Jeff August, creative director of Calgary’s White Iron Digital, says although only 20% of his shop’s body of work is commercial production, it certainly makes an impact when a board comes through.

August recently brought home an Emmy Award for outstanding editing on an ESPN spot about the Heisman Trophy. He was nominated in the sports category, competing against himself for his work on ESPN’s 2000 Summer X Games.

‘We’ve developed this relationship with ESPN and the X product, which is growing by leaps and bounds,’ says August. ‘We’ve established some pretty unique editorial and graphic styles for them. Our approach to editorial is really fresh. We try to be three or four steps ahead of even what the commercial world is doing.’

White Iron was founded in 1990 as the local production arm of Baton Broadcasting/CTV in Calgary. After establishing various departments, including White Iron Digital, it has evolved into a shop that can handle pretty much anything thrown its way.

August, who joined the company to help develop White Iron Digital four years ago, points out they have the tools to back the talent. The shop uses Softimage XSI for animation, freeing up its Avid DS for compositing, serving somewhat like an Inferno.

‘When we put together our facility, I believe we made some great choices, [one of which was] to go Windows NT,’ he says. ‘We did that four years ago and it turned out to be a phenomenal decision because the growth in software in NT has been significantly faster than it has been on a Mac platform and on the SGI platform. For film compositing and [the like], we are using After Effects and Combustion. That definitely meets our needs.’

Instead of doing traditional offline, then some compositing effects and sending those to the online room, August says White Iron has developed a way to merge all three into one session.

‘I think that is pretty unique and a big reason for some of our successes and for developing what I believe to be the next generation of digital artists – which aren’t just editors or designers – [but] the combination of the two.’

August recently lent his directorial and post services to Calgary agency Creative Intelligence Agency for Mac’s convenience stores’ ‘Froster’ campaign, which was an extension of a previous campaign featuring a character called dot.girl.

‘They wanted to brand this new high-tech cyber-character, and it was an integrated print, TV and Web campaign,’ says August. ‘We worked with the agency to reflect what they had last year, which was kind of a Star Trekkie, dark borg kind of promotion, and we wanted to take that character and move her into the cyber world. She is now a virtual character.’

Trampoline tricks

There is animation in every shot of the three Froster dot.girl spots. The young performers (twin sisters) portraying dot.girl were subjected to four hours of makeup and outfitting before the shoot, the result being an android-like creature she had evolved into. August discovered early on that in order to make dot.girl fly against a green screen, a harness would not work.

‘She is in this tight, silver, metallic kind of outfit and originally we had harnesses hooked up for flying shots,’ says August. ‘The harnesses were going to be too much work painting out and they were just too bulky, so I ended up opting for a massive trampoline.’

Enter the twins’ dad and a marvelous coincidence.

‘The only place that rents trampolines in Calgary is the girls’ father’s [business],’ says August. ‘Now we’ve got these sisters that are amazingly talented on the trampoline, and we were able to create a lot of Matrix-style shots where we wrap around as she is flying up, with 10 of her on the screen.’

Every aspect of the ‘Froster’ campaign’s television spots, from production to the intricate post, was headed up by August and completed at White Iron. He even directed the music.

‘Our task here was to create a strategy and a brand plan that integrated a variety of media,’ says CIA principal and executive director of strategic services Barry Anderson. ‘Each part of that media mix had to really connect to the culture and one of Jeff’s greatest strengths is that he understands that brand is about style, culture, tone and feel. He also has the technical skill to translate that understanding of the brand culture into something really impactful and dynamic on screen. That is rare and really treasured by us.’

Going forward, August says White Iron Digital will continue to nurture its relationship with ESPN and has just created a new broadcast design package for the network’s Sunday night football games.

‘We worked with a director on our roster, Rico Labbe, and came up with almost a movie trailer [for the broadcasts],’ says August. ‘The opening teasers are very dramatic with peaks and valleys. When you go to a movie and watch the trailers, usually you look at whoever you’re with and say, ‘We have got to see that.’ That was our whole pitch on the creative.’

White Iron will continue to supply updated effects as the season unfolds, using the template August has already fashioned.

-www.whiteiron.com