1 EYEBALL
STUDIO PHILOSOPHY
Eyeball is a multifarious design agency located in Soho, New York City. For 16 years, the team at Eyeball has designed and produced compelling strategic communications for corporations, broadcast networks, and advertising agencies. Our work ranges from commercial and film direction to branding, experiential, and interactive projects.
We take pride in keeping a fresh perspective while taking responsibility to tell unique stories. Our philosophy is to work simply to convey the chosen message. We do this artfully, thoughtfully, emotively, and most importantly, without ego. Ultimately, we provide a creative solution to overcome a business challenge.
TARGET: “ART FOR ALL”
Creative and Production Process Design/production studio Eyeball has completed a stunning new live-action spot“Art Expands,” the latest in the “Art for All” campaign from Target and agency Catalyst Studios, Minneapolis, MN.
Bringing together the ancient Japanese art of origami and the movement of dance, “Art Expands” (:30) creates a world of expanding, twisting, and unfolding beauty. Beginning with a single dancer, the piece ventures into surreal landscapes and bursts of unusual movements that feature a whole troupe of amazing performers riffing on the expanding concept.
The first key to bringing the concept to life was selecting the renowned MOMIX dance company to star in the spot. MOMIX, and choreographer Moses Pendleton, were on both Eyeball’s and Catalyst’s wish lists, and are famous for their highly visual and surrealistic approach to modern dance. Eyeball’s directors worked with Moses to select certain signature moves from MOMIX’s many performances and cull them into a new sequence for this piece.
Eyeball then explored the world of modular origami, constructing many elaborate “paper” models in 3D that would bring dimension to the expanding and contracting concept. A minimal elegant world was set up to surround the dancers with different types of origami that would enhance and accentuate their movements.
The whole thing came together with a beautiful track from composer Michael Picton of Expansion Team, with a delicate, yet full of power and poise, mood.
“Working with the dancers was a blast,” says Jory Hull, director and creative lead on the project. “Shooting physical performers at the peak of their abilities is always great fun. Being able to take all the of these great MOMIX visuals and creating a new piece out of it was really rewarding.”
Credits
Director: Jory Hull
DP: Joe Arcidiciaono
Producer: Jenn Pearlman
Chief Creative: Limore Shur
Creative Director: Jory Hull
Executive Producer: Mike Sullo
Producer: Allison Pickard
Editor: Tom Downs
CG Director: Carl Mok
CG Modeling and Animation: Anthony Jones, Jin Yu
Animation and Compositing: Neil Stuber, Johan Wiberg, Mauricio Leon
2D Design: David Pocull
Rotoscoping: Ghazia Jalal
BIOSHOCK: BEYOND THE SEA
Creative and Production Process BioShock “looks so creepily fascinating” it may make the upcoming holiday season “an especially happy one” for Microsoft, according to The New York Times. With its thought-provoking plot, “unprecedented” levels of interactivity, and mind-blowing graphics, this 360 exclusive is being called “one of the most gripping, creative visions brought forth in video games for a long, long time.” Considering the level of insider hype and advance praise for the game itself, the pre-launch commercial for the August 21 store release is expected to raise the buzz level even further.
Working in collaboration with ad agency RDA International on behalf of their client 2k Games, CG/design studio EyeballNYC has crafted a compelling visual story to entice those anticipating the game’s release. Challenged to distill B ioShock’visual and graphic complexity into a 60-second spot, Eyeball set out to create a commercial that would entertain general viewers, tantalize fans, and do justice to the ground-breaking nature of the game.
“This isn’t just a commercial—this is an interpretation, a foreshadowing of [game creator] Ken Levine’s epic story,” said Eyeball’s Creative Director and Founder L imore Shur, who co-directed the spot. “We wanted to thread together dramatic snippets that would give a real sense of what players will actually encounter in the game.”
Forsaking the usual game trailer conventions—linear story arcs or all-out action—Eyeball takes the viewer on a cinematic romp through the mean streets of Rapture, the undersea city at the core of BioShock’s plot. Creating suspense through erratic pacing and the power of suggestion, the Eyeball team took a nuanced approach befitting a game inspired by the likes of George Orwell and Ayn Rand. For example, in one of the spot’s early action “snippets,” the viewer is pulled face-to-face with a bubble-headed menace known as “Big Daddy.” Without a trace of gore or violent spectacle, a well-timed fade to black communicates everything about what it’s like to tangle with one of these bio-mechanical monstrosities.
“This spot is more about surprise and grappling with the unknown than it’s about shock value or any overt attempt to be creepy,” Shur explained. “It’s really more dramatic when you leave something to the imagination.”
Animated “from scratch,” the scenes in the spot were essentially built around Ken Levine’s “wish list”—specific features he hoped would be highlighted in Eyeball’s 3D visual summary of the game.
Because Levine put so much effort into constructing a gaming environment that would “behave” in a realistic manner, the BioShock commercial was expected to follow suit. Whether meticulously color scripting, fitting mannequins with clothing to accurately depict the movement of a character’s garments, or tracing light rays, Eyeball’s design team went to great lengths to achieve a level of realism seldom seen even in gaming commercials.
“We pulled out every trick and technique for this one,” said Eyeball CG Director Stuart Simms, the spot’s Co-Director. “The characters had to hold up visually even in extreme close-ups so displacement and normal maps were sculpted using Z-Brush and Mudbox. We had some very talented artists creating the soup of VFX—gunfire, explosions, smoke, sparks, and water effects from foot splashes to ocean surfaces—we wanted to get it all in there to give the viewer a true sense of the experience they would have playing the game.”
Lead Animator Rick Vicens said, “This was all about collaborative effort—with all the talent here, everyone brought something to the table. We really pushed the boundaries of CG on this one—I hope people will want to watch this spot again and again.”
Credits
Creative Director/Director: Limore Shur
Creative Manager: Hyejin Hwang
CG/Animation Director/Co-Director: Stuart Simms
Art Director: Mauricio Leon
Character TD: Joe Gunn
Lead Modeler: Caius Wong
Modeler: Joon Lee, Dustin Hansen, Henry Minott, Johannes Kraemer
Lead Animator: Ricardo Vicens
FX TD: Allan Mckay
Lead FX Artist: Jacques Tege
3D FX Artist: Steve Green
