Post-production and its powers are personified in this column. We’ll cover new techniques, technologies and the creative personnel and companies giving them vibrant visual life.

Command Post/toybox Inferno artist Michael Hatton has just completed work on a second spot in a Brazilian campaign for cell phone company Telesp.

The first ad in the campaign, ‘The Baby,’ features a talking infant who serves as the pitchman for the phones. Hatton’s job on both spots was to manipulate a child’s mouth and make it look as though it is really speaking.

‘They shot a baby and then a little boy – who is also doing the radio spots – for the voice and lips,’ explains Hatton. ‘I’m basically doing the method of getting the baby to talk by replacing the little boy’s mouth over the baby’s mouth and then adding some facial expressions and jaw movement to make it look more seamless.’

Hatton says the first Telesp spot featuring the baby was even more popular in Brazil than the Coca-Cola campaign of the time. His part in the creation of the ad left Hatton with a warranted feeling of pride.

‘It was huge,’ he says. ‘When I went down to Brazil there would be six big billboards down the highway with this baby on it. All the buses, all the cabs, any bit of advertising, this baby was on. Everybody knew about it.’

Ad number two, ‘Baby: The New Generation,’ is about to launch and Hatton expects it to be as popular, if not more so than the first since viewers got to pick its star. A ‘new’ baby to replace the ‘old’ infant was selected as part of a Brazilian television special wherein viewers were invited to cast their votes via a 1-800 number. Out of a field of three contestants, the winning toddler, a 16-month-old boy, captured 39% of the 775,000 votes cast.

McMann, Unruh

make the cut

third Floor Editing in Toronto has two finalists in the commercial editing category of this year’s International Monitor Awards, honoring excellence in the electronic production and post-production creative industries. Third Floor is the only Canadian post house to be recognized in the editing categories.

Barry McMann is up for best editing in a national commercial for his work on a Ford spot called ‘Global.’

‘This spot was huge,’ says McMann. ‘It was broadcast around the world at 9 p.m. on Nov. 1 in what was known as the ‘Global Roadblock.’ It was the first time in the history of advertising that anybody has ever done this for a two-minute commercial. There was a significant media buy and it was quite a significant production. They shot for four months around the world.’

The spot was produced by u.s. shop Cylo and directed by Edouard Nammour, who is repped in Canada by Spy Films.

Richard Unruh is in the running for a Monitor in the local television category for his work on a Detroit Edison spot called ‘Green Trees,’ directed by Flying Tiger Films’ Robert Gordon (repped in Canada by Mad Films).

‘These awards are craft-specific, so what that means is they are acknowledging the craft of editing with these awards,’ says McMann. ‘It’s nice to have that recognized specifically [and] to be recognized with the best editorial companies in the world. I think that is pretty significant.

‘The thing about getting a great edit is that you’ve gone through the process of working with a director and working with the creatives to come up with a great edit. It’s that complete process of working with everyone involved and still being able to have a product that is fantastic.’

The Monitor Awards take place July 15 in l.a. McMann is hoping to cash in on some vacation time and attend.

The ICE-ing on

Solarus’ cake

solarus’ co-owner, creative director and editor Paul Cairns is excited about a whack of new equipment at his Montreal shop. The Scottish-born director/editor says a number of new products on the market are making his life infinitely easier. But first, a bit about Solarus.

Established early this year, Solarus is a sister company of sorts to Montreal production company M44. The post shop handles much of M44’s television work, but is also equipped to handle spots, music videos, feature films and anything else from outside the company that needs cutting and pasting.

Cairns and partner Wan-Kei Yeung split the editing duties at Solarus, but sometimes utilize freelancers as well. The two aligned and opened the post house based on what they saw as a shortage of high-end Adobe After Effects specialists, Solarus’ forte. Among the recent acquistions at the shop is a new innovation to take After Effects even further in its capabilities.

‘We use a technology called ice, which is basically an accelerator for After Effects and the motion-control softwares,’ says Cairns. ‘This ice hardware has really helped us because it speeds up After Effects more than 20 times. That makes a difference; we can work with the clients and give them multiple options and it allows us a lot more creative freedom.’

Cairns goes on to say that ice is eight processors faster than a G4, ‘so it feels like there is a mega-computer running behind doing all the graphic calculations for all of the After Effects calculations.’

He is also excited about the growing number of post software companies that are making desktop versions of their products, like ice.

‘It seems to me that now a lot of these large companies that were traditionally selling half-million-dollar specialty systems are realizing that they are coming to the end of their line,’ says Cairns. ‘[The companies] are putting the products down to desktops to basically guarantee their longevity in business, so everyone is moving in this direction and everybody is going desktop and the big computer stuff is gone.

‘For us, the advantage is that we are getting all of these tools. We are getting color correctors and special effects software that I’ve never seen or could imagine being on a desktop.’

With summer here, Cairns is reminded about the most difficult part of his job.

‘The hardest thing about being an editor is that occasionally I like to go outside,’ he admits. ‘The hardest thing I think is the summertime, because you are basically indoors in a dark room and you get that kind of pasty complexion. I like to get outside and do production work as well.’