Studio’s new fully CG spot drops viewer into frantic video game race to find loved one after realizing unsecured gun is missing from a drawer.
Emmy Award-winning entertainment company Zoic Studios has shared with AWN a powerful new PSA, No Extra Life, they produced for the Ad Council and Brady. The spot, produced with McKinney, drops viewers into a first-person shooter video game; the spot follows the heart-racing experience of someone frantically racing through a home trying to find a loved one, only to discover an unsecured gun is missing from a drawer. The spot’s message is loud and clear: in gun suicides, unlike in video games, there is no extra life.
Produced using visual elements of the very genre often accused of desensitizing us to gun violence, the PSA delivers a poignant, stark, and sobering reminder that safe gun storage can help delay someone’s access to a gun by even a few moments, giving them a second chance at life. The PSA is a continuation of The Ad Council and Brady’s End Family Fire campaign originally launched in 2018 to highlight the importance of safe gun storage in the home and to introduce the term “family fire,” giving a name to any shooting that involves an improperly stored or misused gun found in the home.
In the creative directive, Zoic was tasked with designing a video game environment that would convey to the viewer the perspective of first person P.O.V. gameplay on a Triple A Game, with action that drew them into the experience before revealing an end result that is anything but a game.
The studio’s team built the original cinematic CG game renderings to resemble those found in modern Triple A titles, with a meticulous eye towards art direction to infuse the video game experience with the comforts and familiarity of a home. The fully CG PSA, directed by Chris Jones, was made using Maya, Nuke, and Flame, and took 7 ½ weeks to produce from start to delivery. It draws on Zoic's extensive experience crafting compelling trailers with dynamic storytelling for top game publishers including PlayStation, Ubisoft, and Capcom.
Credits:
Client: The Ad Council and Brady
Agency: McKinney
Chief Creative Officer: Jonathan Cude
Group Creative Director: Alex Shulhafer, Jenny Nicholson
ACD/Art Director: Tyler Wriston (Print/Radio)
ACD/Copywriter: Robert George (Print/Radio)
Art Director: Jade Song
Copywriter: Chase Condrone
Account Supervisor: Melanie Wallace
Account Manager: Jaclyn Campbell
Project Manager: Elide Marks
Group Strategy Director: CJ Franzitta
Director, Data Strategy: Brian LoPiccolo
Data Strategist: Brianna Calderon-Roman
Executive Broadcast Producer: Naomi Newman
Associate Broadcast Producer: Taylor Osborne
Print Producer: Carolyn Petty
Integrated Producer: Kara O’Halloran
Digital Producer: Maggie Baker
Developer: Will Knowles
Digital Generalist: Alec Kunkel
Production: Zoic Studios
Director: Chris Jones
Creative Director: Julien Brami
Executive Producer: Jason Cohon
Senior Producer: Sabrina Harrison
Associate Producer: Ivan Barahona
Editor: Andrew Renfro
CG Supervisor: Christina Murguia
Compositing Supervisor: Andrew Bardusk
Lead Animator: Dave Funston
Previs: Delano Athias
Concept Artist: Laura Cosner
Model/Texture/Lookdev: Shamus McGlynn, Jeeah Huh, Renato Eiras, Pascal Polic,
Senior Lighter: Bill Spradlin, Christina Murguia
Source: Zoic Studios
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
