Designing for a car commercial.

2. What have you found is the best tool or innovation that
has come out in the last year?

I can’t really say a specific product that has come out in
the last year, but there are some sweet updates to the newest
Adobe products.

3. The project that most impressed you in the last year? Why?

Lots of studios and directors have definitely stepped it up
this past year. I am a big fan of projects that have a great
story with amazing graphics and vfx, which seemed to be the
biggest movement this past year.

4. The best or favorite project that you worked on in the
past year? And why?

There are a few projects that I had a lot of fun working on.
HP Serena, Pontiac Details, Scion Deviants and Zune Tron
quickly come to mind. The HP Serena spot was especially fun
for me, because it integrated live action with cool graphics,
but also because it is the first big project I worked on here
at Stardust. Zune “Tron” is probably my favorite – because
I got to Art Direct it.

5. Name the top 4 artists on your iPod?

Battle Flask
Jay Z
Justice
The Stroke

Bicoastal creative production
company Stardust Studios (www.stardust.tv) recently produced
a dynamic :15 video installation piece for a Zune account
creative team from newly established shop, T.A.G., San
Francisco, which included group creative directors Scott
Duchon and Geoff Edwards, art director Rey Andrade,
copywriter Joe Rose, director of broadcast production Jan
O’Malley and agency producer Lee Anne Weldon. The finished
piece entitled “Zune Tron” ran on the famous 20-foot LED
“Geoffreytron” video billboard located above Toys”R”Us in
New York City’s Times Square throughout the recent holiday
season, and Stardust’s artwork created for the project has
also been used in the agency’s campaign print and online
banner ads.

Stardust’s project team consisted of creative director Jake
Banks, art director Jonathan Wu, producer Lisa Pierce,
designer/2D animator Bill Bak, designer Emie Lee, 3D
animators James Anderson and Brian Broussard, and 3D
modeler Chris Eckardt.

“The agency let us know they were interested in producing a
video piece for the Zune player on the ‘Geoffreytron,'” Wu
explained. “The brief essentially called for us to express
all the things the Zune artistically. In our approach, we
came up with 20 different styles using abstract ways of
representing the Zune player’s capabilities using sound
waves and other designs. The creatives asked us to mix and
match a few of the boards, representing different artists’
work.”

Wu also confirmed that one of the styleboards created by
Stardust’s artist Ling Feng was selected for a print ad
which has run in recent issues of Rolling Stone, Wired and
many other high-circulation consumer magazines. That
artwork has also been used in some online components of the
campaign.

After getting the green light to proceed, Stardust
assembled their team of 3D designers and modelers, relying
on Bak for design, animation and 2D compositing. As the
artwork was completed in Maya, Bak artfully composited the
elements together in After Effects.

“The biggest challenge of producing this project was that
we had to visually show music without using sound,” Wu
continued. “Key parts of the solution were adding a lot
of color to make it vibrant and lively, and also getting
this nice slow musical rhythm to it. In the different
animated sequences, there were a lot of dynamics involved
in Maya in creating how things fell; a lot of those
effects were a mix of Maya elements with 2D After Effects
elements. The After Effects elements typically were
created with Trapcode plugins like 3D Stroke and
Particular. Another big trick was how we handled the
lava in the background. Using a three-step process, we
were able to make the lava morph from one object to
another.”

“Stardust was really able to bring out the most from a
silent medium,” said Scott Duhon, Creative Director/
Partner, T.A.G. “This campaign is all about music, and
bringing it to life without sound was not an easy task.
However, they were able to continue the story we began
from TV and execute it in an incredibly fresh and iconic
way.”

For T.A.G., a unit of McCann Worldgroup San Francisco,
campaign credits also include account director Michael
Zlatoper and account executive Lyndsey Corona.

www.stardust.tv

CREDITS
Spot Title: Microsoft Zune “Zune Tron”
Length: :15
Venue: Times Square “GeoffreyTron” Video Billboard
Client: Microsoft
Brand: Zune

Ad Agency: T.A.G.
City/State: San Francisco, CA
Group Creative Directors: Scott Duchon, Geoff Edwards
Art Director: Rey Andrade
Copywriter: Joe Rose
Director of Broadcast Production: Jan O’Malley
Agency Producer: Lee Anne Weldon
Account Director: Michael Zlatoper
Account Executive: Lyndsey Corona

Production Company: Stardust Studios
City/State: Bicoastal, USA

Creative Director: Jake Banks
Art Director: Jonathan Wu
Producer: Lisa Pierce
Designer/2D Animator: Bill Bak
Designer: Emie Lee
3D Animators: James Anderson, Brian Broussard

3D Modeler: Chris Eckardt
Additional Artist: Ling Feng