For the third and final installment of my series of interviews looking at the making of Wired’s September 2010 motion cover, I talked with Hugh Milstein and Tim Wilcox of the LA-based postproduction company DigitalFusion, who worked with Scott Dadich, Wired’s creative director, and Carolyn Rauch, Wired’s photo editor, on translating Scott’s design into motion. (Click here to read my interview with Art Streiber and here for the one with DP/editor Adam Grossman.)
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Joel McHale on the cover of Wired's September 2010 iPad edition. Photo by Art Streiber.
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Early experiments with motion covers lead to working on Wired’s September issue.
“Internally, we had been putting some samples together of moving covers and editorial content for magazines, foreseeing that the natural evolution for them was going to be these tablet devices like the iPad. Several of our samples were using footage that Art Streiber had shot for this very purpose, so we were eager to get these in front of influential eyes to show them the potential of what could be accomplished in this medium.
Art was working on the Joel McHale shoot with Scott Dadich, the creative director of Wired, and had mentioned that Scott should take a look at what we had been up to, perhaps implementing our motion cover concepts into the Wired magazine application that they were developing for the iPad. We joined them on the set for a demonstration, and within the next day or so, Scott was asking us to assist in bringing their cover starring Joel McHale to life, in essence creating the first moving cover ever done for the iPad.”
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The assets and how they worked with them.
“We were given PDF and InDesign files of the cover of the digital edition of the magazine and an edited cut of the footage that was to be composited over it. Scott’s idea was to have the cover slowly build in to play up the on the gag of Joel McHale joking about the waiting time for the app to download, so our animation accentuates that slow lengthy download. We worked closely with both Scott and Carolyn Rauch, the photo editor of Wired, as well as making sure the tech specs were in line with the needs of Adobe for programming and implementation into their pipeline for creating the application.”
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Hugh Milstein (left) and Tim Wilcox of DigitalFusion.
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Why having a film background was essential.
“[Producing a motion cover] is uncharted territory and a departure from the pace and timeline that magazines are used to. One of the things that we bring to the table is not only a longstanding understanding and transparent working relationship with photographers and the magazine industry, but deep roots in the feature-film side of the business, as well. Myself and Tim Wilcox, our creative director of CGI and interactive technology, both cut our teeth in the production world. Tim has spent the last two decades moving from visual FX to the art department on the preproduction side as a concept designer. This understanding of workflow is going to be instrumental in bridging the gap between traditional editorial processes and live-action material, graphics, and effects.
The challenges are subtle, as this is a visual medium just as photography is. It is, however, a more collaborative process, just as a film would be, in the sense that there is more of a creative team involved. There is a different approach to a shoot in as far as planning for how the scripted footage will be edited and integrated with any type of other moving visual elements, whether for a cover, editorial, or advertising needs, so as to fulfill the vision of the creative director and team.”
Noting that “September is typically the biggest month for magazine advertising, minonline.com tallies the “Top 5 Monthly Mags” in ad pages. “As we continue to follow the upward trend in advertising dollars for 2010, we see that this September is not a disappointment. In fact, min reports in its September ad-page monthlies review that 94 of 145 magazine titles were up in advertising ad pages. (Last year’s September chart only had 23 titles with a positive gain.)” Runner’s World tops the list in percentage gained. Full report here.
Cast your vote in ASME’s 2010 “Best Cover Contest”
Voting began yesterday in the 2010 “Best Cover Contest,” sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) and hosted by Amazon.com.
“Magazine covers were eligible if they appeared on issues dated from June 1, 2009, to May 31, 2010. Beginning September 1, the 72 finalists will be posted on Amazon.com for 30 days. Customers will vote for their favorites in 12 categories, then choose the Cover of the Year from the 12 winners,” according to the press release. “The winners will be announced on October 3 in Chicago at the American Magazine Conference, the premier meeting for industry leaders hosted by MPA and ASME.”
A handful of magazines received multiple nominations, including New York, with 6—one of them, which has been selected as a finalist, featuring a portrait by Art Streiber—The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker, which each had 5, and Sports Illustrated, which had 3, including one shot by Walter Iooss.
The nominees gallery at Amazon.com includes the text submitted by each magazine with their entry, and in many cases the descriptions—written, it appears, by either the photo editor or the art director—read as mini-behind-the-scenes stories. It’s worth a look, even if you choose not to vote.
Here’s a peek…
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