Right on the heels of three extraordinarily successful projects — garnering record breaking ratings for their clients — BIGSMACK unveils a new promo campaign for the National Geographic Channel. The energy-packed, mind-tickling campaign for the channel’s newest series “Brain Games” broke earlier this week in anticipation of the series launch on Monday, April 22nd at 9 p.m. (ET/PT).
Under the creative leadership of Founder/Head Creative Andy Hann and Senior Creative Director Matt Hall, BIGSMACK collaborated with National Geographic’s in-house creative team to complete the creative concepting. BIGSMACK wrote, produced, and created extensive CGI and graphics for the new launch campaign. http://www.bigsmack.tv/work/nat-geo-brain-games/
Hosted by Filmmaker and TED Talks icon Jason Silva, the new television series will use illusions, mind games and interactive experiments to reveal the inner workings of the human brain. Each episode of “Brain Games” will explore a different topic. These will include attention, fear, perception, sense of time and memory. Silva is a self-professed "wonder junkie," who has spoken widely about neurology, the human brain, and technology. The timing of the show is perfect, as President Obama announces a broad new research initiative to invent and refine new technologies to understand and map the human brain. Silva is joined on “Brain Games” by “The Gentleman Thief” Apollo Robbins, a deception specialist.
“National Geographic Channel has been a great, long-term client of ours,” says BIGSMACK’s Hann. “We worked on the promo for the “Brain Games” special last year, and it was so popular and successful that Nat Geo decided to turn it into a series. We were thrilled when they came back, and asked us to work on the promo campaign for the new series. We have a very collaborative relationship with Nat Geo. They really utilize us as a collaborative creative agency, and we work very well with their in-house team. They have a great deal of creative trust in us, which we really appreciate. This was a hugely fun campaign for the BIGSMACK team to work on. One of the biggest challenges was the research that we needed to do in order to find fun, and thought provoking examples of brain puzzles and teasers; as well as the choreography of the spots which required the cameras, experiments, and the on-screen talent to be in sync. Many of the shots were all done in one-take, which was quite a feat.”
Hann shared the director’s chair on set with BIGSMACK’s Senior Creative Director Matt Hall, since a great deal of the work was done in CGI and post, after the studio production wrapped. “The series host, Jason Silva, is renowned for his ability to improv,” explains Hall. “So we gave him an outline, but he added a lot of the material on his own while we were shooting. Because of the improv, most of the CGI/effects were added in the postproduction phase, without a lot of pre-planning. The creative process was truly an evolution, with BIGSMACK working with the in-house team at Nat Geo. At every stage, something new was added on-screen, continually making the spots that much better, and leading to a great end result.”
Due to the outstanding success of promo and show launch campaigns created and produced by BIGSMACK in the last 6 months, the team has been hard at work in the studio. “I couldn’t be more proud of the quality of work that continues to come from Andy and our BIGSMACK team” says Head of Marketing Andrew Kobliska, “The idea generation is endless, and this team truly understands how to create a successful campaign for our clients.”
Credits:
Project: Multi-spot promo campaign for the launch of new series “Brain Games”
Client: National Geographic Channel
SVP/Group Creative Director: Andy Baker
CMO: Courteney Monroe
Design Director Marketing & Creative: Carla Daeninckx
Director Ad Sales & Cause Marketing: Allison Mitchell
VP Creative & Consumer Marketing: Emanuele Madeddu
Producer: Valerie Carrillo
Agency, Production & Post Company: BIGSMACK/New York & Philadelphia
Head of Creative: Andy Hann
Senior Creative Director: Matt Hall
Head of Marketing: Andrew Kobliska
Executive Producers: Heidi Erney, Kevin Lahr
Senior Producer: Rich DiNublia
Senior Writer/Producer: Laura Gillespie
Production Coordinator: Meg Hughes
Director: Andy Hann
EFX Director: Matt Hall
DP: Andrew Turman
Line Producer: Larry Schwartz
Design/Animators: Jason Harmon, Rick Malwitz
Graphic Artist: Dan Hoffman
Editor: Mark Farkas
Mixers: Bob Schachner, Mike Taylor
Colorist: Janet Falcon