by Katie Carpenter

“The culture, religion and way of life of the Forest County Potawatomi Community are closely tied to their natural environment. The Tribe and its members are very concerned about the impacts that they and others can have on the environment.” (quoted from website)

The TV spots, conceived by the Howl Fire agency in Minneapolis, were created in an effort to guide people to a new website that will make people more aware of the greener choices they can make for their life and the Earth.

Visit the Potawatomi Community’s “End Global Warming” website here.

By combining archival stills from the Forest County Potawatomi archives and public domain nature footage, I created a montage that was then projected onto moving fabric at Cinequipt Studios. Director Barry Kimm did a wonderful job with the Potawatomi children who came to Minneapolis for the shoot. John Hermanson of Modern Music also created the perfect tracks for the spots using flutes from his Native American flute collection.

The Potawatomi’s significant conservation efforts will inspire old and young to join together to protect Wisconsin’s natural habitats and resources, create more green jobs and make this one Earth we have a beautiful place to live, and live off of for generations to come.

I am so happy to have been a part of the team that created this beautiful message.

“Stop and Listen” About Global Warming Edited by Katie Carpenter from Fischer Edit on Vimeo.

Forest County Potawatomi Spot Edited by Fischer Edit’s Katie Carpenter from Fischer Edit on Vimeo.

[Editor's Note: Katie Carpenter is an editor at Fischer Edit/FX in Minneapolis.]

]]> http://www.fischeredit.com/blog/216/protect-mother-earth/feed/ 0 http://www.fischeredit.com/blog/191/fischer-fx%e2%80%99s-3d-animators-create-sir-roger-for-cox-business-2/ http://www.fischeredit.com/blog/191/fischer-fx%e2%80%99s-3d-animators-create-sir-roger-for-cox-business-2/#comments Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:42:22 +0000 Charlotte Peterson http://www.fischeredit.com/blog/?p=191
Fischer FX’s Alicia Reece and Matt Collings got the opportunity to flex their 3D inspiration on a recent broadcast campaign for Cox Business through Minneapolis based ad agency Periscope. The team promised their ability to bring Sir Roger, a 3D medieval knight, to life for the spot intended to capture the youthful, online gaming crowd.

Reece, a 3D artist and modeler at Fischer FX, who has worked on 3D and motion graphics projects for clients like Target, Activision and Microsoft, saw this job as “paving the way to do more character stuff” in the future. Visual Effects artist Collings attended the shoot with the real Sir Roger, taking reference photos and observing the mood of the spot.

While Reece began building the knight, Collings modeled the stone fortress background, texturing the location and lighting the whole scene. The team approached the movement of the knight carefully, inducting a volunteer, a broom handle and some lobby couch cushions to ferment the knight’s movements on tape and inevitably help the animation process through film reference.

As it turned out, the original request turned into two scenes lengthening their time frame. After which the team composited and matched their textures to reference images resulting in the final image seen below.

Fischer Edit’s Tim Taylor edited the spot with online by Fischer FX’s Jay Holgate and Jake Parker as Flame Artist, the final mix was provided by Modern Music.

Watch it below:

Animation by Fischer FX in this Cox Business Spot from Fischer Edit on Vimeo.

The Cannes Silver Lion is a major coup for Editor Lindy Wilson whose awards credits also include a Golden Bear, Clio and Emmy among others. “On this spot, I used my vast resource of storytelling skills that go back to my days as an editor at the Sundance Institute Feature Film Lab. I couldn’t be happier that “Birds” has been recognized for this many awards, and those of such great value to editors, directors and the advertising industry.”

This win follows its awards for “Best in Show” from the ADDY awards and “Best of Minneapolis” at the AICE show this spring.

Best Of Show ADDY Honor Is For The “Birds”

Washington State Lottery’s “Birds”

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 09, 2009, — From SHOOT’s “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery in June 2008 to a year later earning Best of Show distinction at the 2009 ADDY Awards in Washington, D.C., this past weekend (6/6)–that’s the progression for a Washington State Lottery TV spot titled “Birds” directed by Jerry Brown of Sticks+Stones Studios, Los Angeles, for Publicis in the West, Seattle.

In the commercial (which also copped a Gold ADDY), enterprising people take it upon themselves to give the gift of flight to birds who can’t otherwise–namely a penguin, a chicken and an emu. The means toward that end are hang gliders with harnesses on each to accommodate the penguin, chicken and emu, respectively. After we witness each bird get its debut flight experience, a voiceover and an accompany super relate, “Every bird should get to fly.” A tag appears with the Washington State Lotto logo and the slogan, “Whose world could you change?”

Director Brown noted that the penguin, chicken and emu didn’t actually fly in the spot. A prime challenge of the project, he said, was “how to seamlessly composite birds with hang gliders and still make it feel spontaneous and observed.” This meant that Brown had to capture the birds “enjoying flight” even through they weren’t experiencing it. Brown and DP Tom Olgeirrson deployed camera angles that “while interesting, didn’t stretch credulity,” said the director. “The animal trainers worked with the birds for more than a week, suspending them in harnesses and getting them used to being in their rigs.” Jake Parker of Fischer Edit, Minneapolis, served as VFX supervisor/Flame artist on the job. Fischer’s Lindy Wilson was the editor. Attracting Brown to the job was its positive, uplifting spirit, focusing on the good deeds lottery winners can perform–”to show someone,” said the director, “doing something for someone that they couldn’t do themselves.”

The Publicis in the West ensemble included creative director Dan Fietsam, art director Scott Rasmussen and copywriter Jeff Siegel. Among the other Gold ADDY winners were: Federal Express’ “Carrier Pigeons” directed by Tom Kuntz of bicoastal/international MJZ for BBDO New York; the American Legacy Foundation’s “Tough Love” (part of the “Truth” campaign), also directed by Kuntz, this time for Boston agency Arnold; and the Environmental Defense Fund/Ad Council’s “Polar Bears” directed by Tim Godsall of Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles, for Ogilvy New York.

The annual ADDYs competition is conducted by the American Advertising Federation (AAF). For a full rundown of this year’s ADDY Awards winners, log onto www.aaf.org and click on “awards.”

The awards show put on at the American Advertising Federation National Conference in Washington D.C, crowned all kinds of advertising both professional and student, including broadcast spots. Out of roughly 1600 entries judged in the national competition, “Birds” was chosen out of the 330 ADDY Awards presented.

This win trails on the spot’s win at the AICE in May, taking “Best of Minneapolis.” It’s been quite the year for this spot out of Publicis in the West, production company Sticks + Stones and director Jerry Brown.

Read what’s been said about this spot and its win:

“Best of Show ADDY Honor Is For The ‘Birds’” Shoot June 9, 2009

“News in Brief” Shots June 10, 2009

“Publicis In The West Takes 2009 ADDY Awards Best of Show” AAF June 9, 2009

“Those Birds Really Know How To Fly” Washington Lottery Press Room

“Publicis In The West Takes 2009 ADDY Awards Best of Show; Locally One Trick Pony Gets Gold and Silver” Philadelphia Ad Club June 10, 2009

Fischer FX’s Alicia Reece and Matt Collings got the opportunity to flex their 3D inspiration on a recent broadcast campaign for Cox Business through Minneapolis based ad agency Periscope. The team promised their ability to bring Sir Roger, a 3D medieval knight, to life for the spot intended to capture the youthful, online gaming crowd.
Reece, a 3D artist and modeler at Fischer FX, who has worked on 3D and motion graphics projects for clients like Target, Activision and Microsoft, saw this job as “paving the way to do more character stuff” in the future. Visual Effects artist Collings attended the shoot with the real Sir Roger, taking reference photos and observing the mood of the spot.

While Reece began building the knight, Collings modeled the stone fortress background, texturing the location and lighting the whole scene. The team approached the movement of the knight carefully, inducting a volunteer, a broom handle and some lobby couch cushions to ferment the knight’s movements on tape and inevitably help the animation process through film reference.
As it turned out, the original request turned into two scenes lengthening their time frame. After which the team composited and matched their textures to reference images resulting in the final image seen below.
Fischer Edit’s Tim Taylor edited the spot with online by Fischer FX’s Jay Holgate and Jake Parker as Flame Artist, the final mix was provided by Modern Music.

Read Wilson’s explanation of her work here, as well as Parker’s involvement in helping the birds to fly.

Washington Lottery’s “Birds” edited by Fischer Edit from Fischer Edit on Vimeo.

Check out Shoot Magazine’s article on the 2009 winners here.

Check back as we will keep the Fischer Edit blog up to date with where we’re at in our transition.

And then I found this upstairs:

We sustained very minor smoke damage and a bit of a postponed timeline. Now much to our excitement things are truly coming together. Below, a peek at what things are looking like now that some paint and wall treatments have been applied.

Check back as we will update the site with our whereabouts as we transition into a new era for Fischer Edit/FX, Modern Music and Runner Runner.

And to see where we were a month ago, visit our previous post here.

Wilson edited “Dancing With the Stars” showcasing Nintendo Wii’s game and featuring some well-known talent (including GdB Creative Director Doug deGrood’s son). The talent’s spontaneity offered up great moments for Wilson. Of the dad character Wilson says,  “My selects of him were hilarious. It was hard not to use them all.” However she notes, “You didn’t want to have the same degree of wackiness the whole way through…Doug’s very good with humor, he starts it out part way normal and then it gets crazier.”

Wilson knows what she’s looking for when she delves inside spots, talking about the embarrassment of the family at their dad’s dancing, “You want them to look like ‘Wow?! We’ve never seen Dad do this!’ and you want the wife to look like ‘Gosh I love him but – what is he doing? He’s really suprising me.’” To find unison in their reactions took some time but overall the purpose for Wilson was really to make the game look fun, something she already knew firsthand.

After starting on the job, Wilson herself went out and purchased the game which her daughters loved. “Having the enthusiasm from my kids, to be working on something that was so positive. I felt good about doing it, I knew that it was good for people and families,” she explains.

Working with agency GdB and Activision proved to be a great experience for Fischer Edit and Wilson who went on to edit spots for many more of their games last year. Additionally, Wilson’s taken to playing WiiFit’s Yoga to complement her kid’s love of all the other games.

“Dancing With the Stars” for Activision Edited by Lindy Wilson from Fischer Edit on Vimeo.

Over coffee and wine at the Warehouse District’s cozy Corner Coffee, an intimate group of the Fischer Edit family and friends took some time to engage in open conversation about art, advertising, and creativity with mixed media artist and author Sabrina Ward Harrison.

Sabrina shared with us some stories about her life living in a one-room schoolhouse on the coast of California and read us some poetry that inspires her.  We learned about her own creative process in making her artwork in which she beautifully blends photography, paint, found objects and ink writing.  Sabrina’s work tells stories of her life in layers of found “bits” and honors the people of her past by using family photos and treasures.  Her art beautifully illustrates her life philosophy which is “Make what you most need to find.”

A free-writing experience challenged us to think deeper, let go of our day-to-day thinking process and happily embrace the messiness and “mistakes” that come out of doing that… showing us that the process of creating in and of itself can ultimately open up new possibilities of creativity and self-discovery.

Sabrina and I screened the short film that we collaborated on this summer for the Beacon Film Festival in New York called “The Story is Happening.”  The film was created from 8mm film footage shot in Italy, projection footage shot in NYC, as well as Sabrina’s photography, mixed-media pieces and her beautiful ink line art.  The film is essentially a moving collage celebrating her philosophy of making what you most need to find.  It was an honor to collaborate with Sabrina on such a special project.

It is the first film created for the True Living Project. Sabrina’s True Living Project inspires a generation of mindful pioneers through global collaboration and generational partnership.

You can view “The Story is Happening” film here:

“The Story Is Happening” edited by Fischer Edit’s Katie Carpenter from Fischer Edit on Vimeo.

A huge thank you to Sabrina for sharing so much of her story and for inspiring us.  And thank you to everyone who came for doing the same.  You made it very special!

-Katie

(FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE) Minneapolis, Minn.: Fischer Edit, a creative editorial and post-production house works with Campbell Mithun, Motion 504 and Modern Music on Nexxus’ latest television campaign.
Editor JoLynn Garnes cuts “Me First” for product Dualiste, the newest spot from Nexxus. Needing considerable effects and color for the model’s hair, Campbell Mithun called on broadcast design studio Motion 504 for help. While there designer Scott Wenner and producer Eric Mueller suggested getting Garnes in as the editor. She explains, “the interesting thing is, usually it seems like the editor gets hired first…[but]…they said ‘we want to work with JoLynn’.” Wenner and Garnes had many years experience working with each other, “I’ve known Scott since the beginning of my career as an editor. We worked together for almost five years. I haven’t been able to work with him since then, so it was fun to get together again,” tells Garnes.

Fischer Edit/FX acted as host to Campbell Mithun’s team including creative director, Nicole Ackmann, producer Lisa Thotland, copywriter Peggy Arnson and art director, John Conroy throughout the span of the project. As editing began, Garnes already had some stills created by the director that were much greener than even the footage taken. The spots were filmed in Mallorca, an island off the coast of Spain with international talent. Inevitably the color was dialed back to the vibrant blue seen in the final version.

Hair at this level of detail wasn’t something Garnes had done before. “It was the first time where I had to overly pay attention to hair. I had to change my point of view of hair and recognize what would be an easy shot for them to clean up. These kinds of spots are challenging because you have to have it just right.”

For music, Campbell Mithun worked with Modern Music’s Daron Walker, the team was looking for a “sort of stripped down beat heavy track that was more atmospheric than safe.” Walker created a track that meshed well with the mood and visuals on screen.

Playing host to Motion 504 and Campbell Mithun throughout this process was a great opportunity for Fischer Edit/FX. About the team at Motion 504, Garnes notes, “it’s always good and fun to have that group all together again.”

On set, the adults were outfitted with climbing harnesses and safety wires to protect them. Initially Parker thought it would be mass chaos as all three tried to land at once, but the crew managed to perfectly choreograph each descent, doing all three in one take. To get things just right however, the cast ended up spending half the day just improving the fall. “It was pretty hard on them…especially Grandpa,” Parker says of watching the actors work.

The dog-falling gag required its own special technique. Rigging the small dog was prohibitive since the rigging gear would end up obscuring too much of the dog. Of course, dropping him from the ceiling would be legally (and morally) prohibited as well.  The solution was to drop the dog a very short distance (about 6-8 inches) on a very soft foam pad. Both the dog owner and the ASPCA were comfortable with that approach. The problem, Parker noted was that upon landing, the dog’s feet sunk into the foam and essentially disappeared. He was able to get the dog’s trainer to drop the dog from one inch above a hard surface in order to get the shot of the dog’s feet without any warping of the surface.

Once in post, Parker repeated the three inch fall shot from the ceiling to just above the table, then he combined the footage from the three inch and one inch falls to get the dog’s landing. Because there was a combination of the dog’s feet sinking and standing, Parker first tried to “glue” feet from other takes onto the dog, but using composited pieces of debris where his feet disappear ended up working better and made it into the final edit.

Rig removal, additional debris and particle dust was also needed on the actor’s shots. On set a small amount of debris was dropped with every fall but it didn’t carry the kind of effect needed. Parker used some raw element footage of debris and dust falling with debris rotoscoped (read: cut out) from other takes to drop into the scene. These extra pieces plunked down on the actor’s heads, all accurately missing the kid’s meals, made it into the final edit. Formerly of Fischer FX, Tony Mills lent Parker a hand with rig removal, cleaning up all the green wires and rotoscoping out their harnesses. The plaid flannel in the dad’s shirt was particularly challenging as the rigging wire lay across his shirt pulling and rippling the pattern. To fix this, Mills applied a matte and made a composite of the cloth eliminating the wire and easing the wrinkling in that area.

In the end, the grandpa stole the show with some improvisation about it raining. Parker added rain and synced up the lightning flashes to make it appear real. This ad for the Burger King Kids campaign from Campbell Mithun required a lot of work from Fischer Edit/FX but in the end conveys the humor and believability that existed in its initial conception.

Take a look at “Simpsons/The Roof” here or to view other Burger King Kids spots, click here:

Burger King Kids “Simpson’s/Wii” from Fischer Edit on Vimeo.

We’ll keep updating the space as it comes together in Minneapolis’ Warehouse District, check out our photos from April and May for updates.

Students from Minneapolis’ Miami Ad School took a break from classes last month to drop by Fischer Edit/FX’s studios and learn about our work and how post-production fits together with the agency world. The group comprised of both first and second year students toured the space and met our editors, producers and visual effects artists. They asked some great questions and we’d love to seem them again soon.

Since it’s better to hear it from them anyway, take a look at the Miami Ad School blog where they have photos and commentary from their afternoon with us.

Power-poppers Stingray Green started the music out, playing to a nicely-filled room. Splice Here audio guru Kent Militzer was particularly tone-o-riffic, while Kruskopf-Coontz Creative Director Robb Burnham dished up the boom and whap from behind the kit. Echo Boys Randy Anderson and Tom Lecher followed with the Pearl Brothers,cranking out a great list of classics, plus Lecher’s awesome hair. John Lydon eat your heart out!

The Phones, a long-time personal favorite, came up next. Back in Fargo/Moorhead, i used to bust ass to get done with my grocery store duties and run down the block to the Zodiac Lounge, hoping to catch their last set. Those were the 1980s, when one band would often play all night. Dan Winter was a fixture with The Phones, running sound and logging thousands of road miles with them during that decade. As always, a great set from them. I could almost feel the familiar itch of my 85% polyester Country Store Grocery uniform. Scratchy!

If you’ve never heard of The Hopefuls, that’s a bummer. They closed out the night with a typically stellar performance. Recent Modern Music additions Johnny Hermanson and Eric Fawcett make up half of this powerhouse, and it was a real pleasure to share the stage with them and all the other great musicians that night.

Upon last tally, more than $2000 was raised to help wife Laura and daughter Andrea, helping with expenses and starting an education fund. I urge you to visit danwinterfund.com in case you missed the event and would like to contribute. 

A heartfelt thanks to all of the participants and organizers, those who attended and contributed, the Fine Line for having us, and a huge raise of the glass to Big Dan Winter. We miss you.

jay holgate

fischer fx

Read the transcript below, or view the original article here.

Screen Magazine

November 3, 2008 Volume 29, No. 21

Rushes –”Fischer Edit/FX Raises Money for Children’s Hospital

Minneapolis-based post-production and editorial house Fischer Edit/FX held its second annual Fischer Edit Open benefiting Children’s Hospitals and Clinics Foundation of Minnesota. Despite the early morning downpour, the event went on to raise $2,400 for the Children’s Hospital. The tournament drew golfers from local advertising agencies, film and video post-production and commercial music houses all eager to tee off for a great cause.

Fischer Edit/FX owner and CEO Tony Fischer and wife Becky are both avid golfers themselves and created the event two years ago. “This event has become a fine tradition and it is our hope that it continues to grow and become more successful in its effort to support Children’s Hospital,” says Fischer. This year’s tournament was no exception and Fischer Edit/FX is pleased to announce raising an unprecendented amount for the Children’s Foundation.

Fischer Edit/FX specializes in creative editorial and visual effects for advertising, television, film and new media with clients such as Target, Payless, Burger King, H&R Block and more. Recently completed are “Jumps,” “Acrobats” and “Trapeze” – a series of effects-heavy spots for Cox Business complete with acrobats and parkour artists.

//www.fischeredit.com