SOUTH NORWALK, CT - When Outdoor Life Network (OLN) associate producer, Maria Harutunian originated the idea of utilizing Japanese style animation to promote the ASP World Surfing Tour in Chibu Japan, she turned to Palace Digital Studios' (www.palacedigital.com) designer/animator Dan Chau.
The teaser spot sets up the impending battle between surfing champions Andy Irons and Kelly Slater. Harutunian's script tells the story of how these two surfers, who have competed all year long, travel across the globe to compete in Chibu, Japan. Chau captured footage of the athletes and painted/rotoscoped their facial expressions and movements in a classic Japanese character animation style. For their lower third text, Chau created hand lettered Asian script. Chau designed a haiku type layout for the Asian inspired copy and composited the copy over footage of a glowing red rising sun and a slowly rotating world. Chau's graphics wipe to live action surfing footage of each competitor; the action is choreographed to an original Japanese inspired soundtrack created by composer, Dominick Lombardi.
All of the design, illustration, animation and compositing was done within Adobe Photoshop and AfterEffects.
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