The Ebeling Group announces that director/designer Tennant has completed several animated pieces that promote the HP Halo, the new videoconferencing technology from DreamWorks Animation and HP. Working with HP Halo's advertising agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the South Africa-based director created six :40-:60-vignettes that individually communicate the benefits of HP Halo to a corporate-level audience. One of the vignettes was directed by TEG company Lobo. The films will be played across two HD screens hung side-by-side outside of the Halo demo suites at HP offices.
Halo's primary selling points -- the ability to speak face-to-face with colleagues and clients all over the world, including the ability to make eye contact with conference participants, super-realistic life-sized image projection and the fact that a ceo can be in five countries a day with no bone-wearying travel -- are all expressed in each of the animated clips created by Tennant.
Using various styles ranging from fanciful line illustrations, Saul Bass-inspired sequences and live-action overlaid with graphics, the vignettes demonstrate the "benefits" of the HP Halo in an engaging yet straightforward way. Each clip features a split-screen with action on both panels interacting with each other. One scenario shows two screens of pogoing corporate executives who mirror each other_s movements. The clip closes with the title card "Now everyone can synchronize." Another vignette plays like a film title sequence: giant block letters of "Here" and "There" are placed in cinematic wide-open natural spaces, while another spot has cartoon-like illustrations of businessmen and women flying across the sky as papers, staplers and other office paraphernalia fly chaotically by. The piece closes with the words "Don_t waste so much time in the air."
Said director Tennant, "Our goal with this project was to develop a captivating string of graphical pieces that resonate with corporate decision-makers. And because Halo is such groundbreaking technology from a visual standpoint, we purposefully took audio out of the films so we could engage the audience with just the beautiful visuals. The feedback we've received has been great so far, and it was a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with DreamWorks Animation, HP and Goodby."
HP Halo is a first-of-its-kind collaboration studio for simulating face-to-face business meetings across long distances. Developed initially because DreamWorks Animation ceo Jeffrey Katzenberg wanted to be in two places at once, HP Halo allows users to see and hear one another's physical and emotional reactions to conversation and information as it is being shared. Each Halo room is outfitted with three HD plasma displays and equipped with studio-quality audio and lighting. Users access a simple on-screen interface to begin collaborating with just a few mouse clicks.
The Tennant team involved six animators working individually on the films over the course of six weeks to ensure that each film had its own animation style. The primary software package consisted of Autodesk Maya and Adobe After Effects. TEG's Gotham team oversaw the project.
The Ebeling Group (TEG, www.theebelinggroup.com) is an international production company with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Sao Paulo, London and Toronto. The TEG roster includes world-renowned designers and directors MK12, Nakd, Lobo, Convert, Tennant, Bitstate and Caskey. Internationally recognized short films, commercials, promos and music videos for clients, including Adidas, Coca-Cola, Diesel, Levi's, TNT, MTV, Nike and Ford have garnered accolades from the global design, production and advertising industry. TEG directors'work has been showcased at Resfest, OFFF, FITC, onedotzero, Sundance Film Festival and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
