Whiskas campaign calls on stock footage and effects - Post News

Post, August, 2003

WEST HOLLYWOOD -- Effects and design studio Ring of Fire, here, and NYC-based editorial house Bikini Edit recently teamed up to create two light-hearted spots for Whiskas cat food that combine original photography, stock footage and visual effects.

The Whiskas campaign, out of TBWA\Chiat\Day, features ordinary housecats in their natural habitat--the grassy plains of Africa.

Buffalo opens on an orange-and-white cat peeking out from behind a rock at a herd of water buffalo. The cat makes eye contact with one buffalo, and it isn't long before a chase ensues. Sound design of the cat's bell collar reinforces the humor.

"Your cat has an inner beast," states the voiceover. "Feed it."

The spot concludes with a product shot and the tag, "Whiskas. Made to satisfy a cat's natural instincts."

A second spot, Zebra, follows a black-and-white feline in a similar predatory role. Ring of Fire creative director Jerry Spivack says the studio was challenged with matching stock footage with other stock elements, as well as with new production footage.

As the stock footage was being edited together by Avi Oron at Bikini Edit, Ring of Fire reviewed each scene with director Noam Murro to assess what he wanted the cats to do. Ring of Fire then came up with a plan to shoot the cat scenes and the scenes where the cat had to be placed in the stock footage.

Since a lion is the predator in most of the stock footage sequences, the artists at Ring of Fire had to create clean plates. The three-day shoot took place at Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley to provide the cats with an open environment exterior and a similar background behind them.

Biscuit Filmworks in LA was the production company for the shoot. Ring of Fire credits include Discreet Inferno artists Danny Yoon, Todd Hemsley and John Ciampa, and rotoscope artists Gary Mortenson and Steve Edwards. Danny Yoon was the online editor.

Nickerson in LA handled the stock footage research and Mike Pethel at Company 3 in Santa Monica provided telecine.

The tribal track was created by composer Adam Schiff of Machine Head in Venice, CA. Machine Head's Stephen Dewey provided sound design. The final mix took place at Margarita Mix in Santa Monica with Jimmy Hite engineering.

BRAIN CANDY

2003 Planned Investment in NLE Editing Systems

                         (Percent of US post
                         production facilities)

Digital Video Editing             40%
Systems -- All

HIGH-END Digital Video            28%
NLE Systems

MID-RANGE Digital                 18%
Video NLE System

BOTH High End AND                  6%
Mid range NLE systems

Excerpted from the TrendWatch Visual Effects/Dynamic Media Report
Winter 2003

Note: Table made from bar graph.