American Cinematographer - July 1992 - 16

What's New

compiled by Stephen Pizzello

Ingenuity Lends
Spark to New Bud Ads
Partners' U.S.A. recently pro¬
duced and directed two eye-catching new
Budweiser TV ads featuring music person¬

able to stretch and pull different parts
of the picture." With further color correction
in the digital bay, Raimondi worked to make

was

the transition seamless. He also enhanced
the realism by moving Williams from behind
the text to a position in front of it so the

alities Hank Williams, Jr. and Wolfman
Jack for the St. Louis-based DMB&B

singer really appears to pop off the fax page.

agency. The spots,
titled "Fax You a

Bud"

and

Moon,"

"Full

were

feeling, they shot the moon and I

di¬

cinematographer
Robin Miller. Both
ads were trans¬
ferred and comp¬
osited at Planet

wiped between the

two composites," he
noted, "but the shots looked so good that

the director wanted to

Blue, the Holly-

effects/post house.
"We had to
every room,

working crazy schedules," said DMB&B
producer Michael Windier. '"Fax You a Bud'
had an April 29th air date for the Country
was

very

Super 8 Beaulieu
7008 with

anamor-

phic lens.

The "Fax" spot parodies the
Hank Williams, Jr. hit "Fax Me a Beer" by

In the "Full
Moon" spot, camp¬

transmitting Williams and bottles of
Budweiser through a fax machine and then
bringing them to life. In the transfer, Planet

fire to watch TV.
Wolfman
Jack

Blue senior colorist Mark Griffith had to
match the va lues of the fax page to the I iveaction footage. "We transferred footage for

emerges from the
bushes and plugs in
a set which ex¬

Metrolight so they could build the transition
from the flat image to the real Hank Will¬
iams, Jr.," Griffith recalled. "To make the
transition transparent I was careful to
match backgrounds, keeping the same lu¬
minance and shades of grey."
Planet Blue senior editor Fred
Raimondi worked on tracking and matching
the move from the fax of Wi 11 iams to the I ive

singer. "The fax comes out bent, so I had to
match the droop in the image of Hank to the
live action," Raimondi explained. "It was

14

exacting work. Thanks to the DF/X I

American

Cinematographer

the most foot¬

Above: Partners'
U.S.A. 's "Fax You A
Bud" spot. Right:

accommodating." The "Full Moon" spot
began airing in May.

very

use

possible; a wipe would have lost ten to
fifteen frames. To avoid this, I printed the
TV over the moon shot, shrank down the
moon shot and composited the TV over that
age

wood-based visual

Music Awards, but Planet Blue

moved it

behind the trees. I tracked a pan down from
the moon to the ground in real time on the
trees. Then I composited that shot with a
shot that pans from a dark sky to the TV with
Wolfman Jack. Theoretically, I could've

rected by Steve
Chase and shot by

use

Planet Blue animator Sam
Hamann rotoscoped mattes for the monitor
so Raimondi could
composite pictures in¬
side the TV. "On location, director Steve
Chase and cinematographer Robin Miller
shot TVs doing various moves like pans and
zooms. In the edit suite, I tracked
images in
real time and, in some cases, frame
by
frame," Raimondi explained. "For an eerie

ers

gather around

a

plodes and transi¬
tions to a '50s-style
dance floor with the Wolfman
spinning
records.
In the transfer, Griffith enhanced
a

snap zoom

from

a

rotated

camera move,

pulling back to full frame to accentuate the
actions of Wolfman Jack. "I also laid down

anamorphic-style repositions on several
shots," he recalled. He flip-flopped a shot,
typically executed via DVE, by using a com¬
bination of the Da Vinci Renaissance and
Rank Ursa machines.

July 1992

so we

had two shots

on screen

at the same

time, both extremely wide,"

Widescreen for Super 8
Super 8 Sound has developed a
new anamorphic lens
system that allows
filmmakers to shoot Super 8 in a
widescreen format with an aspect ratio
equal to that of Cinemascope (2.35:1). The
system was developed specifically for the
Beaulieu 7008 Super 8 camera for use dur-
American Cinematographer - July 1992

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