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Award-winning Los Angeles visual effects and design company A52 today announced that Andy Hall ? hired last April as the company?s CG supervisor ? directed the Honda Ridgeline ?Mud Flap? spot from advertising agency RPA which debuted during ABC?s coverage of Super Bowl XL.
The new spot features the classic ?sexy girl? seen for the past several decades on millions of pairs of truck mud flaps coming to life to admire the unique attributes of the Honda Ridgeline. When she opens the door to look inside, she sees another mud flap icon ? the boisterous and hot-headed animated cartoon character of Looney Tunes fame, Yosemite Sam(TM) ? and she jumps inside and drives away with him as the voiceover relates, ?Even those who have spent their entire lives around trucks have never seen a truck like this.?
?When I joined A52?s extraordinary team last year,? Hall said, ?the goal was to capitalize on the increasing importance of CG in the creative world, and to pursue more character-performance type work. To progress so quickly to the point where I had this opportunity to direct such an important, high-profile project for Honda and RPA is an accomplishment we?re all very appreciative and proud of.?
?The fact that everything turned out so well was due in large part to Andy?s constant attention to the spot,? said Julie Dolson, RPA?s senior producer. ?It?s a simple idea and Andy?s vision was to bring it to life, not complicate it. Andy and everyone over at A52 delivered in a ridiculously compressed timeframe without sacrificing quality.?
A52 Inferno artist Pat Murphy worked closely with Hall to design the spot?s opening scene showing a girl-adorned mud flap on a moving truck. A52?s CG team of Dan Gutierrez and Max Ulichney created the girl, the photo-real mudflap, and a rubberized, textured version of the Honda logo in Maya, and Murphy?s 2D team, including Alicia Aguilera, composited all the CG elements in Inferno together with the moving road, and applied various effects to heighten the realism of the opening and closing scenes. ?I never would have been able to achieve the finished look of this spot without Pat?s contributions,? Hall added.
Hall also filmed the Ridgeline at South Bay Studios in Long Beach, with Eric Schmidt serving as his director or photography. For some of those shots, a woman in a black leotard was photographed moving around the truck. That live-action footage of the moving woman was then used as the basis for the movement of the animated girl.
A52?s team also touched-up Yosemite Sam to put him behind the wheel of the Ridgeline, sans his famous six-shooters.
The spot is set to continue airing over the weeks ahead.
For RPA, project credits include creative director Joe Baratelli, art director Chuck Blackwell, copywriter Adam Lowrey and producer Julie Dolson. The production company representing A52?s artists is Pecubu Productions, and David Wolfson served as the project?s line producer. A52?s team also included executive producer Mark Tobin and producer Jenny Bright.
Company 3?s Mike Pethel served as the colorist for the spot, which was edited by Rock Paper Scissors? Brad Waskewich and features music by Nick Armstrong and the Thieves, and sound design by the team at Hum in Santa Monica. The spot?s final mix was engineered by Jimmy Hite of Margarita Mix de Santa Monica.
LOONEY TUNES and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
About A52
Established in 1997 as a home for the very latest high-end photo-real visual effects technologies and the industry?s most innovative and talented graphic design artists, West Hollywood visual effects and design company A52 creates award-winning imagery for the world?s most visually ambitious commercial and television projects. The company?s work has been earned AICP Show recognition for six consecutive years along with recent ?Outstanding Commercial? Emmy, Andy, BDA, Belding, Clio, British Design and Art Direction, International Monitor, International Automotive Advertising, London International Advertising, One Show and PROMAX awards. For more information, please call Mark Tobin at 310.385.0851 or visit www.A52.com.
About RPA
RPA, based in Santa Monica, Calif., is the largest independent advertising agency based on the West Coast. Since its founding in 1986, the agency?s independent and integrated approach has led to award winning work for a variety of clients including American Honda Motor Co., Inc., Acura, Pioneer Electronics (USA), Inc., Blue Cross of California, VH1, California Pizza Kitchen, Gardenburger, Bugle Boy Jean Company, WebTV, Morningstar and ampm. RPA offers its clients traditional advertising as well as media services, interactive and direct and event marketing. For more information, visit www.rpa.com.
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