S4 SOLVES SLEUTH'S GRAPHIC DILEMMA
The S4 team of director/designer Geoffrey Kater, creative director Thomas Helmintoller and writer/producer Larry Le Francis delivered 100 motion graphic elements and created a series of 15 IDs for the campaign. The work is divided into three distinct styles that represent the varied aspects of Sleuth's programming. According to Kater, the team came up with the idea of creating highly-stylized "moments in time" that resemble gritty high-contrast graphic novels.
Street Cops shows a suspect being arrested, a tagging, a cell door closing and a chalk outline being drawn on the sidewalk. High Crimes features a high-end drug deal, identity theft and a computer security breach. Private Investigators shows a stakeout, fingerprint dusting, and a high tech break-in.
Each vignette graphically resolves into different treatments of the Sleuth logo. Since women make up the major part of Sleuth's viewing audience, several graphics were created around that demographic.
Live action for the campaign was shot on dark streets in Hollywood and in-house in front of a blue screen. Talent was shot in HD, and the footage was desaturated, separated from the live action backgrounds and composited into animated and graphic backgrounds that were created in Adobe After Effects 7.2 and NewTek LightWave 9.0.
S4 credits included 3D animator Don McCoy, 2D compositor Craig Kuehne, and junior compositor Sarah Keturah.