Ryan Honey, creative director of LA-based motion graphics/production company Buck, steps up to answer Five Questions.
1. What are you working on today?
Casting for another ID for Spike. Directv, ESPN, NFL Network, AMPM, Nike.
2. What have you found is the best tool or innovation that has come out in the last year?
Virtualization software like Vmware. We haven’t got it totally integrated in our workflow yet, but it will change the way studios like ours work.
3. The project (film, television, commercial or music video) that most impressed you in the last year? Why?
All the Smith and Foulkes, especially Honda, Motorola and The Littlest Elf. Great creative, smart execution, and they look beautiful.
4. The best or favorite project that you worked on in the past year? And why?

Toss up between the World Cup for ESPN and the Spike Rebrand. I really enjoy coming up with creative solutions for our clients that are artful and have somewhat of a narrative.
5. Name the top 4 artists on your iPod?
Justice
Screeching Weasel
Le Tigre
Propagandhi
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Recent Project
Maximum Action: Buck Gets Physical For Spike Tv Rebrand
“Get More Action.” That’s the promise offered to viewers by Spike TV, the MTV/Viacom-owned cable network, in a new rebranding campaign. Designed by BUCK, the Los Angeles-based motion graphics and production company, the new package looks to position Spike TV, already known as the “first network for men,” as the “Action Network.”
“Spike TV called us at the beginning of March and told us we’d been selected to rebrand the network,” says Ryan Honey, Co-Creative Director/Principal at BUCK. “We’d never worked with Spike before, and this project has been a great experience. Spike TV is perfectly positioned to be the network for all things Action, and they gave us creative freedom to come up with a new brand that reflects that position.”
Spike TV is already the network of choice for viewers of Ultimate Fighting, Pro Wrestling and Muscle Car competitions. Enhancing that image is a new slate of action films and all-new action-oriented programming. To capture the new flavor of the network, BUCK created an eye-catching series of short network IDs guaranteed to get viewers’ attention.
“The network’s new manifesto states that they will ‘own Action’,” says Honey. “Our response was to create Action to the maximum, a whole block of five and ten-second IDs that cast the Spike logo as Action hero in a variety of fast-paced scenarios. In each of them, we aim to grab the viewers’ attention and then bombard them with adrenaline-filled action sequences.”
“Action Movie,” a 10-second piece with a graphic-novel look, opens with an imposing bald man who uses a pair of handguns to shoot up a prison bus, sending it into a metal-wrenching roll before revealing the Spike TV logo emblazoned on its flank. Five-second “Logo Chase” opens on a sun-drenched alleyway and the rocket-like roar of the yellow-black Spike logo careening noisily off surrounding buildings before landing forcefully and unscathed at the center of the screen. Still another, “Carformer,” requires just five seconds to transform a conventional black sedan into a tricked-out hotrod, complete with tank-like tracks and turret gun. Others employ car chases, video games and gambling images to bring the Spike logo into sharp focus.

“Spike gave us complete freedom to come up with ideas,” says Honey. “These super short IDs can be challenging to create, because there is such a limited time to get your message across. The network left it up to us whether to create a new color palette for the network, but we agreed that their existing palette was an extremely strong branding element. We had eleven people working on this project, using a combination of tools including Autodesk Maya, Cinema4D and Adobe After Effects.”
CREDITS

Creative Directors: Ryan Honey, Orion Tait
Executive Producer: Maurie Enochson

Producer: Hilary Wright
Art Director: Thomas Schmid
Design: Thomas Schmid, Ben Langsfeld, Yker Moreno, Sergiy Melynk,
Steve Pacheco
3D/Animation: Paul America, Steve Day, Billy Maloney, Morgan
James, Patrick Scruggs, Jose Fuentes, Stephen Kelleher, Richie Sandow
Editor: Harry Walsh
Software: Adobe After Effects, Maxon Cinema 4D, Maya

SOUND DESIGN/MUSIC
John Black, Cypher Audio Development

CLIENT
Producer: Jennifer Brogle (Spike TV)
Creative Director: Bob Salazar (Spike TV)
Art Director: Alan Roll (Spike TV)