The making of Metamorphose

Artistic and innovative hairdresser Sean Hanna needed two cool and unusual video sequences to introduce its fashion show in Paris, where the company was recently promoting its latest hair designs.

The theme for the show, titled Metamorphose, drew inspiration from Blade Runner and, as such, the video needed to set a futuristic scene. Split into two parts, part one introduces the model before she steps out onto the catwalk, whilst the second part is shown half way through the show, as the model reappears after going backstage for a complete transformation.

We met with Skyler McDonald, Sean Hanna’s creative director, to define a brief which in the early stages was fairly loose, with the simple idea of using a black and white, sparse look. We knew that both sequences would be reliant on the exact footage we could achieve in the studio shoot, so it was difficult to story-board before this was done. To give us a better idea of what we were aiming for and to achieve something both striking and unusual that would also complement the show, we created a couple of test animations. The first basic test animation, which formed the basis for the video shoot, featured black and white tones combined with a flowing, almost hypnotic, ink-in-water effect to represent the flowing hair.

In the second test animation we experimented with the use of slow motion to create a much slower, more graceful look – essentially going for a stylised ‘bond title sequence’ effect. Sadly, however, we couldn’t quite persuade Sean Hanna to include an Aston Martin in the shoot.

Ben, our head of digital, went along to help art direct the video shoot, which involved a model in vertiginous heels walking on a specially created green treadmill swishing her arms and glowering into the camera – definitely a first for him.

Once the shoot was complete, we then keyed out each video sequence in turn – the fine hair and other details such as rivets in the model's hair along with her flowing dress – presented the biggest technical problems to isolate from the green screen background. From these sequences we then created the two video sequences using Adobe AfterEffects to achieve the unique look we wanted.

Through the initial test animations we decided to expand on the original visual look by adding a little more more 'narrative' to both pieces. Whilst each features the drifting 'ink-in-water' motif, part one has a much darker and more confined feel to illustrate the more ‘bound-up’, industrial hair style. Part two, however, introduces a brighter tone with more vivid colours and conveys an ‘explosion’ of freedom and creativity as the hair is set free.

The show (including the two videos) received a standing ovation in Paris and will be repeated at KOKO in London, October 2012. Both Skyler and Sean Hanna were thrilled with the final result.

Skyler McDonald, Creative Director for seanhanna, said:

"We discussed our project with a number of people before we chose to work with “To The Point”. I have worked with them previously on a number of print and graphic projects but never on digital media, so to be honest, was a little apprehensive. I was looking for someone who would really try and understand the ideas that I had in my head and the videos needed to integrate into a live presentation in our show. 

After a very positive initial meeting to discuss the project in loose terms, we got together for a creative ‘think tank’. Both Simon and Ben brought a lot to the table and out of all the other people we spoke to, I felt that they really understood what I was trying to achieve. Ben worked with us on the day of the shoot and again, his expertise helped save us time and money. The final results were outstanding."


You can watch the final videos here:
(click the 'expand' icon to the right of the player to go full-screen):


Metamorphose – part 1







Metamorphose – part 2





You can also see an interview with Skyler about the Metamorphosis show here which includes clips from the show itself.

To find out more about seanhanna salons, visit their website

Keep calm and carry on

As we’re located very close to London Bridge Station – an Olympics travel hotspot – it’s impossible to predict the impact the Games will have. Transport and travel into London may be nightmarish or perhaps not as bad as we fear.

We’re approaching the Games as 'business as usual', however, rest assured that if any disruption does occur, we’re well prepared and projects won’t be affected.

Please let us know of any upcoming work as soon as possible so we can plan this in advance and be aware of print lead times and delivery as these may be affected.

If you’ll be working from home please let us know your contact number and any specific delivery details.

Key dates

Olympic Games: 27 July – 12 August
Transitional period: 13 – 28 August (although likely to still be busy)
Paralympics: 29 August – 9 September

Enjoy the Games and come on Team GB! (and I suppose we should give Germany and Canada a mention too for our international staff).

For more information, visit the official travel planning site here:
http://www.getaheadofthegames.com

Boules to that

With all the current grumbling about an over-sponsored Olympics (we're not sure we're allowed to use that word?) Let's try: 'International Sporting Event held in London'. Hmmm, OK, apparently 'London' is also a banned word (as is 'Summer' – but until the last few days, we're not sure we needed to use that one).

You know what we mean anyway – so, perhaps it's time to start up the 'Alternative Olympics'*.

With that in mind, we decided to enter our team into Better Bankside’s annual Boules competition (if ever a sport was deserving of Olympic status surely the venerable game of Pétanque would be first in line?).

The competition was fierce this year, but yes, you guessed it, the TTP team fought hard and finally brought home the gold! (oops, yet another forbidden word). After a rousing motivational speech from our self-appointed team manager/player/coach/mascot: Glenn Wood, we held our nerve in the pouring rain, aided by several (we’re not quite sure how many) Desperados to triumph in the final by one point, winning 13-12.

So, with this gutsy (and of course, skillful) win in mind, this month’s top tips is a guide to playing Boules – or Pétanque to give it its proper French name. Enjoy and if anyone fancies taking on the TTP champions let us know!

*Oh and talking of the 'Alternative Olympics' – here's some 'Alternative Olympic Merchandising' – Ok, it's a bit on the cynical side, but I'd rather have one of these than a terrifying 'Wenlock' doll!

Introduction

Pétanque is a form of boules where the aim is to throw hollow metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet (‘piglet’) or coche for short.

Normally played on hard dirt or gravel, pétanque can also be played on grass, sand (we discovered that very wet sand – due to our miserable British summer – laid on top of a manhole cover can alter the gameplay somewhat) or other surfaces. 

The aim of the game is simple: players throw their boules as close as possible to the coche whilst trying to knock your opponents' boules away from the coche (smashing into your opponents' boule and watching smugly as they roll away from the coche is really rather fun and extremely satisfying).

HOW TO PLAY 

• The teams toss to play and the winning team draws a small circle (traditionally with a baguette), stands inside it and throw the coche 6-10m away – trickier than you think after a few drinks, especially in the rain as you’re juggling your boule, an umbrella and a beer bottle)

• The same player lobs the first boule (always underarm) as close to the coche as possible 

• Now it’s team B’s turn to throw; this team keeps throwing until they land a boule closer to the coche than team A, or run out of boules. Then it’s Team A’s turn again.

• Points are scored when everyone is out of boules; one point for each boule closer to the coche than your opponents’ best placed boule (usually a highly debated decision – make sure you employ some French flamboyance here). The first team to 13 wins. Et Voila! 

THE BASICS 

Heckling

During the other team’s throws it is quite acceptable to heckle and gesture etc to put off your opponents. If you’re playing a French team, this is the ideal opportunity to improve those Anglo-French relations, with bon mot banter directed at both Les rosbifs and the Frogs.

The grip

No overarm lobbing in this civilized game: the boule is always thrown underarm with the hand and boule facing downwards. It’s essential that you master the grip otherwise the boule master will shout at you as we found out. Depending on your temperament, this will either make you shout back or dissolve into a fit of giggles. Either way, this can have a potentially disastrous effect on your concentration and therefore, your game.

The throw

There are three main ways of throwing your boule: the high lob, the half lob and the rolling throw. Each require a different skill and technique that can take years to master.

Alternatively, there is always the pool equivalent of ‘hit and hope’. Something the TTP team grasped immediately.

Scoring

In most cases a tape measure is the best option, although we found a beer bottle was more than an adequate alternative. However, for those of you who prefer digital solutions, there is now a Petanque BoulOmeter available from the app store. Genius!

Top tips

• You need a good cop and a bad cop in your team. The good cop aims to get his ball in pole position just in front of the coche whilst the bad cop blasts opponents’ balls out of the way. You may find that you intend to be the good cop but inadvertently become the bad cop (especially after one too many Desperados)

• Discretion is often the better part of valour – if your team has the nearest boule to the coche and one left to throw, don’t be greedy. However, easier said than done if you want to go for glory…

• As with most hand to eye co-ordination sports, you’ll play better after a couple of cheeky drinks. No more, no less. Now, everyone knows this, however, if you manage to stick to just two drinks you’re far more disciplined than us.

• Pétanque is a psychological game. Exploit your opponents’ weakness to win, plus it’s fun.

• Be a gracious winner and don’t lord it up over your beaten opponents…who are we kidding? That’s half the fun of winning. 

So, now you know the basics, grab a set of boules and have a go. The game needs no previous experience (we can attest to that) and can be played by young and old, male and female, drunk or sober (we can also attest to this, although it’s far more fun when drunk).

And if you’re still not persuaded, here’re a few more reasons why you should become au fait with pétanque:

It’s not just for old French farts

Now, pétanque probably conjures up images of elderly men in flat caps and string vests, gitane in one hand, shot of pastis in the other. And yet, pétanque is now considered cool, and even de rigeur in fashionable circles.

Karl Lagerfeld hosted a pétanque tournament for Vanessa Paradis, Diane Kruger and other beautiful people after the Chanel Cruise show in St Tropez. Chanel even created boules sets engraved with its insignia for the occasion. It’s just a pity Better Bankside couldn’t stretch to giving us one as our prize.

It’s good for you

Shots of pastis (or god forbid, bottles of Desperado) aside, pétanque is good for you. Maitre Kaise, a Buddhist monk has published a book, L'esprit de la pétanque, advocating the game as an aid to meditation. According to him, petanque is a “fabulous opportunity to develop exceptional human qualities and to allow the player to communicate better with the world and, above all, with himself."

And let’s not forget that in Thailand pétanque is a mandatory part of military training. Apparently, it helps to improve coordination, team spirit, tactical thinking, and keeps the soldiers alert and aware. Well if it’s good enough for the Thai military…

And finally… you get the chance to kiss a bare bottomed Fanny!

Losing 0-13 is known as ‘il a fait fanny’ (‘he made fanny’) and the traditional, and incredibly French, rule dictates that a team who loses 0-13 must kiss the bottom of a girl called Fanny. Now, in the 21st century you’d be hard pushed to find said Fanny, so as an alternative solution, the losers kiss the bare behind of the women on the winning team. Alternatively, you can buy everyone an apertif, it’s your call.

FIN.

Just the trick for the Francis Crick

We’ve been putting our experience of producing hoardings to good use this month, producing core messaging, concepts and graphics for the perimeter hoardings around the Francis Crick Institute as construction on the site gathers pace.

Due to open in 2015, The Francis Crick Institute is an interdisciplinary medical research facility, comprising a unique partnership of six of the world’s leading scientific and academic organisations. The £650m institute’s aim is to attract and train the world’s best researchers in the pursuit of greater understanding of what makes us ill and keeps us well.

And this is where we came in. We needed to come up with a theme for the hoardings that would both address the short and long term needs of the institute: engage with visitors using public transport during the Olympics, who, when queuing, will be essentially a captive audience as well as promote the institute and what it represents to a wide audience whilst it is under construction.

When coming up with the concepts for the hoardings there were a number of things to consider. We needed to communicate what the institute will deliver in a visually stimulating, accessible manner, help make science fun and relevant to everyday life and ensure the designs would work across giveaways given to the queuing crowds.

In addition, during the Olympics period, the institute is commissioning street entertainers to engage with the crowds/queues to promote the field of science and the institute itself. As such, our designs and messaging would also need to work across the t-shirts and hats that the performers would be wearing so that the audience is immediately aware that there is a direct link between the two.

We developed the core messaging of ‘Ideas that change lives’ to communicate the purpose of the institute, and using shapes taken from its existing brand identity, created a set of colourful, modern and dynamic graphics, including lungs to represent cancer research and DNA helixes to reflect the collaboration between the different fields to achieve a common goal.

We also designed t-shirts, hats and bags for the street performers using the same graphic treatment and created a fortune teller ‘science snapper’, along with instructions on how to make it for the performers to interact with younger audiences and as a giveaway.

The hoardings are now up and well worth a visit for those passing by.

Creating Cardano's conference messaging

Institutional investment firm Cardano approached us to create clear, engaging messaging and designs for its ‘Safety First’ conference of pension fund trustees, which was held at the Landmark Hotel in London at the beginning of July. The conference’s purpose was twofold: to communicate Cardano’s Safety First philosophy of helping pension fund trustees invest in a way which is designed to produce safer outcomes to both current and prospective clients and also to celebrate five years in the UK.

The concept needed to be unique to Cardano UK, in keeping with its focus on innovation, communicate the company’s core principles through clever, but simple messaging and work across both printed and digital formats, as invites, badges, a presentation showreel and animated graphics.

We came up with an inventive concept, creating a ‘V’ that represented the five years and which also becomes the ‘A’ in Safety’. On the printed invites the ‘V’ was die cut on the front cover, which then opened up into the ‘Safety First’ messaging and conference agenda, offering a clever and engaging way of highlighting both messages simultaneously. We used a simple colour palette of deep green and sand alongside a design that was both classic and modern, therefore reflecting and evolving the Cardano brand.

Working with Cardano we also created a number of playful and pithy statements to highlight different elements of Cardano’s ’Safety First’ message, which were used as screen savers throughout the conference.

Finally, to complement the printed and digital conference materials, we designed and built a simple microsite for the conference. This reinforced the core messaging and included the conference agenda, speaker biographies, location information and a brief company overview. The site was deliberately designed so that it can easily be adapted for future events.

We provided Cardano with a graphic toolkit, communicating the benefits it provides trustees through clear copywriting and defining its core messaging which helped contribute to the overall success of the conference.

 

The event is now over and although the site we created is now offline, you can view it here.