Start to Finish| Introduction | Defining the project goals| 00:00 | Dan Pappalardo: We have a long-term
relationship with ABC. We have been working
| | 00:03 | with them for over ten years now. This year,
we wanted to take it to the next level
| | 00:09 | and start to create more of an
emotional connection with the audience.
| | 00:13 | So this show was about the why. And why
do they care, why does the audience care?
| | 00:19 | They care because of the shows,
the characters, the stories. So what we focused on
| | 00:25 | this show was a live action brand spot
or series of brand spots that tied
| | 00:35 | the talent at ABC with the brand identity.
| | 00:39 | Michael Benson: It's was just over a
year ago we decided that we really needed to
| | 00:43 | create a more distinctive, unique brand
identity for ABC. But as we worked with Troika
| | 00:49 | what we decided to do was something
that was more involved not only with
| | 00:53 | the identity of the network, but
really having the premise and the concept of
| | 00:58 | every show come alive
through this brand campaign.
| | 01:01 | So as we were going through creative
development, we worked with them to
| | 01:05 | really figure out how do you present
the stars in a way that really kind of
| | 01:09 | holds them on the pedestal, while at the
same time articulating the premise of the shows
| | 01:14 | and where you got something like
Dancing with the Stars and the mirrored ball
| | 01:18 | and the dancing and how the stars come
together with graphic images that really represent
| | 01:22 | Dancing with the Stars while at the
same time, you have got Grey's Anatomy
| | 01:27 | and how you integrate elements of
their show into a brand campaign
| | 01:31 | that's still organic with the ABC identity.
| | 01:34 | The creative process is really all
about coming up with all of these scenarios
| | 01:37 | that would work together as one but make it
feel like it all came out from one central place.
| | 01:43 | Dale Everett: The real challenge
here was how do we take the talent and
| | 01:46 | the imagery that's associated with each
show and integrate it into this world that
| | 01:51 | we had created for the Start Here campaign.
| | 01:53 | Dan Pappalardo: It was really us
working with writers to come up with
| | 01:57 | a basic premise and some of the creative hooks
and then we -- from that, we brought in designers
| | 02:07 | to start to create style
boards around each of these concepts.
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| Pre-production: Designing the storyboards| 00:00 | Chris Gernon: So we initially proposed
a cross-platform branding spot that was
| | 00:05 | going to be showcasing all of the cross-
platform ideas, mobile, web, so and so forth.
| | 00:14 | That transitioned rather quickly to
being not across platforms but more to
| | 00:19 | a network branding spot.
| | 00:23 | When that happened then it opened
up the world for us a lot more and
| | 00:25 | we were able to then strategize and
think about how we were going to represent
| | 00:29 | all the shows on ABC in one network brand
package. So that's kind of what we started with,
| | 00:35 | figuring out iconography and
Earl was instrumental in all of the
| | 00:40 | storyboarding and coming up
with the icons for every show.
| | 00:45 | Earl Jenshus: Yes, some of the shows had
existing icons that were kind of obvious to use,
| | 00:51 | like the apples in Desperate
Housewives. And then some shows
| | 00:56 | didn't have any iconography at all to
work with. So we had to come up with
| | 01:01 | some new ideas of how they could
represent themselves with a metaphoric symbol that
| | 01:08 | encapsulated the essence of
what that show represented.
| | 01:14 | Chris Gernon: Dirty Sexy Money is a good
example. It's the safe, which Earl came up with
| | 01:19 | rather early in the process, is a
perfect example of like how to show
| | 01:23 | Dirty Sexy Money and the money
changed easily from, or rather quickly, from
| | 01:28 | dollar bills to we once had a whole
version that was more of diamonds and gold
| | 01:34 | and like all of this stuff, watches and stuff,
and it went back to money later in the process,
| | 01:39 | but it's the whole evolution, but it's
something that is easily identifiable to the show.
| | 01:44 | It's a quick read; it's a perfect icon
or element to use to represent a show.
| | 01:50 | Earl Jenshus: Brothers and Sisters didn't
have any icons so we came up with an oak tree
| | 01:55 | that represented like a family tree and
then the leaves representing the people.
| | 02:01 | It was a combination of the stars,
the iconography and then
| | 02:08 | we needed a way to make each of the show
modules, which were about four seconds,
| | 02:14 | make them modular, so that they could
work with each other and also be able to
| | 02:20 | swap them out whenever
there was a need to do so.
| | 02:25 | Chris Gernon: Yeah, that was the
mandate from ABC. It's like they said we want
| | 02:29 | to use the spot but we want it to have
some legs to it. We want it to play for
| | 02:32 | a longer period of time and we may
want to flip-flop and move things around,
| | 02:37 | independently of a locked cut. So we were like,
oh my god! How we are going to do this?
| | 02:41 | So the thing we came up with is if there
was a consistent camera motion throughout,
| | 02:47 | that becomes a common thread, that
it doesn't matter what you are coming from
| | 02:52 | or what you are going to,
it's always going to work because
| | 02:54 | you're always moving through something.
| | 02:56 | Earl Jenshus: Here is an example of
some of the style frames that were
| | 03:00 | generated from the sketches that
essentially represent a general structure of
| | 03:06 | the beginning, middle and end representation
of what each of the modules might look like.
| | 03:13 | So in this case here, Brothers and Sisters,
I created these style frames in Photoshop.
| | 03:19 | We start on Sally Field's close-up.
There was this luminous bright light,
| | 03:25 | which is another constant theme
throughout the entire package.
| | 03:30 | And then as we are pulling back, it was also
structured so that we would capture some of
| | 03:36 | this key secondary talent, but the
camera continues then to pull out revealing
| | 03:42 | more of the featured icon,
which is- basically it's the tree
| | 03:46 | with the luminous glow of light coming through.
| | 03:49 | Chris Gernon: When you pull back in a
scene like in Brothers and Sisters,
| | 03:52 | a top layer element would be a wind of
leaves carrying us through, which allows us
| | 03:59 | the opportunity to begin a transition
into another scene and let's say in this case
| | 04:03 | we are moving to Jimmy Kimmel.
We came in on his button.
| | 04:06 | So the thing was that the leaves would come through and
then his button would appear with the leaves on top of it.
| | 04:12 | So the transition is always in
constant motion with everything else.
| | 04:16 | But there are some things that carry
over from this scene into this scene.
| | 04:20 | We tried to find as many opportunities
as we could to establish these elements.
| | 04:27 | Having the liquid light interact
with the scene as much as possible.
| | 04:31 | That is where the top layer elements,
or sometimes water will come off of
| | 04:34 | someone's shoulder as they are
entering the scene. Water was always,
| | 04:38 | or liquid light was always sort of
trailing along the edges of the frame and
| | 04:41 | you always saw it. Almost in
every module, it appeared somewhere.
| | 04:46 | Earl Jenshus: It acts as a punctuating
device at moments of greatest energy,
| | 04:50 | which is pretty much how it behaves along
with the logos. The logo twists, it might --
| | 04:57 | You will see the liquid light
flaring outwards, in order to maintain
| | 05:00 | consistency throughout the brand,
sticking with the general sense of proportion
| | 05:05 | of light, shadow, effects, detail, color.
| | 05:10 | Chris Gernon: Reflective quality, yeah.
| | 05:12 | Earl Jenshus: All these things.
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| Production: Greenscreen shoot| 00:00 | Dan Pappalardo: Once we came up with
the overarching idea and how the spot was
| | 00:04 | going to flow from show-to-show, then
we basically broke it down by show and
| | 00:10 | then we figured out what's the right
iconography around that show. What's that environment,
| | 00:15 | the graphic environment that we are
creating, what's the action of the talent?
| | 00:18 | Dale Everett: What's the
right grouping of the talent?
| | 00:20 | Dan Pappalardo: Yeah, the grouping.
| | 00:21 | Dale Everett: We decided on one sort of
primary device that would flow through
| | 00:26 | all the spots, which is you are always
moving back, the cameras are always moving back.
| | 00:30 | So that was the one rule we had for
any scenario that we were coming up with
| | 00:33 | and that's what allowed these
things to become modular and be able to
| | 00:37 | be joined up in different ways.
| | 00:39 | Dan Pappalardo: And one of the challenges
there was, it would have been easier for us
| | 00:43 | to impose if we had actually
planned this out would be motion control.
| | 00:47 | But because we had so much cast to
get through, such a short amount of time
| | 00:52 | in five different shoot days
that it really became impractical.
| | 00:57 | We basically had this jib arm and these
control points all around the green screen
| | 01:05 | and then had to do an awful lot of work
in post to marry these different pieces together
| | 01:11 | and to re-track all the people,
but it was something we had to do
| | 01:16 | because of the dynamic of shooting that
level of talent in the timeframes that we had.
| | 01:23 | Michael Benson: It was really the
first time that we have ever been able to
| | 01:25 | bring all of these talent together like this,
not only from entertainment standpoint,
| | 01:30 | but with news and daytime
and the other day parts of ABC,
| | 01:35 | to coordinate all of these talents. It's
very different from, say, a commercial shoot
| | 01:40 | where you can go out and
hire actors to do things.
| | 01:43 | These are all professional actors that work
in television shows, that have busy schedules.
| | 01:47 | So trying to coordinate their
schedules with what we really needed to
| | 01:51 | accomplish to make this campaign work from
a creative standpoint was a huge challenge.
| | 01:56 | I think the logistics of it actually
don't really show up in the end product
| | 02:01 | but what really came out was just
great performances from each of the stars
| | 02:06 | and just the way the performances
worked with the graphics and the animation,
| | 02:12 | and the camera moves was something that
really I think paid off in a great campaign.
| | 02:16 | Chris Gernon: We have got a director,
Randy Roberts, he has done target ads,
| | 02:21 | which is kind of what the Director
from ABC, they really wanted it to look
| | 02:25 | and have the quality and the fun aspects,
the fun aspects of a Target commercial.
| | 02:31 | So we went and got the Target
director who does all the Target ads and
| | 02:37 | he came in with a lot of energy
and a lot of that history with him.
| | 02:43 | It was a really wonderful process.
| | 02:45 | We went back and forth a lot in
terms of bringing in a storyboard artist
| | 02:50 | and Earl drawing some frames
and all of us would have come in
| | 02:53 | together trying to get us to a point where we
could bring this to a shootable type of board.
| | 03:01 | Earl Jenshus: One of the aspects for
each of these modules as far as shooting
| | 03:06 | and how there were other considerations,
was color because each of the shows already
| | 03:13 | -- not all of them, but some of them --
already had some colors that represented
| | 03:18 | that show in their promotion posture.
So incorporating their show colors into
| | 03:24 | the wardrobe colors of the casts that
were featured in each of the modules was
| | 03:31 | a key component as well.
| | 03:32 | Chris Gernon: Yeah, I mean there was really
the opportunity because most of the world
| | 03:36 | is a white world and then you have
this amber light. But beyond that,
| | 03:41 | where is the color really being invited,
uh, to come in? And that's really through
| | 03:47 | the wardrobe and through different
props and things like that that we had coming in.
| | 03:53 | Like Samantha Who. Samantha Who,
her dress when she is good Sam,
| | 03:58 | is very sort of white and pure dress.
When she is bad Sam, as we refer to her,
| | 04:02 | she is in a red dress.
| | 04:03 | So it's like you need to see the
juxtaposition of those two things together to
| | 04:07 | really sort of get one, because she
has this dual personality on the show.
| | 04:12 | Not personality, but she remembers
her old self versus her new self.
| | 04:15 | So the shoot was four days long over a
month. So we had to schedule all the actors
| | 04:21 | and based on their schedules
and when they could show up,
| | 04:25 | and it was a very technical shoot to begin with
and then when we started breaking up all the people,
| | 04:30 | it became even more technical because
how do you shoot and get all the people
| | 04:33 | to work together and keep that
consistent camera motion moving back?
| | 04:37 | It was very, very complicated to work out.
We have a lot of people. The director,
| | 04:44 | Randy, was fantastic with this type of stuff.
So he was a real asset to us on the shoot.
| | 04:49 | And just a number of personalities
and getting all the actors together
| | 04:53 | and signed off on the concept
and making sure that they knew what
| | 04:56 | they were going to do when they walked
on set and going through hair and makeup.
| | 05:02 | It was a huge, huge ordeal, but extremely,
extremely fun. We all had a great time.
| | 05:09 | There were never any problems and
it was just a really wonderful time;
| | 05:13 | it just took forever.
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| Post-production: Compositing elements together| 00:00 | Chris Gernon: So at the end of the shoot,
we would get the dailies and
| | 00:03 | the dailies were digitized and
everything was on green screen. So it was really
| | 00:07 | just a matter of piecing all the
different elements together basically and
| | 00:13 | Earl would give me still
frames of the storyboards.
| | 00:16 | So we'd take different pieces that he
would draw and we would composite them
| | 00:20 | into a rough edit basically, and we
had a rough timing pretty much before
| | 00:26 | we even started compositing any of the stuff.
| | 00:28 | We knew exactly kind of how
everything was going to go, and whether the
| | 00:31 | technique of the pullback was working
properly for us, and we really wanted to
| | 00:35 | test out whether the technique was going to work,
how the composites were going to look,
| | 00:41 | what we really needed to accomplish,
and what the order was of all the shows.
| | 00:45 | So we needed to lock down
a lot of things with the edit,
| | 00:48 | and that's really what we accomplished. And there
wasn't much of a toil. It's mostly just technical;
| | 00:53 | managing of elements and
trying to figure out how and
| | 00:59 | what was going to work where and how the
transitions were going to be incorporated.
| | 01:03 | And Earl and I worked together through
most of that process trying to figure out
| | 01:07 | how everything was going to go
together. And then it went to Flame and
| | 01:12 | that's where most of heavy compositing was done,
and 3D, and tracking, and everything else.
| | 01:17 | It was a huge pipeline. We had probably
over ten people working on it consistently.
| | 01:22 | Earl Jenshus: Lot of that work was the 3D
development of a lot of these components;
| | 01:28 | the home, the chairs, the tree,
the leaves, just about everything
| | 01:33 | in here was 3D. There were some
components that were matte paintings,
| | 01:38 | which are digital illustrations essentially that
I created for like some hills in the background.
| | 01:45 | The challenge to create two-dimensional
images that look three-dimensional was
| | 01:51 | to make sure all of the perspective
dynamics were all coordinated well and
| | 01:59 | what also created a sense of 3D-
it looked many times like a 3D world,
| | 02:05 | but it was actually just flat elements.
| | 02:08 | But it was the orchestration of the
layers of those flat elements and
| | 02:11 | how they all moved together that
created a sense of three-dimensional space.
| | 02:16 | So that was using different, different
matte paintings of different elements that were
| | 02:21 | all coordinated in a way that
generated the illusion of 3D.
| | 02:25 | Chris Gernon: The spot itself runs as a
full spot. It doesn't get broken up at all.
| | 02:32 | Not every show is its own spot. So
it's one spot with as many shows as
| | 02:37 | we can fit in there basically, with
an open and a close, so it exists as
| | 02:41 | 60-second commercials
and 30-second commercials.
| | 02:44 | But then out of that, we pulled
iconography and would design custom interstitials.
| | 02:49 | And those custom interstitials, and
opens and closes, and transitions,
| | 02:54 | and everything all get pulled from the
elements we've created for the brand spot.
| | 02:58 | So, the legs of the development we did
on the brand spot are really long and
| | 03:05 | they get re-purposed through a lot of
the show branding now as it exists on air.
| | 03:11 | So we developed all of this, but
then we also broke it all apart and
| | 03:14 | used it as promotional elements.
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| Delivering the final product| 00:00 | Dan Pappalardo: Once everyone could see
the elements coming together in post,
| | 00:05 | I think the whole group took a sigh of
relief and started to really enjoy it,
| | 00:11 | sort of the magic of bringing all these
crazy pieces together and creating this,
| | 00:16 | this sort of amazing piece,
this hallmark piece for the network.
| | 00:19 | Michael Benson: That's one thing that
the audience might take for granted, that
| | 00:23 | when you look at it and you say, wow,
that's cool, and it really works as
| | 00:27 | a great communication device but all
of the work that went into it from an
| | 00:30 | artistic/design/technology standpoint,
it was really amazing and it was
| | 00:35 | a great process to actually look at and
be part of because you really start to
| | 00:41 | appreciate all the work that went
into it, from the initial concept that
| | 00:46 | 'let's create a brand campaign' to the
multiple layers of how this had to work together
| | 00:52 | to really create what became the ABC brand.
| | 00:55 | Earl Jenshus: It was really nice to
be involved in this big huge brand spot
| | 01:01 | that involved all of their shows
because it was, for me especially, it was like
| | 01:06 | the icing on the cake. To have worked
on this brand for a couple years and
| | 01:12 | then get this big fat brand spot,
it's like wow, okay...
| | 01:15 | You know, here's like all the shows and then...
And so you end up developing all the iconography for it.
| | 01:21 | It was just a treat
and how it came out was just --
| | 01:25 | we were just very delighted with it. And it just
really tells the story of ABC in a fun, bright,
| | 01:35 | inspiring, engaging way.
| | 01:38 | Chris Gernon: We took it from just a
real nebulous sort of idea and took it to
| | 01:42 | a much higher level and it exceeded
all of our expectations of where we
| | 01:47 | actually wanted it to go. And it was
just because of all the energy and
| | 01:49 | the love and the commitment
that we all brought to the table.
| | 01:54 | Dale Everett: Right after that aired,
there was a little bit of staged delivery
| | 01:58 | so that, you know, it kept going on as
we were getting them done, but it was funny
| | 02:02 | because we saw it on YouTube
for the first time. And it had came up,
| | 02:07 | and we were watching it on YouTube
rather than on regular television,
| | 02:11 | which was a little unusual for us to
see our project about our product there.
| | 02:16 | And to read the comments of the fans and
the amount of scrutiny they were giving to
| | 02:21 | these scenarios we had put together was
absolutely amazing in terms of like even
| | 02:28 | little gestures, 'look at the way
he grabbed her,' really surprised us.
| | 02:33 | Dan Pappalardo: The lighting
on so-and-so was beautiful.
| | 02:37 | Dale Everett: So getting that kind
of feedback that you usually never get,
| | 02:39 | was actually kind of
fun and interesting for us.
| | 02:41 | Michael Benson: Everyone at ABC
is so proud of the final piece.
| | 02:44 | It was something that when we were finished,
we put out and showed it to people and
| | 02:49 | you have seen it so many times,
you don't know how people are actually going to
| | 02:52 | react to final product.
| | 02:54 | But people saw it and they really felt good.
They felt like, wow, we've got a lot
| | 02:59 | of great stars, we've got a lot of
great shows on this network, and it really
| | 03:03 | started to position ABC as a very
high quality, unique, contemporary brand.
| | 03:09 | And people especially internally here
who saw it felt really proud that this is
| | 03:13 | something that I really
felt like I am part of something.
| | 03:16 | So we couldn't be happier with the way
it turned out. We are kind of excited
| | 03:20 | to figure out where we go next.
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| | Troika's ABC brand campaign |
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