“The concept was always about presenting the girls, Hef and the mansion environment in a very playful, clever way – like a dollhouse brought to life,” Michael Waldron, nailgun* Creative Director says.
“The first time out the look was driven by the use of tons of still photos that E! provided, which we combined with our own 3D animation to give it a stop-motion effect. This time though we wanted to give it a more fluid look.”
To achieve that Waldron and his crew traveled to the famed mansion in Los Angeles and used high res still cameras to capture the cast inside the mansion. He also shot many of the famed mansion locations such as the grand hallway, the pool, the grotto and the zoo.
Armed with a cache of HD still images, the nailgun* team created the spot’s distinctive look and movement by first digitally separating the subject’s bodies into various pieces, then reconnecting and linking them together so that they move in a, “stop motion meets marionette” puppet style. That footage, composited with the various photos from around the mansion and nailgun*’s own lush 3D animation, gives the open its characteristic ‘dollhouse’ look.
“This one was much more complex creatively and technically then the last ‘Girls Next Door’ open,” Erik van der Wilden, nailgun*’s Director of Editorial and Animation adds. “To really get this to move in the smooth way we envisioned meant a lot of rotoscoping and compositing work, and some long renders thanks to HD photos of 4,000 pixels and larger. But in the end it was very satisfying — you don’t often get the chance to revisit and improve upon something successful that you did five years ago, but that’s what we were able to do with this.”
About nailgun*
Founded by Michael Waldron and Erik van der Wilden in 2003, New York-based nailgun*, is a collaborative of artists – designers, writers, photographers, editors, producers, animators, filmmakers, illustrators, strategists, painters – who’ve come together to create unique visual solutions for clients that include ESPN, HGTV, Spike, VH1, E!, Versus, TV Land, Universal Channel, Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, Publicis, McCann-Erickson NY and Ogilvy & Mather.
More information on nailgun* at:
www.nailgun.tv
www.twitter.com/nailguntv
www.nailgun.tv/facebook
Click here for more info about ‘The Girls Next Door”
www.eonline.com/on/shows/girlsnextdoor
Creative Credits
Client: E! / Charing Cross Entertainment
Project: “The Girls Next Door” show open/package
Production/Design/Post: nailgun*, New York
Michael Waldron, Creative Director + Live Action Director
Erik van der Wilden, Director of Animation + Editorial
Elena Olivares, Managing Director
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