Nice Shoes

News - Revamped Nice Shoes Rolls Out Another TD Ameritrade Campaign

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Posted: 01.19.2010 20:03

Nice Shoes, in conjunction with long-time clients Go Robot, Form, and Ogilvy & Mather NY, is in the midst of a six-spot campaign for online broker TD Ameritrade, its latest work in an ongoing relationship with the financial giant. The initial three :30s, starring Law & Order’s Sam Waterston, are examples of the kind of outstanding work that the reshaped Nice Shoes – which recently absorbed sister visual effects company Guava and design studio Freestyle Collective – will be putting out on a regular basis. The all-star team behind this project is Nice Shoes CD Aron Baxter, visual effects Artist Jason Farber, Colorist Chris Ryan and Producer Dave Moore. Baxter, an experienced visual effects supervising pro, oversaw the shoot for Form’s Gary McKendry. “This was a collaboration on set right from the beginning. We’ve been working with Go Robot, Form and Ogilvy for years as Guava, so now, as the Nice Shoes visual effects division, we’re all totally comfortable working together and collaborating to find solutions as we go,” noted Baxter. “Plus we’ve forged such a great relationship with Ameritrade and understand their business so well that we are better positioned than anyone to inject the exact tone and atmosphere that Ameritrade required.” Objectivity, Straightforward, and Green Shoots each take place on a pristine stage dominated by a simple, bold element representing one part of TD’s business philosophy – a giant “O” for “objectivity”; an equally large “S” for “straightforward”; an oversized photograph of green shoots, representing renewal – while Waterston trots back and forth extolling the company’s virtues with his reassuring oratory. The campaign’s final three spots will follow a similar format. McKendry shot the spots entirely on green screen with nothing behind Waterston. Baxter and the Nice Shoes team then designed the backgrounds as a full virtual environment, creating and placing the giant letters using 3D text, geometries and projection. The textured environments presented a particular challenge – to choose the optimal final product Baxter sorted through more than 50 original looks. “TD wants strong backgrounds and textures that tie into their brand, and after so many campaigns we have a gut feel for what they’re looking for,” noted Baxter. Nice Shoes handled all of the visual effects, design and animation, and the color grading on the campaign, with each department collaborating closely throughout the process to create a comprehensive solution for this complex project. “We’ve been working with the same internal artistic team for years, and that gives us a huge advantage when dealing with clients,” noted Colorist Chris Ryan. “With Nice Shoes, clients don’t have to go through multiple rounds of approvals with various shops – we all work together and have everything laid out between departments before we even start. And we trust one another implicitly. I don’t have to worry about color grading a random green screen because I know the visual effects department is handling it, which is something you can never be sure of if different shops are handling each component separately. That’s a primary reason why clients such as Ogilvy come back to us again and again – they’ve come to rely on this streamlined process to save them time, money and headaches.” “This latest shoot really shows how powerful the new creatively collaborative studio – with the talent of Nice Shoes and Guava finally together under one roof – will be,” noted Moore. “Having everyone so close has really sped up and enhanced the creative and production processes.

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