The Santa Monica branch of Flavor, Cutters’ creative design studio, spearheaded a massive live action and animation project for $21.4 billion global giant Arrow Electronics via Denver–based Karsh Hagan agency of Englewood, Colorado, delivering eight spots over six months of production.
“It was a massive undertaking from a technical standpoint,” relates Flavor/LA executive producer Darren Jaffe, who with ECD Brad Tucker joined Flavor last September.
The Karsh Hagan team came up with the branding message, “Five Years Out,” says Jaffe, “and we were given the basic story structure and some mediums/techniques they liked, such as illustration, 3D, and stop motion, and encouraged us to go wild.
“We got creative with the work as well as the pipeline and workflow by matching the most talented artists with assignments that maximized their expertise. From there, Brad Tucker and our production staff kept the work consistent and the key ideas in focus.”
The spots generally show young artists create art projects, which are brought to life through various animation techniques, then transition into live-action scenarios that show Arrow’s staff and their clients working to solve various problems.
The eight spots, therefore, represent areas where Arrow guides product evolution: cloud computing, mobility, lighting, data centers, value recovery, intelligent systems, aerospace and defense, and “Superhero.”
Seven spots range from 36 to 42-seconds in length and one was 60-seconds.
To humanize the content and load it with charm, “We created characters and visuals that captivated us,” notes ECD Tucker.
“We used traditional cel animation, 3D character work, stop-motion, and range of other techniques to set each spot apart. We blurred the lines on most of them to create new and vibrant looks.
“The general workflow was to create signature style frames and then apply appropriate looks to match them. In each video, we tried to blend the live-action and marry our two worlds together,” Tucker says.
Live action was shot in an LA studio; audio was handled by Another Country engineer Mike Regan in Chicago; Cutters’ LA-based Jacob Kuehl and Barnett Kiel edited; Chicago animator/designers were Adam Kohr and Chris Anderson and Steve Wood was the colorist. Neil Cohen was the Chicago producer.
The spots appear on Arrow’s website, YouTube channel and custom app. The spot octet is also the centerpiece of an international internal campaign reaching the Arrow Electronics’ 16,500 employees worldwide on a weekly basis.
Look for them to also run in stadiums during select Major League Baseball games. They are also being considered to air as commercials.
Karsh Hagan’s creative team consisted of CD Matt Ingwalson, ACD Darren Brickel, copywriter Megan Cohen, and director of broadcast Becky Ferguson.
