Girl named Maggie had a little baggie
Full of something white. Something didn’t look right.
She said, “C’mon check it out.” But I cut out instead,
‘Cause I listened to the voice inside of my head.
It said: UH OH!

Filmmaker Jacob Sutton had a bright idea: Wrap a suit of LED lights designed by John Spatcher around snowboarder William Hughes, wait for nightfall and then film the ensuing shenanigans. The result is surprisingly beautiful.

More info on Nowness.

It’s 2012, and everyone knows what that means: The end of the world is nigh. Hooray!

To celebrate, PsyopNY enlisted the services of Dr. Sketchy, who provides models for life drawing sessions with a twist: the models are costumed. Our Mayan sacrifice theme was decidedly tasteful, eschewing faux blood and prosthetic vivisection.

While waiting for delayed flights in airports, I often wrap an issue of Harvard Business Review around the latest issue of Justice League so I can appear intelligent and successful to complete strangers while catching up with Superman and friends.

So imagine my surprise when I learned that our work was actually mentioned in the coveted HBR. In a story entitled “The New Science of Viral Ads,” Thales Teixeira explains:

Smart advertisers unobtrusively weave the brand image throughout the ad. Experiments have shown that this can increase viewership by as much as 20%. One of the best examples of the technique is Coca-Cola’s animated “Happiness Factory” ad.

It depicts a fantasy version of what happens inside a Coke machine when someone inserts money. A Coke bottle is shown repeatedly, but each appearance is quick; you can almost imagine that the story would work without the bottle. In fact, a good question to ask when conceiving an ad is: If I removed the brand image, would the content still be intrinsically interesting? If the answer is yes, viewers are more likely to keep watching.

It sounds simple, but actually pulling off such a feat requires coordination and faith from all parties involved. In our case, Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam and Coke were ideal partners. We all understood that we were trying to create a short film-like experience that would resonate with viewers. Yes, there’s a Coke bottle in every shot, but first and foremost, it’s a joyride. It’s an adventure.

Read the story on HBR | Watch the original Happiness Factory

Nerd alert: If you’re not into high-end CG, you may not understand how truly impressive this is. But trust us, it’s impressive.

Getting this level of realism in real-time rendering is exciting. While this is bleeding edge tech now, it’ll be commonplace and hopefully start showing up in games and other experiences soon. Some details from principal creator, Jorge Jimenez:

It shows our latest and final advances on real-time skin rendering (Separable Subsurface Scattering), which enables [one] to quickly render skin in just two post-processing passes. Everything is written from scratch using DirectX 10 and rendered in real-time, from the skin to the film grain…

Even more amazing? Jorge is open-sourcing the tech behind his creation. Get the details on the Vimeo page. Get more in-depth info on Jorge’s site.

Starcadian, a.k.a. George Smaragdis, released a special Valentine’s Day track, HE^RT. It’s a silky smooth jam — almost as silky smooth at George’s CG skillz, which he has been lending to us since 2009. Nice going, George.

On Valentines Day, we choose to celebrate the darker side of love. Enjoy!

Music: “Love in My Pock­et” by VHS or Be­ta

Look, we’ve tried to tell you it’s good. But if you still don’t believe us, please take a moment to listen to Black Nerd (his name, not ours) share his thoughts about the MetLife “Everybody” SuperBowl spot we created with CP+B.

Warning: It gets pretty emotional. There are tears involved. But we think he makes some pretty compelling arguments. Thank you, Black Nerd. We do this for you.

 
Psyop won a coveted Annie award in the Best Animated Television Commercial category for Twinings “Sea,” beating out some very stiff competition, including ourselves. (We were also nominated for Norton “Stuff”.) Check out the other nominees here.

Congrats to the entire team for a well-deserved win!

Check out the winning video after the jump…

Sultry, smoky and a little sad, this Friday Eargoggle’s album is Lana Del Rey’s recently released Born to Die. The Independent sums up the album’s ethos nicely:

Elizabeth Grant is essentially an actress, and Del Rey is a character she’s created. Which is exactly where complaints about her inauthenticity founder: inauthenticity is the point. The music – a delicious hybrid of Portishead and Nancy Sinatra – only serves as a backdrop to the emotional drama in which Del Rey plays the role of the hurt-bruised lover, switching between “you” and “he” to describe her lover, as though stepping out of the screen to break the fourth wall. [Source]

Listen

Listen to Born to Die Spotify | Rdio