John K Commercials part 2: Internet commercials

Internet Ads and Banners

Online advertising has many distinct advantages over TV ads. The ads can be longer than 30 seconds. This gives more time to get the message across and more time to make the ads be fun and understandable. The ads can take you to the sponsor's website. The ads can feature entertaining mascots.

MAKE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND AND REMEMBER THE PRODUCT:
Think about how many TV commercials that you are vaguely aware of but can't remember what they are selling.

ADS CAN BE ENTERTAINING AND SELL THE PRODUCT
This is the way to get huge click throughs and sales. Make the ads entertaining!

I've been doing animated online ads in Flash since 1997 and here are a few.

Quisp

QUISP COMMERCIAL

JOHN K. QUISP PRESS RELEASE

Ultimate Fighting Championship

UFC COMMERCIAL

COMCAST

COMCAST COMMERCIAL (17.5mb)

COMCAST: "PROMOTION IS OVER" CARD

The ads can also take you from whatever site they appear on, straight to the Sponsor's site.

Raketu

RAKETU COMMERCIAL STARRING GEORGE LIQUOR

RAKETU COMMERCIAL STARRING SODY POP

TOWER RECORDS

Here's one of the very first demonstrations of direct sponsorship online using an early version of Flash.

TOWER AD, PART 1

TOWER AD, PART 2

Wally Whimsy for Rice Patooties

Products can directly sponsor shows, which is the ideal way to advertise your product. The audience associates their good feelings about the show with the sponsor, and the star of the show advertises the product.

WALLY WHIMSY (9.8mb)

Mighty Mouse Presents: Witch Tricks

Eddie Fitzgerald is the most imaginative cartoonist alive. He is also is the king of Halloween.
Here is his opus from Bakshi's Mighty Mouse Show.





OPENER:






























WITCH TRICKS, PART 1:





WITCH TRICKS, PART 2:



Oh just so you can actually read the credits, Marc has graciously slowed them down to human speed so you can see how many famous names got their start from Ralph Bakshi...

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF MIGHTY MOUSE: CREDITS, slo-mo (4.0mb)

ADT Commercial Animatic

Speaking of commercials, here's one we bid on but didn't land.

It was right around the time we did the Nike commercial and ADT also wanted a big bad wolf cartoon.

ADT COMMERCIAL ANIMATIC (2.5mb)

I whipped up a storyboard and we shot it, but it never went past that. Mike Kerr acted out some of the little things the wolf did and I stuck 'em in there. Like the clicking of the fingers. Don't ask me what it means, but I thought it was funny, so there it is.

John K Commercials part 1: TV Commercials

John K. Commercials

My commercials have won some awards but more importantly - they sold the product very well.
Spumco Nike


I try to make entertaining commercials that the audience doesn't want to fast forward through.

My philosophy when I make commercials is to satisfy 2 customers:

1) The Sponsor

I believe in selling the product first. I want to be creative, but my creativity is in service of getting the audience to like the product and want to buy it.

I'm definitely not out to merely exercise my creative vision and make films that look good on my reel.

Pushing the product is where I exercise my creativity. And it's a lot of fun for me to do that.

2) The Audience

I believe the audience has to want to watch a commercial for it to be effective. Today it is very hard to grab people's attention before they instantly grab the remote and fast forward through the commercials.

My commercials have a history of people enjoying themselves and remembering the product.

I designed and animated the original Old Navy Cartoon Spots. When they aired, ON informed me their product sales increased 500%.

Here are some of my animated TV spots.

TV Commercials

Old Navy

OLD NAVY: Big Pocket Jeans (8.3mb)

OLD NAVY: Curly Fleece (7.1mb)

OLD NAVY: Flares (7.3mb)

OLD NAVY: Hoodies (6.6mb)

Wagwells

WAGWELLS (8.6mb)

Nike

NIKE (6.8mb)

Aoki Pizza

AOKI PIZZA (3.2mb)

Barq's Root Beer

BARQS ROOT BEER (2.0mb)

Village Pantry

VILLAGE PANTRY (7.4mb)

Monster.com

Milt Gross Crowds

Most cartoonists I know fear drawing crowds.

Crowds are hard to draw in these areas:

It's hard to compose a lot of characters together.
It takes more time for more characters.
It's hard to make each character have a different pose.

It's hard to design lots of different character designs. Most comic artists, even great ones like Jack Kirby tend to draw the same character over and over again in a crowd.Here's a dandy crowd of 'tudes with all the faces the same.

Milt Gross has none of these problems!
He draws crowds filled with different characters and with each one having their own faces, body shapes, and body attitudes.
Look how each of these top hatted fellows have a similar angle-but not exactly parallel. They are a group and individuals all at the same time.
This whole group has a single silhouette. They together make a single fun shape. Yet each character is an individual and s on a slightly different angle.

HIERARCHY OF FORMS- The specific details obey the general idea

Gross is a master of hierarchy. His individuals contribute to a group form.
Just like details on a face follow the construction of a cartoon face.

The specific parts obey the general idea.

All these snooty folks have a haughty demeanor, yet none are exactly the same. A variety of individuals that fit a type.

Hierarchy, rather than anarchy!




He has lots of different designs for women too.


Milt Gross is the opposite of today's rubber stamp comic strip artists. The ones that use the same stiff poses and expressions over and over again.
Look at the bustle of life.
The lines of action of all the high society folks here all work together to create an organic group flow.


I can't believe how many funny head shapes Gross concocts.

SEE THE LATEST LOST GROSS COMICS:

http://www.animationarchive.org/2007/10/comics-fulfilling-milt-gross-challenge.html

TIPS ON DRAWING CROWDS

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/11/composition-4-staging-groups-of.html