"Built on Your Trust"

The Mangino dealerships (Mangino Chevrolet and Mangino Buick GMC) came to DeFabio Design looking for a new campaign of 15 second image spots for TV. Both dealerships had recently built new showrooms and service centers from the ground up. They were sparkling new but the owners also wanted to emphasize their 30+ years of great reputation. We proposed a theme for the campaign to reinforce the two meanings of building. "Built on Your Trust", conveys their past and their future. It speaks to their values and traditions and reminds us that they are innovating and staying current and modern.

The second spot is screening before the movies at a local cinema. So it was tailored to the 40 foot big-screen experience and includes a nod to the fact that they know the audience is there for a movie. Thus the tag line "For a better screen experience you'd have to go to the movies."

Sid the Science Kid Live campaign.

DeFabio Design created the TV spots for the new live touring production of Jim Henson's Sid the Science Kid Live. We "re-animated" still graphics provided from the CGI animated TV series, and combined it with footage of the live show's puppets, and audience reaction footage. Add some fun music and it conveys the energy and excitement of this new nationally touring theater show.

The sample below would be localized for each city on the tour with specific venue information in the graphics and voice over.

Two Man Group network TV premiere this Friday.

Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood's comedy special Two Man Group has an opening title sequence by DeFabio Design. It airs on the CW March 14th at 9pm.

The title sequence looks a lot like the titles seen in these 30 sec spots (also by DeFabio Design).

Spank! Harder, a sizzling trailer.

After the success of "Spank! The 50 Fifty Shades Parody" had to come a sequel right? The new show amps up the sexy and the funny. DeFabio Design created a sizzle reel / teaser video for the show as well as the 30 second TV spots for the national tour.

Sizzling Business Coach

DeFabio Design just completed a short sizzle video to introduce author, speaker and small business coach Chris Vanderzyden. Provided with video from only one angle at one speaking engagement we aimed to instill a high energy feeling and a variety of dynamic visuals.

A thrill just to be nominated.

DeFabio Design's work on the special FX for Super Knocked Up has received a nomination from IAWT in the category of Best Visual Effects (Digital).  Also in this category is the team from Battle Star Galactica Blood and Chrome, so we're honored to be in their company.

The full list of nominees is here.

To celebrate we added a demo reel of some of those FX here.

And the latest episode of SKU is online here. DD did the fire and ice FX in this one.

Serendipity

You never know where inspiration will come from. At least twice it literally arrived in my mailbox. A few years back I had to do a show open video for a mentalist. He'd bend keys and spoons and such. Just as I was thinking "How am I going to bend a key? Clamp it in a vise and heat it with a torch?" the mail arrived with a flyer promoting a car dealer. It encouraged me to come on down and see if this key was the lucky key to start and win a new car. Not surprisingly those give-away keys are made rather flimsily. It was the perfect prop to bend a bit and shoot stop action until I had my effect.

This past week I was animating maps of the middle east. And of course it's easiest to find digital maps and work from those but in that day's mail arrives a folded up printed world map. Suddenly the physicality had me considering wrinkles, rips and tears that I hadn't before. What's more, a day earlier I had just read Kyle Cooper saying how analogue materials inspire him more than digital assets. 

Trailer for the Hungry Hungry Games

DeFabio Design created this 3.5 minute trailer for the touring theatrical live show The Hungry Hungry Games. It spoofs the Hunger Games (of course). Fun times editing to dub-step and creating lots of high tech glitch and damage FX.

Watch it on YouTube (where the blacks got crushed too much in the recompression).

Super Knocked Up s2e3

 The super hero web series Super Knocked Up season 2 episode 3 is now live.  There's a decent number of FX done by DeFabio Design in the first 4 minutes. Including energy blasts and related damage to walls, burn up/explosion of a fetish magazine, a holographic display and the show's opening titles. You can watch it at http://youtu.be/D2C5MCI9mfI

The Hungry Hungry Games TV spot

It's an interesting challenge when a client needs their spot built only from still photos but wants a lot of action and the feel of a feature film trailer. We took cues from The Hunger Games and other sci-fi to arrive at two looks: the dark fiery stuff and the cool blue/white future stuff. The two styles are intercut to add more drama to the limited motion. Since the show is a parody we tried to make the spot funny. We wrote tag lines that tweak those found in the Hunger Games. So “Every revolution begins with a spark.” becomes “Every fire begins with hot air.” “May the odds be ever in your favor.” becomes “May the odds be ever ...odder.” And the mocking jay's bird call whistle seems a bit off key too.

Watch the spot here.​

Brand ID created for Jooney Bug

DeFabio Design creates the branding for Jooney Bug. Jooney Big is a new arrival in covert recording technology and is already poised to lead the sector. We took our color palette cues from the iridescent greens and purples of actual june bugs. The product's key target consumers are parents of school age children so there was a need to appeal to this group with a charming mascot character incorporated into the logo. Longtime collaborator Chris Tokunaga was tapped to do the character illustration. An overall feeling of playfulness was requested by the client to offset perceptions of hard technology and surveillance. Among our branding recommendations was to place the logo on an easily removed transparent sticker for those costumers who require the product not be easily identified as a covert recording device. With the sticker removed it is easily mistaken for a USB flash drive.

Archer Live! 30 sec spot.

DeFabio Design creates a series of 30 second spots for Archer Live as the show tours America. Our concept here was to echo the style of the animated FX series' opening credits. An original variation of that opening sequence was animated by DeFabio and incorporates footage provided by FX from both the animated series and the live stage show into the recognizable style. Lucky Yates (Kreiger) provides the voice over talent.

Watch an example from the campaign.​

TV ad for Joan Rivers live.

Editing and graphics by DeFabio Design for a series of 30 sec TV spots to promote Joan River's live appearances. A glittering golden design scheme was used to evoke an anniversary style or something legend... wait for it... -dary and play into her claim of 135 years in the business.

See the spot here.​

Super Knocked Up season 2

DeFabio Design is working once again with Jeff Burns on his web series Super Knocked Up superknockedup.com.  DeFabio Design created the logo, show open and some of the special visual effects that give heroes and villains their superpowers. Season 2 debuts this February.

April Update: Our work along with that of Chriss Vincelette on Super Knocked Up season 1 won Best Visual Effects at the 2013 LA Web Fest.

Conned

DeFabio Design created several motion graphics sequences for use in the touring live stage show "Conned". Motion graphics sequences are projected on a large screen to introduce the show and each of its four con-men performers.