Emmy Award-winning creative production studio, Shilo, recently completed work on a high-profile commercial for Cingular via BBDO New York. The spot, titled "BlackJack Flourish," was directed, designed, animated, edited and produced by bicoastal Shilo and made its broadcast debut on Monday November 20.
Combining the artful visual storytelling that has become a hallmark of the studio's work with stunning CG imagery, the entire spot glides past in a single uninterrupted take. "BlackJack Flourish" introduces Samsung's new ultra-thin BlackJack multifunction device with a focus on its impressive ability to perform a variety of tasks with equal precision. The spot features intricate character animation married to a stylized look that borders on photoreal. The narrative follows a series of fans, cuts, flips, and flourishes that build to a crescendo, when the fanned out phone, video camera, still camera, MP3 player, and PDA are whipped back together to form the stylish and compact BlackJack.
"Visually we walk the line between fantasy and reality to cinematically showcase the BlackJack's strength as a multi-function device," explains Shilo creative director Andre Stringer. "We based our moves on actual sleights and ambidextrous trickery that master card-smiths have been dazzling audiences with for years."
Due to a compressed delivery schedule Shilo had a number of different animators working on each scene simultaneously. To further complicate matters, the entire commercial plays out seamlessly which forced the team to predefine key points in the animated sequence where one flourish would blend into the next. Throughout the production process the highly complex rigs for the CG hands were constantly being refined and updated to generate the most believable movement.
Shilo's lead CG animator, Chris Fung notes, "We weren't trying to replicate reality per se, we sought to balance the look of traditional cinematography with the flare of a more artful approach utilizing design and CG animation." Working from an initial photoreal style, the team dialed back the realism to develop a more stylized look while retaining the detail and texture needed to sell the look. When people began asking how the commercial was shot the team knew they had nailed the look.
"The team at BBDO was fantastic to work with," notes Shilo creative director, Jose Gomez. "They embraced our concept from the start and gave us the creative freedom to deliver a truly unique spot. It's always a pleasure to collaborate with a group with such a strong creative sensibility."
