TECHNICAL ENVIRONMENT: identifying the essentials

The next step in my process is to identify the elements that have to be in the spot. In the Interactive Bureau spot, I had a logo element, bitmap screen grabs of some of its work, and a page of message text. The client also wanted music. All together I had a good 100 “145k of essential elements. My file size limitation was set, by the client, at between 100k and 200k, provided it streamed without more than a couple of seconds startup delay, over 56.6. Identifying the essential elements before I started designing helps me stay focused and work at getting the most out of, or finding the possibilities within, the limitations. With both the emotional center as well as the essential elements identified I can begin to design. Eventually I came up with the idea of revealing their logo through masked cut-outs ” sort of like Saul Bass did for the titles of Hitchcock's Psycho. I then combined this move with a more frenetic text treatment inspired by those used by Kyle Cooper. By combining these two techniques ”one more traditional and one more modern ”I was trying to integrate the two worlds working to build brand and brand message.

How do I gauge whether a spot is successful or not? If, after viewing the work, one is left with any of the three key feelings I've centered on, I've done my job. (Judge for yourself at http://www.hillmancurtis.com/book.)

This job worked well in identifying and presenting the emotional center as well as respecting the technical environment. I think the spot could be improved with regard to the M.A.D. focus, since it's a long animation (30 seconds), and although much of the movement and some of the content fulfills the G.V.L., much more of the message is reliant on English text. This was appropriate though, since the spot was targeted toward stateside viewers .