NEW YORK - To introduce AnMed's new heart care facility, Buzzco (www.buzzzco.com) created an animated spot in which a character carrying a giant red heart walks precariously on top of the type that spells out the facility's tagline "Don't Trust Your Heart to Anyone Else." The spot was conceived by Sterrett Dymond Stewart Advertising in Charlotte, NC, and builds on similar print and billboard ads created by illustrator Paul Zwolak.
"They wanted a bright white background, with sharp black type, a painterly character carrying a big red heart panning across the TV screen to match the print," explains Candy Kugel, who co-directed the spot with Vincent Cafarelli. "Unfortunately, video doesn't like high contrast verticals panning across the screen, thin horizontals or highly saturated reds that tend to bleed, especially over white. I made several models to soften the background, bevel the type's edges and added a soft drop shadow that not only solved those problems but also added to the three-dimensionality. As for the painterly feeling, we used a combination of Photoshop and Painter to achieve a handmade look."
The process successfully combined traditional hand-drawn character animation and sophisticated 2D computer animation.
The man was hand drawn and animated by Cafarelli using Corel Painter and Adobe After Effects. Corel Painter replicates hand-painted cels with brush strokes and overpainting. The moving lettering was a combination of hand drawings using Photoshop and After Effects.