Tonic/Wyeth Golf Day

Some people think it’s crazy chasing after a little white ball in temperatures of 40+, but when your client challenges you to a game of golf, you just don’t say no, even though there are only two people in the entire agency that actually own clubs yet alone know how to use them. I happen to be one of them, Fionn the other and both of us haven’t hit a ball in years. As Obi One would say, entertaining very it will be.

We arrive at The Montgomery and after sneaking a few practice shots at the driving range, we jumped into our air-conditioned, GPS enabled, cooler box carrying golf cart and nervously headed for the first tee. After a shaky start, we weren’t playing too badly until Fionn noticed he was a few clubs short. Other players behind kept on driving up to us to return the clubs and by the end of the day, I think Fionn owed the entire club a round of drinks.

The day was truly entertaining and educational, as you’ll see in the attached video. Paul and Trevor from the Wyeth team had a lot of good tips on how to improve our swing, how to drink a beer and drive a golf cart at the same time and how administer first aid on bleeding blisters. One little known technique they showed us, was how to “prune the hedges”, a swing you would normally use if you happen to find yourself in a bougainvillea or grassy shrub. Thankfully we never had to use it, although a swimming costume and a mask would’ve come in handy for both Fionn and I.

Once the scores were totaled, Wyeth took a narrow victory, a well deserved win, considering they were the client and all ;). Anyway, we’ll take them when we go bowling next week. Stay tuned.

Newbies

Everyday there seems to be a new face at Tonic, even trying to remember their names is becoming a problem and some people don’t take kindly to being called ‘hey you’. This month we have a newbie in almost every department, obviously a little more in creative.

Diya Ajit joins Fionn Geaney to form the agency’s newest creative team. They’ve only been together for a few days and already they’re inseparable. She’s the only Art Director I know that can’t use a mouse, but now that we’ve finally bought her a Wacom, I can see the great ideas flowing from her Mac.

Another new recruit for the creative department is Dennis Andrews de Paul and apart from remarkably having two first names in his surname and having an uncanny resemblance to Millhouse from the Simpsons, Dennis is a Mac wizard who makes sure every bit of creative that leaves the agency is 100% right. (I hope he’s reading this)

Komal Patwari joins Tonic PR and is the reason it took so long for me to post this bit of agency news. She’s a little camera shy and made us retouch the final image at least three times. And she says I’m vain…

A self-confessed pop-culture addict, Nadja Carr joins us as an Account Director. For her small size, she sure gets people to listen to her. Maybe it’s the well-placed profanities she strategically inserts into every sentence when communicating with the creative department, or maybe it’s the fact that she once ran with the Triads;)

Last but not least, our youngest recruit with the biggest personality and voted Face Book friend of the year, Lamis Harib. Not only does she allow us to fulfil our Emiratisation quota, but also she’s a damn good designer/writer/artist and well Facebooker.

Diesel Show: Underwater Magic

Diesel’s Spring/Summer 08 catwalk show, staged a few days ago at the Pitti Immagine Uomo fair in Florence, was nothing short of stunning. While regular human models paced up and down the runway, a host of polyp-like CGI characters appeared in mid-air to interact with them within an underwater landscape. And in a unique twist, these animated holograms were entirely viewable from both sides of the stage. But this was no Paul Daniels Magic Show trickery – more a perfect blend of cutting edge digital art and performance.

Diesel’s Creative Team (under the direction of Wilbert Das) based the show on an aquatic theme entitled “Liquid Space” and brought together Barcelona animation studio Dvein – who worked on the CGI visual effects and 3D animations – and Danish multi-media production agency, Vizoo, who provided the innovative technology for the show, which they had created themselves. Neither studio, say Diesel, had previously worked on anything like this before.



This is what one of the creators had to say; “The visuals are projected through a series of ‘foils’ into mid air, so you see the images in mid-air. The models can then interact with them and walk through them. We used plastic foils placed at 45 degree angles so that the projected light from the ceiling goes onto a foil, is reflected on to another and then into the air.

We worked it so it had a real catwalk feel and so that you could view it from both sides: you can see the models, the holograms and the public from both sides. It’s never been used this way before as the technology has just been used in the corporate world before, for sales presentations, and the visuals have always just been viewed from one side. So we set up two rigs instead.

The animations were done with standard CGI animation software but were made for a 15m by 2.5m screen. It’s all rendered in HD, too, so was quite demanding as it’s 30 frames per second. We worked on the whole thing, from storyboard through to the final render in just two and a half months. Bringing together Dvein and Vizoo gave us this unique, truly holographic, 3D motion graphic experience.”

Now that’s magic, as the high-pitched Mr Daniels would say.