Evil Twin spans generations in music - Video

Post, August, 2003

LOS ANGELES -- Evil Twin Productions (www.eviltwinproducitons.com) recently completed editorial and design work on two commercial projects that promote two very different musical artists. The national television spots promote Steely Dan's adult contemporary "Everything Must Go" album and Michelle Branch's pop rock "Hotel Paper" release, both of which hit stores in June.

The Steely Dan spot for Warner Bros. had multiple challenges, says Evil Twin co-founder Harri Mark. The :30 spot was to use material from the band's electronic press kit, but featured dialogue and footage not necessarily intended for an album spot.

The segment is a Taxi Cab Confessions-type parody, so Mark says the Evil Twin team focused on band members Walter Becker and Donald Fagan's reaction to one of the guest passengers. This was complimented with simple graphic and VO information by Geoff Gill.

"Originally, our graphics also followed suit and were a direct rip-off of HBO's Taxi Cab Confessions," Mark notes, "but soon evolved into the simple yet sophisticated San Serif look and colors of the album design."

Evil Twin's Thomas Snyder cut :15 and :30 versions using an Avid Symphony, along with Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop and Sound Forge software. Mark and Kristin Armfield served as producers.

For Michelle Branch's "Hotel Paper" release, Evil Twin worked with music video footage, adding graphic elements that complimented the video's use of Tarot cards.

"[We] made that our key graphic element," states Armfield of the Tarot cards. "To accomplish this, the editor created a surreal Tarot-like card with realistic movement executing the design either through the illusion that Michelle is tossing out the animated cards, along with the ones actually in the video, or simply as an animated full screen graphic, providing interesting transitions as well as sufficient graphic time."

The result, continues Armfield, "is a beautiful and effective spot that takes full advantage of Michelle's first hit video from her new release and ties in all the information Maverick Records wanted to convey in a thematic, seamless way."

Evil Twin's Joe Buck used Avid, LightWave, Adobe After Effects and Photoshop, and Sound Forge to create the :30 and :15 versions. Voiceover was provided by John Frost.