Toronto-based Big Studios has received its second Emmy Award. The Toronto 2D and 3D studio won in the category of outstanding graphic design for its work on ABC’s Super Bowl XXXIV broadcast Jan. 28. The National Sports Emmy Awards were presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences April 16 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Big has been nominated for seven Emmys since its inception in 1992, and won in 1996 for an opener for ABC Monday Night Football.

This year’s award is shared with design work on MLB on Fox and NBC’s Games of the XXVII Olympiad. Big and Hollywood F/X shop REZN8 divided chores on the Super Bowl job, and names from both appear on the award. After having been nominated last year and not winning, Big general manager/co-owner Chuck Harvey and crew were reluctant to make the trip down to NYC, but they were pleased as punch when ABC called them the next day with the good news.

Big’s graphics on the show had a futuristic theme.

‘We did a space car coming out of a shoot and revealing an exploding Super Bowl logo,’ Harvey explains. ‘We did most of the work on the logo as well as transitions where you sweep around this space city and come up to live action on a board.’

Harvey says Big animators started on the project in October, working right through until one week before the actual broadcast. Big used both NT and Silicon Graphics Octane workstations on the gig, calling upon a variety of software systems including Side Effects Software Houdini, Alias|Wavefront Maya and H Composite. *

-www.bigstudios.com

-www.emmyonline.org