Rhino Creative Director Vico Sharabani recently completed yet another close collaboration with the Snorri Bros., this time creating all the VFX for a carefully choreographed :30 promoting the new season of Starz' acclaimed series, Crash.

The unique spot captures Los Angeles through the lens of a camera continuously swinging across the cityscape, the masses jostling in slow motion before a backdrop of palm trees, mountains, construction cranes, and other iconic Southern California images. The cast - including legendary actor Dennis Hopper - is shown mingling amidst this hoard in the hustling, deal-making, wild streets of Tinseltown. The spot concludes with the convergence of the main characters at center screen, where they appear poised to "crash" into one another, symbolizing the complex, intermingled maze that the characters live in.

To create a full portrait of the unhinged L.A. lifestyle that Crash portrays, Sharabani and the rest of the Rhino crew expertly stitched together a mosaic of characters that the Snorri Bros. shot on long lens against a green screen. Rhino deftly arranged these moving pieces so that the show's stars mingle effortlessly with LA's background masses while their individual stories move inexorably toward intersection.

Rhino then combined stills and live-action shots from all over the city to create an enormous, 100,000-pixel-long panorama of Los Angeles, against which they transposed the various characters in motion. The result is a seamless, detail-rich, 360-degree shot that seems to swivel over all of LA and the entirety of its shuffling life in one effortless motion. The crew also amped up the lighting to create an overly bright glare that perfectly communicates the atmosphere of walking through the steaming hot L.A. concrete jungle.

"The trick here was to capture the constant behind-the-scenes and in-the-streets action of Hollywood while simultaneously showing the countless fascinating stories behind that lifestyle, which is really the story of Crash," said Sharabani. "So we had to balance the fast-paced camera movement with the intersection of the fascinating cast and the indescribable L.A. masses. All of this while capturing the exact mood of L.A., from the steaming weather to the every-man-for-himself realities of the entertainment industry. Luckily the Snorri Bros. are expert at exactly capturing the attitude and personality of each character through their motions alone."

"We've worked with the Snorri Bros. on spots for Mercedes, Toyota, Subway and Dell over the past two years so we're very familiar with one another," said Rhino MD Rick Wagonheim. "We're incredibly happy to have this successful ongoing collaboration with a team that's so imaginative, diligent, and easy to work with."
The Creds:

Spot: Starz Network Crash Promo
Airdate: October 2009

Agency: Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners
CD(s): Jon Goldberg, Chris Cereda
Account Director: Rachel Mahoney
Group Business Director: Cora Byrne
Account Executive: Amy Olsen
Producer: Sharon Harte
AP: Ali Wasserstein

Prod Company: The Cartel
Director: Snorri Bros
Director: Eidur Eysteinsson
Executive Producer: Faith Dektor
Executive Producer: Jeff Miller
Producer: Dave Bernstein

Post/Effects: Rhino
CD: Vico Sharabani
VFX Supervisor: Elad Offer
Producer: Linda Gallagher
COO/EP: Camille Geier
Managing Director: Rick Wagonheim
CEO: Zviah Eldar
About Starz:

Starz Entertainment, LLC, is a premium movie service provider operating in the United States. It offers 16 movie channels including the flagship Starz® and Encore® brands with approximately 17.5 million and 31.5 million subscribers respectively. Starz Entertainment airs more than 1,000 movies per month across its pay TV channels and offers advanced services including Starz HD, Encore HD, Starz On Demand, Encore On Demand, MoviePlex On Demand, Starz HD On Demand, Encore HD On Demand, MoviePlex HD On Demand, and Starz Play. Starz Entertainment (www.starz.com) is an operating unit of Starz, LLC, which is a controlled subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation, and is attributed to Liberty Entertainment Group, a tracking stock group of Liberty Media Corporation.
About Rhino:

Since its launch in 2000, Rhino has created award-winning visual effects, design, and animation for commercials, VFX for feature films, episodic television, webisodic mini-series, and videogame cinematics. The company's principals and artists have also led the industry's exploration into the boundless potential of branded digital content. By cultivating extensive relationships with key brands, advertising agencies, and film/TV studios, Rhino utilizes its creative directors and artists to develop and execute powerful branded entertainment to build both identity and awareness. The company's principals include: CD/Director Vico Sharabani, CD/Director Harry Dorrington, CD/Director Natasha Saenko, COO/EP Camille Geier, Managing Director Rick Wagonheim, and CEO North America Zviah Eldar.

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