Santa Monica, CA (August 24, 2017) – Bicoastal digital production studio Brickyard VFX collaborated with The Pitch Agency on a spot to illustrate the convenient features of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s (CB&TL) mobile app, including ordering ahead, paying by phone, and earning personalized rewards. Under the direction of Anton Thallner, the team at Brickyard provided end-to-end creative services for the project, including live action production, post, editorial and animation. View the spot here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTGayRU4YPU

 

The 30-second spot conveys the convenience of ordering with CB&TL’s new mobile app, blending live action elements with a lively, animated stick figure character that comes to life after he’s doodled on a napkin by a customer.

 

“Early on we decided that that the character would be extremely simple, as if a Coffee Bean customer had actually sketched him while placing an order with the app,” said Thallner, who both designed the character and animated his movements. “The challenging part was bringing him to life with personality and emotion, and making him move in a lifelike way while still remaining a simple doodle.”

 

The stick figure character and all doodles that appear in the spot – including a convertible car, parachute, skateboard and more – were hand-drawn in marker, scanned, processed and imported into Adobe After Effects for animation.

 

To capture the live action background plates, the team at Brickyard used stop-motion photography techniques during an eight-hour shoot at a Los Angeles CB&TL store. Co-DPs Patrick Poulatian and David Blumenfeld shot handheld on a Canon 5D Mark II, capturing sequences of high-resolution still frames. When played back at eight frames per second, the shaky handheld footage achieved a handcrafted stop-motion look. The stick figure character and all animated elements were composited into the live action background plates in post.

 

“Thanks to the collaboration and trust with the awesome team at The Pitch Agency, we were able to tackle all aspects of production, animation and finish,” concluded Thallner. “Brickyard artists are passionate about helping clients tell stories through live action, animation and visual effects, and our team really came through for Coffee Bean.”

 

About Brickyard VFX

Brickyard is a digital production studio skilled in live action, high-end visual effects, animation, design and creative development for advertising, feature films and emerging media.  With shops in Boston and Santa Monica, Brickyard is artist-centric at the core, fostering a close collaboration of not only artist-to-director but the entire creative team. Within a cozy eclectic production space, Brickyard assembles a customized crew of designers, animators, and compositors for every project. For company information please contact Kirsten with Brickyard VFX Atlantic at (617) 262-3220 or Steve with Brickyard VFX Pacific at (310) 453-5722, or visit http://www.brickyardvfx.com. 

 

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Credits: Coffee Bean “Find Your Reward”

 

Client: The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

Director of Digital: Mark Levien 

Creative Director: Jim Wylie 

 

Agency: The Pitch Agency

Producer: Nick Phillips 

Group Account Director: Andrew Lopez 

Management Supervisor: Monica Tobin 

Executive Creative Director: Jimbo Embry 

Senior Copywriter: Luke Roloff 

Senior Art Director: Amy Matheu 

 

Production: Brickyard VFX 

Director: Anton Thallner 

DP / Camera Operator: Patrick Poulatian 

DP / Camera Operator: David Blumenfeld 

Managing Partner: Steve Michaels 

Executive Producer: Peter Steinzeig 

Production Assistant: Zoe Cramer 

Production Assistant: Daniel Steinzeig

 

Post & VFX: Brickyard VFX

Lead Animator: Anton Thallner 

Executive Producer: Diana Young 

Brickyard VFX Producer: Britney Frandsen 

Graphics Assist: Zoe Cramer 

Graphics Assist: Allie Wagman