Amazon NewFronts 2021
Client: Mile80 as the main production studio, working for the Freeman Company as the agency and Amazon as the final client.
Intro Animation
Project: Create the "celebrity corridor" intro to the 2021 NewFronts presentation.
Challenge: Take almost a dozen celebrity selfie videos with different lengths, resolutions and framings and make them fit together in one smooth, corridor-like motion.
Story: Making the corridor motion feel smooth wasn't as easy as you'd think. Each video clip had a different length, so they had to stay on screen for different amounts of time. That meant I had to slow down or speed up the camera in a seamless way, as well as play with how far away from the camera each clip is as it comes into view. It was definitely a balancing act. And a very technical one at that.
Sizzle Reel
Project: Edit the sizzle reel that showcased the highlights of the entire Amazon NewFronts 2021 video.
Challenge: Take over half an hour of final video filled with celebrity interventions, important industry announcements, beautiful graphics, staged sketch scenes and so on and edit it down to almost 2 minutes.
Story: This was a hard one, because there was so much to showcase! The whole show was hosted by Catherine O'Hara, there were tons of celebrity guest appearances, and, obviously, a lot of important innovations Amazon wanted to announce that had to also be included. On top of that, the production value for this video was something that had not been attempted before for virtual conferences, so elements such as animated graphics, physical props, sets, and sketch scenes that brought another level of shininess to the video also had to be included. In the end I chose to do a really fast edit, keeping it snappy - short clips of all the things that needed highlighting, edited to a upbeat music track, will always create the right amount of energy in a sizzle video.
The graphics team that worked throughout the entire video:
Director - Ryan Sheffer
Project Manager - Răzvan Chițu
VFX & Graphics - Răzvan Chițu, Alex Grigore, Tudor-Vlad Măgureanu, Juan Mendoza,
3D Graphics - Răzvan Chițu, Stefan Jovanovic, Alex Grigore, Tudor-Vlad Măgureanu
Photo retouching - Maria Tabarcea
Green screen - Dan Stratulat