TLC came to BARK-BARK for concepts and execution of several spots featuring Ziploc Bags in everyday life.  You gotta be pretty smooth to key a Ziploc… I pat ourselves on the back for that one.

Umbrella Spot

TLC was looking for a fresh an innovative way to talk about the new season of Trading Spaces. We worked passionately on this for their Ad Sales team, and we all think it really, really works. Thanks especially to our TLC client for being smart, passionate and open for big ideas.

Part of the initial consumer launch of Cartoon Network’s Boomerang, which BT oversaw, we tried to think of a way to see classic characters in a modern way. This worked pretty well.

Oxygen called on us to promote one of their breakout movies, What a Girl Wants. We worked really hard to strategically deliver a message that would appeal to their target demo… and it really worked. The premiere of the movie was the highest rated premiere-to-date in Oxygen’s history, and delivered the highest rated day ever for them. Cool.

lifetime came to us to brand, launch and support their new, sponsored, before they were stars franchise. to target their demo, we pitched to show the current red-carpet personalities of the celebrities, and contrast those images, through the graphic package, to the early-career movies in the block. although we still have a year to go on the campaign, the success has been phenomenal… some of the highest ratings on lifetime movie network in years. fun.

Noggin had an idea–to launch an online service that would allow kids to play educational games and activities that would take them along a curriculum patch, and provide parents with a great, easy way to monitor their progress/needs. mynoggin.com They turned to us to position and launch this site for consumers. Francine directed this great spot, which still cracks me up.

Nickelodeon wanted to deliver a nick.com affiliate spot to tout how the power of broadband can deliver way more for the Nick viewing family. Our ideas was to really avoid another web-pages compilation spot so typical for this messaging, and to create a world where everything that nick.com offers comes alive for the broadband customer. The spot was incredibly well received and a big success.

Our great friends at Spike asked us to help launch their new late-night block, Late Night Strip, part of their new position of sexy action. We also worked on branded promotion of the movie Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, which launched with the block.

Toon Disney asked us to rebrand their afternoon block. Try to connect known properties in a new, and current way, as well as drive shows more towards their jetix target demo. Rendering 2D characters in a 3D-style helped both create a dynamic game console environment, and also reimagine the lives of often-static characters.

TNT Latin America called us to help with a design challenge. They present a big movie once a month for a “3 Day Weekend”. The challenge is that the movie titles and genres vary so substantially from month-to-month that it’s been very difficult to link the franchise cohesively. With movies ranging from Lord of the Rings to Maid in Manhattan, producers often trying to match all new graphics packages for each movie with some limited tie-in to the franchise– all with disappoint results.Fortunately, we had some ideas. Simplicity. Reduction. For the franchise, let the movies and the footage chosen by producers, to match their promo message, lead the design. In this situation, we wanted to frame the footage and clean up the screen to really let these great titles speak for themselves. I think we came up with an incredibly flexible mini-style guide that has allowed the promo producers create great promos with beautiful graphics that totally speak to the movie they are promoting.Take a look at a very quick hotmix of some of the elements created for the package.PS- Also note how we played around with the TNT logo a bit (a wonderful thing they allow you to do on the Latin American channels). By shortening the circle, we created a parentheses– which I think has a lot more personality and speaks to the “letterbox” aspect ratio in a fun way. VIDEO CUT COMING SOON

Nickelodeon was looking to reposition chalkzone, as a fresher quantity, as they launched the newest season. The success in achieving that goal was nothing short of remarkable. Ratings more than doubled from kids who picked up on this new way of looking at something known.

Our task here was to promote the begininig of the 4th season of Nickelodeon’s day-parts show Upick Live. Upick’s core was a cas of weird character who would pull crazy stunts in between episodes of the cartoon, all afternoon.Previously, the promotions for this show had been rather shouty and, well, obnoxious, and we though it would be cool to do something experimental, calm, and visually intriguing. I came up with the weirdest set of stream-of-consciousness actions moving us from one character to the other, and to my shock (and horror?) Brian said, “great, let’s go shoot it.”Given that it was “experimental” and for kids, I thought it would be fun to visually reference experimental art within the context of this promo. The first 3 seconds are a reference to the films of Stan Brakhage, who hand painted cells of blank celluloid and in one film projected light through the wings of a moth. In our case, clumsy “Pick-Boy” gets his colorful cape stuck in a film projector, and then we’re off, moving from character to character in a series of visual associations.I shot this promo on HD, for several reasons. Budget and time for one, ease of use for moving quickly and making snap decisions was two, and curiousity in exploring the format was three. I brought in DP Lucas Ettiln, who also had shot my Hellboy video in Los Angeles.My favorite part of this spot is when dancing Brent freezes and actually becomes a t-shirt print clothes worn by Candace. See… compositing is the new magic.I had storyboarded the project carefully and timed it out to a track by Amon Tobin, but after we had a locked edit, thought it might be fun to try out different audio options. In the end, I settled on this track by Ladytron, which perfectly creates the mood of mystery, sexy sophistication, and forward motion.

Nickelodeon’s upick was one of the biggest phenomenon in the channel’s history. For the 3rd season, BT was looking for a way to freshen things, make it clear that it’s cast were contemporary stars, worthy of a music video. Adam directed this spot, which to this day, maintains it’s modern sensibility and the unique personalities of each of the upick cast.

OK. The idea was simple, but brilliant I think.At Nick, we wanted to really build buzz about the launch of Drake and Josh (the first new live action show for Nick in a long while.)So, we took the show’s theme song and shot a music video we could air run-of-schedule. The tweens went bananas and the show was the highest-rated show launch for Nick, ever.Special shout-out to my producer at Nick, Greg– who really put so much into this and to our director Joey. And to the video techs on-set in LA who spent two days rigging our screens and cameras to make this work in the time frame of our actual shooting. And, of course, to Niels, who is just the coolest human being ever… which obviously makes for the greatest boss.

Francine directed this new take on the open of Saturday Night Fever, for Nickelodeon, and pop culture’s newest Travolta, Lil’ Romeo. Shot on the streets of LA, the tease created tons of buzz for the new show, which quickly became the number one show for African-American viewers 2-12.

Try to reach boys 2-10. Not so easy. Not so hard with Nickelodeon’s Slam Block that BT created to package boy-targeted shows in a branded way. Sam Slam and his pet (both the coolest parts of a cat and a dog), became both kid and channel favorites.

To represent the value of LGBT Americans coming together on one channel, different. Together, we paired LGBT visual artists and LGBT recording artists, then animated them to create unique id’s.

VIDEO CUT COMING SOON

Cartoon Network was looking for an interesting way to intro the properties, and promote others, for home video and theatrical releases. We worked with cell animators to create original ministories that would deliver the humor and personalities in their characters.