On June 8, at the 15th Annual AICP Show presented by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers at New York Museum of Modern Art, award-winning Los Angeles visual effects and design company A52 was honored for their visual effects artistry on last year Nike Golf ‘Kid Tiger’ broadcast spot from Wieden+Kennedy.

Honoring the best commercials of the previous year, the AICP Show will now go on tour to museums and cultural institutions across the U.S. and abroad. Additional information on the Show, upcoming tour dates and venues is online at www.aicp.com.

A52 distinction this year is an important one for the ten-year-old company, as this is the ninth consecutive year its work has been honored in the AICP Show, but only the first time the honors have come specifically in the Visual Effects category. ‘Over the past ten years, A52 has established a solid reputation for handling beautiful, seamless visual effects, for delivering gorgeous finished imagery ?‚àö√ë‚àö¬® and for creating animation that looks like live-action,’ explained Mark Tobin, A52 managing director and executive producer.

‘As a result, the artists’s collaborations with top creatives, directors, DPs and editors have consistently been honored in the AICP Visual Style, Cinematography, Graphics, Animation and Advertising Excellence categories ?‚àö√ë‚àö¬® but this year, the jurors recognized the significance of our team contributions to this extraordinary spot for Hal Curtis, his colleagues at W+K and Nike Golf. We’sre very proud of everyone involved from our side, including our co-VFX supervisors Tim Bird and Pat Murphy, both of whom added artistry to this spot that few people would ever imagine upon watching it.’

In home-movie quality, the :60 ‘Kid Tiger’ spot shows a 5-year-old Tiger Woods playing the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland, during the British Open. He hits one remarkable shot after another in front of the jubilant crowd, and celebrates his performance with joyous demonstrations as his mother and father look on. At the end, we see the full-grown Tiger enjoying his win. During one week last July representing seven days of working around the clock, Bird, Murphy, producer April Killingsworth and other A52 artists artfully transformed twenty-year-old VHS home movies of young Tiger, along with recent NTSC broadcast footage from the British Open and stills of the St. Andrews Clubhouse, stands of crowds and other live-action plates, to create the finished spot.

‘The agency main concerns were about maintaining the emotion and the story plausibility,’ said Tim Bird, who served as the project co-VFX supervisor along with Pat Murphy. ‘In the end, the technical constraints we faced actually helped us convey those emotions and package the story in a powerful way.’

‘As soon as we heard about the idea, everyone was interested in trying to make it work,’ added Pat Murphy.

So far, ‘Kid Tiger’ has also earned a Silver International ANDY Award, as well as a Certificate of Merit in this year One Show.

For Wieden+Kennedy, project credits include creative director/art director Hal Curtis, creative director Mike Byrne, copywriter Dylan Lee, executive producer Ben Grylewicz and producer Andrew Loevenguth. The editorial team from Portland Joint Editorial included editors Corky Devault and Peter Wiedensmith, executive producer Patty Brebner and assistant editor Matt Hilber. A52 team also included VFX artists Alicia Aguilera, Eric Algren, Justin Blaustein, Craig ‘Xray’ Halperin, Scott Johnson, Ben Looram and Ryan Yoshimoto.

The spot features the song ‘Ooh La La,’ performed by musical artist Faces. Final audio was mixed by Jeff Payne at Santa Monica Eleven Sound.

Finally, A52 also contributed to two other commercials which were honored in this year AICP Show: Xbox 360 ‘Water Balloons’ and Nike ‘FC USA,’ both of which are honored in the Show Editorial category.

About A52
Established in 1997 as a home for the very latest high-end photo-real visual effects technologies and the industry most innovative and talented graphic design artists, West Hollywood visual effects and design company A52 creates award-winning imagery for the world most visually ambitious commercial and television projects. The company work has earned AICP Show recognition for nine consecutive years along with recent ‘Outstanding Commercial’ Emmy, Andy, BDA, Belding, Clio, British Design and Art Direction, International Monitor, International Automotive Advertising, London International Advertising, One Show and PROMAX awards. For more information, please call Mark Tobin at 310.385.0851 or visit www.A52.com.