A teenager struts through a shopping mall to the upbeat sounds of a drum. Mannequins turn his way, athletic shoes kick up their heels and a bright orange sweater hurtles itself towards him while a matching pair of sunglasses land on his face.

cds rattle and shake, propelling themselves through the air and sticking to the baffled teen as a lone surfboard flies in his direction. Realizing that it is his Banco Popular card that is causing the stir, he removes it from his pocket, throwing it in the air to another unsuspecting youth.

With 2D and 3D effects and loads of rig removal, this 30-second spot for ath was the result of an interesting partnership consisting of Toronto’s Spin Productions and in Puerto Rico, Propaganda Films and Saatchi & Saatchi.

‘It was exciting for us working with a client that was in Puerto Rico,’ says Connie Dercho, senior producer at Spin. ‘Certainly there will be more work coming out of there because the working relationship went so well.’

No one actually made the trip north from tropical Puerto Rico until three weeks into the project, once they were already in suite compositing the animation and live action.

Instead, conference calls and courier services bridged the gap between cities far apart as Spin sent tests to Puerto Rico throughout the process.

‘They had complete trust in the team we put together at Spin Productions so the distance didn’t become an issue at all,’ explains Dercho. ‘We were given the creative brief by the production company through the agency and were asked to do the storyboard. We did an animatic and worked on it for two weeks, setting up for the live-action shoot.’

Working with Houdini and in the Henry suite Spin’s team enjoyed the creative freedom they were granted on this project, as well as some financial freedom, as according to Dercho they were working with a very healthy budget.

Although this effects-heavy spot can only be seen on Puerto Rican television and movie screens, Spin’s retro-looking commercials for Rogers Cable Systems featuring flashes of favorites from the past are taking Canadians to ‘television land.’

Four different, energetic and colorful 30-second spots, which come ‘to you live from television land where I can dream of Jeannie, buy a vowel and get a ticket to ride,’ flash clips of tv icons from Gilligan, Popeye and Batman to o.j., Nixon and jfk.

Working with plenty of stock and archival footage, Spin Inferno artist Steve Lewis took advantage of this opportunity to make the old look modern by experimenting with and exploring different graphic design applications.

‘Rogers wanted to show off their new stuff so we mainly had to make the old stuff look new,’ says Lewis. ‘I made heavy use of tinter tools but used mainly just a combination of the tools that come with the Inferno.’

Every frame shot for these quick-cut spots was treated in some way to ensure that each section and all four spots had their own unique and individual look, character and personality.

According to Dercho, 265 hours were spent on the design and Inferno production, and though they knew from the beginning that these spots would be more work than usual, they were psyched about the project from start to finish.

‘It was a really unsupervised session. For Steven to work for two days solid and then to have the agency and client come in and view it was a risk for us and for them,’ explains Dercho. ‘Everybody loved what was produced.’

At agency Garneau Wurstlin Philp, brand engineers were Philippe Garneau, Michael Wurstlin and Bruce Philp and producer was Carmelle Prud’homme.

Curtis Wehrfritz was the director for Jolly Roger and executive producer was James Davis. Spin Matador artist was John Vegter. Michelle Czukar at Partners’ Post was the editor. Steve Webster wrote the tracks and Ted Rosnick produced for Rosnick MacKinnon.

For the Puerto Rican spot cgi animation was completed at Spin by Geoff Marshall and the Henry artist was Marjorie Knight. By Pamela Swedko