Animation-IDD blog

Name:
Location: Connecticut, United States

I am an Interactive Digital Design student at Quinnipiac University. I am also minoring in Screenwriting.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Spark Website

I browsed the Spark website and looked under works and then show packages. There, I found the Getaway USA ad. I found this one to be interesting so I decided to blog on it. To start, there is a background of a city at night with all the lights glowing. On the bottom of the screen there is a small globe that stays pretty stationary throughout the animation. There is a video layer that has bright lights flashing making it look like cars headlights or maybe rock concert lights spinning. This already gives you the feeling party-like nights in the city. (The music is also upbeat and popular sounding-like maybe club music.)

It then cuts to two ladies in a car. One is smiling very widely. Apparently she's having a good time. Underneath this shot are words (its hard to make out exactly what they are since the viewer window is slightly small.) I think they say USA in bold red letters (the more important info) and then Getaway in a small size underneath 7 little diamonds, squares, and circles which represent little highway signs. I believe they have little arrows on them and that's why I believe them to be signs. They also rotate sometimes giving a little animation for focusing on the words. A shot of the globe comes back briefly.

It then dissolves into a picture of a man with his horses. I guess this clip is for the country lovers. Again the signs are in the picture, providing continuity, however, these signs are on the top and the word getaway is next to it on the left. The font and style of the USA in the previous slide is there, but this time it also reads Getaway. This kind of links the two clips together. The globe comes back for only a split second again.

Following the globe, is a picture of a person standing near a big cliff in the desert somewhere. Again the repeating of the signs and the small getaway word is in the picture. This time the signs are above the red USA (which is like the first shot of the women in the car) in the bottom left hand corner. The small getaway word is stationed in the center at the top. The camera goes in for a close-up shot of the person next to the cliff. The extra text detail remains the same.

This brings us to a shot of a beach with a person standing very far off. Over the beach clip is a giant (or looks like a giant compared to the perspective of the person) American flag billowing in the wind. We have the signs and the words again. getaway is above the flag in the sky and the signs are above the person's head. Two women (one holding an American flag) come in over this scene on the far right. They're laughing and having fun. This continues to set the mood of enjoyment while on a getaway.

Throughout the piece I also noticed that there were occasional random lights like the beginning ones in other clips. This gave some fun motion to the shots and kept it continuously flowing. It helped to add a flare of excitement to the piece when most of the shots had minimal movement.

At the end, the globe comes back and it is then clear that the globe is actually on the front end of a car hood. It's not moving but the car is. The camera is stationed on the car so it looks like the only movement is the road going by. I didn't notice during the short globe clips in between the other pieces that it was on a car. It's neat because it ties in the traveling getaway by not only using the little globe, but also the car driving. It's very clever that they used this instead of just a globe sitting on the screen. Over the globe, there is a logo that says Getaway and then in a box next to it: USA. This is centered and large which indicates that it is important information that the viewer should remember. The signs are back in the bottom right of the screen. Again the signs pull the piece together and is the continuous factor in the whole piece.