a52

GE "The Boy Who Beeped" from a52 on Vimeo.

“Create a CG Storm at sea” -- not really the kind of assignment you get every day in advertising. But in our second Cisco campaign with GSP, Biscuit’s Christopher Riggert, and RPS editor Stewart Reeves, the task at hand was to build a storm that would culminate in epic shots complete with rollicking waves, driving rain and blustery winds. Although CG water can be notoriously tricky, the a52 team, led by VFX Supervisor Jesse Monsour and CG Supervisor Andrew Romatz, succeed in creating a photo real “weather day” that intensifies throughout the spot and really wows at the end.

Director : Alma Har'el

Agency:  Pereira O'Dell

Agency:  Wieden + Kennedy

Director:  Lance Acord

With the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics quickly approaching, we’re reminded that sometimes you have to fall in order to get back up and succeed. The latest installment of the P+G Moms campaign from Wieden + Kennedy and Lance Acord, follows four athletes in their pursuit of the Olympic Gold.  

Agency:  Wieden + Kennedy

Director: Nicolai Fugslig

FOX Sports 1 "Happy Days"

Director:  Joseph Kahn

In a true feat of accomplishments in VFX, a52 worked with FOX Sports and director Joseph Kahn on the launch spot for the new network FOX Sports 1. The :90 TVC took our On Set Supervision team to 5 cities in 10 days while our CG team back home built a custom pipeline that assisted them in filling ALL the hundreds of thousands of seats in the multitude of stadiums and arenas across the country. Working closely with RPS editor Adam Pertofsky, the team at a52 was able to complete a record number of shots in an almost unbelievably short turn around. To complete the process and keep it under one roof, a52 colorist Paul Yacono graded the piece that consisted of over 70 shots.

Upon delivering the spot, Robert Gottlieb, FOX Sports SVP/Head of Marketing praised the work saying "the team at a52 was unreal. Just a fantastic job and more importantly, it was a real pleasure to work with them all."

Lexus "Color Shift"

Lexus "Crowd"

Lexus and Team One went to Jonas Akerlund to paint the perfect picture to launch the new IS.  What resulted is a perfectly art directed campaign featuring talent that could have stepped off of a couture runway matched with the highly fashionable Lexus IS.

Samsung "Hi, Hey, Hello"

Director:  Joseph Kahn

Agency:  Leo Burnett

Nothing like an upbeat, little known track to kickstart the summer months.  

Sony "Away Fans"

Agency:  Wieden + Kennedy

Director: Patrick Daughters

In our first collaboration with director Patrick Daughters, we teamed up with long time clients W+K Portland to bring you the launch of the Sony 4K television.

a52 recently teamed up with Publicis in a series of campaigns for T-Mobile. Making all sorts of major announcements including the release of the iPhone on their network and their No Contract policy, Publicis tapped up Noam Murro, Christian Bevilacqua, and Phil Morrison for the various campaigns. a52 was the consistent thread across all of the campaigns. The last of Morrison's spots broke earlier this month.

"Cowboys"

Director:  Noam Murro

"Pipes"

Director:  Christian Bevilacqua

"Frozen Man"

When faced with the task of grading and finishing 13 episodes of David Fincher's original Netflix series "House of Cards", a52's Colorist and Lead Smoke Artist Paul Yacono worked with producers, engineers and artists to develop a pipeline that served both the technical challenges and the creative aspirations that the show presented us with.  Paul started with the first episode, working within the parameters that Fincher and his DP, Eigil Bryld, established which set the look for the series.  "David and his crew set out with rules in place to keep the production value on all 13 episodes extremely high", Yacono noted.  "He is an idiosyncratic director with an incredible eye.  He knows what he likes and doesn't like.  There's rarely a grey area."  Once the initial look was established,  Paul and a52's second colorist, Tommy Hooper, tag-teamed the remaining 12 episodes over a 5 month period.  Not only did Paul and Tommy set the color for the show, but Paul and the rest of the HOC team at a52, including lead online editor Matt Sousa, conformed every episode and completed a large amount of VFX for the show.  

Having never tackled a show of this size, we needed to make significant infrastructure changes to accommodate the amount of data we processed on a weekly basis for each one hour episode.  a52's Chief Engineer, Kevin Bass, led the pipeline development for the crew creating a hugely flexible, yet structured workflow that allowed for rolling editorial changes on all episodes.  "Unlike traditional series deliveries, Netflix releases an entire season in one go.  So as the show took shape, the editorial department needed flexibility to change episodes at will.  We had to create a pipeline that allowed for that flexibility but also didn't slow down the finishing for the rest of the series," explained Bass.  Netflix, being an all digital delivery network, allowed us to push the technical boundaries of our tapeless pipeline as well.  Thorough encoding development had to be tested and retested to meet the needs of both viewing for WIP comments as well as delivery formats for streaming.

In visual effects, the single take camera move is both a thing of beauty as well as much pain and suffering for artists.  When at the end of the day you can look at a spot and say, "How did they do that?" we know we've done our job really well.

The creative team at Anomaly thought up this VFX mind bender and with the inclusion of Derek Cianfrance, it got taken to a whole other level.  More times than not, the single camera move is a roller coaster that we're taken on.  This spot however keeps that move subtle and simple which allows for more scrutiny from the viewer.  Derek, being a purist, was intent on capturing the camera move in one take so that we wouldn't have to hide any cuts with VFX trickery.  Brilliant cinematography and choreography gave us the canvas to which we applied our VFX artistry.

Its not everyday that we take on a music video. So when we do, we are fortunate enough to work with amazing artists both in front of and behind the camera.

Microsoft "Provibe" :60 from a52 on Vimeo.

For the launch of Microsoft's "Pro" Surface, agency Black Ops tapped up a52 to bring the new spot to air. Having successfully worked with Rock Paper Scissors Editorial on past campaigns, the agency turned its sights to a52 for the VFX.