Guest Post from Pink Vice Productions, “The Information SuperJungle”
I guess an introduction would be best, before we start this thing off. My name is Andrew Robb, I am a third year graphic design/ advertising student and RGD member, currently completing my third and last year at Algonquin College. My specialty is Multimedia, Motion Graphics and Video. I made the switch to Firefox about three years ago; back when OSX was released and Safari and Internet Explorer couldn’t download my e-mail attachments. I’m sure Mac users know what I’m talking about. A good friend of mine (Ricky Miller) sent me the link to the Firefox Flicks site over MSN one night and I was instantly throwing around ideas—the question was if I had enough time to jump full throttle into another production.
I figured that the only way I could pull this thing off was to try and turn the ad submission into an assignment for my course. The way I was picturing it would take time and I didn’t want to sell my concept short (it ended up taking over a month). After a few meetings with the dean of the program (Chris Jones), I got approval to convert a multimedia project already assigned into the Firefox ad.
The first thing I wanted to do was establish a style, brand and identity for this commercial (since Firefox really isn’t mainstream yet). I decided that the best way to do this would be through an animation, since I could control more aspects and give it a very unique feel.
THE CONCEPT
A robot gets pulled into his computer and gets engulfed, overwhelmed and lost in a jungle (the internet)—eventually sinking to the bottom of the ocean (information). The idea stemmed from, like I mentioned above, when my other browsers would start sending me to sign in pages, help topics, etc when I would try and download attachments from my e-mail. Also, it can really just represent the Internet in general—you are bombarded with so much that it’s easy to get lost in it. That’s how I wanted to sell the browser: more as an experience enhancer (that sounds dirty), rather than a tool (since there are already so many of them out there).
PRODUCTION
Everything in this commercial was hand drawn and colored. I wanted it to give it a distinguished look and texture—like a kids book from the 70’s, only with a vibrant, modern feel. From there the drawings were scanned in and edited in Adobe Photoshop CS2 to separate layers and transparencies, curves, color balancing and general tweaking. By this time, I got one of my best friends and co-owner of Pink Vice Productions, Jan Kozlowski to compose a score for the commercial. We agreed that the music should feel really retro (we went midi) and have a robotic feel to it. I think he did it up in Fruity Loops, but I have no idea which version he’s running now… six maybe? Anyway, while he was doing that, I was jumping into Apple Motion and bringing the commercial to life. For those of you who don’t know what Motion is, it’s basically a smaller version of Adobe After Effects (without the 3D plug-ins and motion tracking). There was video used in this, shot on my Panasonic PVGS250, for things like time lapses on clouds, etc. The narration was done in Adobe Audition.
Overall, I am very pleased with the end result I submitted and feel it will really hold up in the competition. I took a different approach than most (refusing to use a stereotypical fox in my ad), I challenged myself and I cranked out a really solid portfolio piece.
Thanks to everyone, including Cheryl and Asa.
Good luck with your submissions!
-Andrew Robb
