Project Profile: Page (1) of 1 - 11/29/05

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Outside Editorial designs/edits Jaguar's Gorgeous campaign Cross platform campaign is finished in 24p HD

Outside Editorial lent its creative editorial, design, visual effects and finishing talents to ?Gorgeous,? an expansive cross-platform package for Euro RSCG Fuel and Jaguar, the New York agency?s recently acquired account.  High style meets a high-profile automotive legend in an expansive filmic branding campaign, consisting of 90, 60 and 30 second spots for cinema, US television, Internet and in-flight media.

Outside editor Scott Gaillard crafted color and black-and-white 35mm film footage, HDV tape and digital stills into a captivating brand film that tells the story of an attractive set of people enjoying a privileged lifestyle that is driven by their vehicle of choice - the sporty yet elegant all-new 2007 Jaguar XK coupe and convertible.

Gaillard seamlessly integrated layered images of the cars over platinum-toned shots of a languorous bikini-clad woman, a man disrobing and the couple enjoying the waters of the French Riviera.  Shots of the Jaguar XK racing down a tree-lined road bathed in silver light transition to night as the coupe arrives at a chateau where guests dine by the light of hundreds of candles.

Rapid, solarized Jaguar running footage peppers shots of women waking up tousled with sleep, playfully pushing a man into the water, and riding horseback.  A woman alights from the coupe, her chiffon gown billowing in the breeze.  The XK convertible is glimpsed poolside through palm fronds.  A couple embraces in a shot artfully blown out with light.

The brand film ends with a woman casually reclining as the word ?Gorgeous? plays across her body written in light.  The end tag also features a play of light over an otherwise dark shot: flickering light gradually reveals the XK coupe as it licks down the side of the vehicle and, in a separate shot, uncovers a glowing Jaguar hood ornament which appears to leap as the light animates it.

All the while the voiceover enumerates the traits of being gorgeous -- ?Gorgeous makes effort look effortless...Gorgeous loves fast...Gorgeous can?t be ordinary even if it tries...Gorgeous trumps everything? -- which apply equally to the Jaguar XK coupe and convertible and the people who drive them.

Gaillard and his Outside colleagues collaborated closely with agency creative directors Alicia Johnson and Hal Wolverton and executive creative director Jeff Kling on the project.  ?Our teams worked really well together,? says Johnson.   ?Scott brought a special storytelling quality to the process. He was unflappable and undaunted by all the opinions on the project and always came back with yet another way of linking the story together from a different angle.  We shot 10 days to get material for this film and to meet our needs for the rest of the year so there was a huge volume of material for Scott to get through and get to know.  It was almost like a motion-picture project.?

During the account review, Galliard was called upon by Euro RSCG Fuel to create the pitch film that helped the agency articulate their new positioning for the Jaguar brand. After winning the account, the agency charged Gaillard with creating a new brand film for the XK from footage shot by director Michel Comte of Grand Large, Paris and DP Philippe Piffeteau.  Comte, a renowned fashion and portrait photographer, also shot digital stills for the on-going Jaguar print work, while Wolverton shot hours of HDV footage, and contributed thousands of digital stills.

For his part, Gaillard calls the XK brand film, ?the most collaborative job I?ve ever done.  We had an abundant amount of source material -- hours of HD and film footage and thousands of stills -- and 90 seconds to fill so we were able to try a lot of different things. 

?The images were well composed and well conceived,? he points out.  ?The challenge was to build a spot that wasn?t langui or dissolvy but one that had heart and energy.  We needed the style and emotion of the images to come through and not be overshadowed by technique.?

That?s not to say that Gaillard, Discreet Flame artist Steve Mottershead and graphic designer Jaime Lamond didn?t affect and manipulate the images.   Gaillard used still-frame sequences -- the woman in the chiffon gown, the car glimpsed through palm fronds-- for an innovative look that stood out from the moving images and Jaguar running footage. 

Gaillard had the idea of using the XK?s elegantly designed wheel and double-exposed images to open the spot.  ?We had done a treatment of the wheel revealing footage in the background for the pitch,? Jaime Lamond recalls.   ?Steve (Mottershead) took Scott?s idea and made it absolutely fit the brand.   It became a tone setter.?

Mottershead performed extensive color correction on Flame, working for about two weeks in tandem with Gaillard?s edit.  ?There was an enormous amount of color and image manipulation,? notes Alicia Johnson.   ?It came from the same philosophy as the print work; the same techniques ran across both.?

?It?s rare to do final color correction in a Flame suite,? Mottershead observes.  ?You may do a tweak or two but not such a major undertaking. Hal was looking for a way to create looks he had achieved on the print in Photoshop but with motion images,? he continues.  ?Working on Flame, I had a lot more control over how to get that style than we would have had in a day or two in a transfer suite.  I was able to experiment with different looks throughout the project.?

Employing Flame?s Color Warper and a custom set up built from Flame?s Look Up Table (LUT) editor, Mottershead was able to tweak the curves to create the rich, metallic look that creative director Hal Wolverton sought.  Film sources had been transferred to 2K files so Mottershead had a lot of resolution to work with.

?I used Color Warper for selective color correction in the dinner-by-candlelight sequence so I could keep the skin tones warm while selectively bringing up some of the blues,? he explains.  In other shots he utilized soft windows around women?s faces, warming their lips but not affecting the porcelain quality of their skin.

Mottershead also gave the trees in the horseback-riding sequence the stark white quality of an infrared exposure.  He pushed the Jaguar running footage for a very contrasty, grainy look that brought out reflections on the vehicles.  And he created numerous shimmery overlays to highlight the spot?s elegant metallic palette.

Jaime Lamond, working primarily with Adobe After Effects, explored ways to enhance the edit with graphic elements.  A large portion of his time was devoted to animating the end tag where the word ?Gorgeous? plays over the reclining woman and light effects reveal glimpses of an XK and its leaping mascot.

?Hal wanted to see the car and logo without seeing them,? Lamond explains.   ?The images would be more teasing than explicit.?  The flickering quality and light touches of some of Lamond?s graphics elsewhere in the brand film (night scenes of people lounging poolside) inspired his hand animation of the end tag where flickering mattes reveal the XK and flame shapes disclose the glowing hood ornament.

?Hal?s reaction to the first round of animations was that he hadn?t thought of what I did but it was exactly what he was looking for,? Lamond recalls.   ?The execution was a bit of a surprise to him, but he was willing to go with me and explore it creatively.?

Mottershead finished the brand film in Flame in 24p HD.

?The influence of the creative team on this project was paramount,? declares Gaillard.  ?Alicia, Hal and Jeff worked tirelessly on the film, while juggling a massive print launch at the same time. This piece was really their vision from the beginning, getting to work with such magnificent footage and helping them realize that vision was a rare pleasure -They were just great to work with.?

Launched in 2004, Outside Editorial is a 4,000 square-foot independent postproduction facility based in SOHO. It offers the New York production community the most talented and creative group of editorial and design heavyweights and a first-rate client roster, which includes MCI, New Balance, Intel, Universal Studios, NBA, Volvo and more.  For additional information, contact executive producer Sila Soyer at 212.966.3980 or go to www.outsideedit.com

CREDITS

PROJECT: Jaguar Cars Campaign

CLIENT: Ford Motor Company

TITLE & SPOTS: ?Gorgeous? :90, :60, :30 Cinema, Web, US, Inflight Campaign
   
AGENCY: Euro RSCG Fuel/CITY
     Global Chief Executive Officer: David Jones
     Chief Executive Officer, NY and San Francisco: Ron Berger
     Executive Creative Director: Jeff Kling
     Executive Creative Director, Integration: Michael Lee
     Creative Directors: Alicia Johnson and Hal Wolverton
     Co-Director of Broadcast Production: Joe Guyt
     Co-Director of Broadcast Business Affairs: Cathy Pitegoff
     Producers: Eve Bates and Stacy Edelstein
     Group Account Director: Dan McLoughlin    
     Account Mgmt: Carla Brand and Andrea Goff    
     Music Producer: Rob Kaplan (independent)
            Print Designer: Kristina Williams

PRODUCTION CO: Grand Large/Paris
     Director and Photographer: Michel Comte
     Executive Producer: Steven Horton
     Producer: Samantha Veyne
     Director of Photography: Philippe Piffeteau
LOCATIONS: Condecourt, France (Chateau de Villette); St. Tropez, France (Maison du Cap, Ramatuelle)

EDITORIAL CO: Outside Editorial/NY
     Editor: Scott Gaillard
     Assistant Editor: David Madden
     Post Producer: Tricia Higgins

DESIGN CO: Outside Editorial/NY
     Graphic Designer: Jaime Lamond
     Flame artist: Steve Mottershead

ONLINE: Outside Editorial/NY
     Finishing: Steve Mottershead

AUDIO POST: Berwyn/NY
     Mixer: Eric Thompson

MUSIC COMPANY: One Point Six/Bristol England
     Composer/Arranger: Lee Shephard

Page: 1

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