of the entire spot before the shoot, which allowed the team to precisely plan out the camera moves and to determine how to shoot the HD greenscreen plates, greatly improving production planning. Twenty kids were shot against greenscreen and were cleverly duplicated to make up the hundreds seen in the spot. The freedom of building these virtual environments gave Lightborne creative flexibility in designing each shot.

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ZOIC AND BLIND "COME TOGETHER" FOR XBOX 360

The possibilities are limitless and the imagination knows no boundaries with a new XBOX 360 campaign created in a partnership between creative production company Blind and visual effects entity Zoic Studios. The campaign, is an animated window into the virtual world of XBOX, where game titles, consoles and the players come together in unique and powerful ways.

Blind collaborated with the McCann Worldgroup's creative team on the narrative and stories for each spot. Concept drawings and storyboards were brought to Zoic to undergo the transformation into fully animated 3D renderings. In the inaugural spot, aptly titled "Come Together," the commercial opens on a vast expanse of XBOX 360 titles. Slowly, each box begins to vibrate and then is quickly sucked away as if pulled by an unseen gravitational force. Throughout the spot we follow the flight of thousands of boxes to the center of this force.a towering photorealistic XBOX 360 game console that is being created piece by game box piece.

"Moving forward with the XBOX 360 campaign, we looked for a company that had the right amount of muscle to bring our vision to life." says Tom Koh, director from Blind. "The spots I wanted to portray required so much attention to detail it was critical to find a company we could have that confidence in. Zoic performed exceptionally in all facets of such a challenging job."

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Venice Arts Showcases Internationally Celebrated Photography By HIV Positive Women in South Africa

Venice Arts Gallery proudly hosted "The House is Small but the Welcome is Big," a photography exhibit featuring images taken by 15 HIV positive South African women (all mothers or mothers-to-be in the townships of Cape Town). The women were taught how to document their lives photographically by a team of photographers from Los Angeles-based Venice Arts. "The House is Small but the Welcome is Big" debuted at the Venice Art Walk in May 2006 and was showcased at the International Aids Conference in Toronto in August. Most recently, in September, it was featured at the Clinton Global Aid Initiative Conference in New York, and introduced by First Lady Laura Bush.

The women's photos are beautifully rendered and compelling: The birth of a baby to an HIV-positive mother. A newborn receiving its first dose of AZT. Colorful, cozy shacks, without electricity or running water. Men socializing at a local Shabeen (bar). An AIDS Treatment Advocacy march in Khayelitsha township against "AIDS denialism." A gravedigger opening an old grave to accommodate a third body. Children playing on dusty streets.

Created by physician and producer/show runner for "Law and Order: SVU" Neal Baer, Venice Arts Co-Founder/Executive Director Lynn Warshafsky and Creative Director Jim Hubbard, "The House Is Small" is a breakthrough in teaching and educating under privileged people how to document their life/struggles through the arts. According to Warshafsky, Venice Arts' next major international initiatives over the next several years will focus on the intersection between poverty and critical public health issues, including HIV/AIDS and environmental degradation.

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