Vimeo / CRUSH's uploaded videos

The Gum Thief - Glove Pond

CRUSH — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:31:36 -0400

We worked with Random House Canada to create nine clips to promote Douglas Coupland’s The Gum Thief. Each film, narrated by Douglas Coupland, brings selections of the novel to life.

We loved the book and we all love Doug’s work. We felt that the nature of the narrative lent itself to a less traditional form, and we thought Doug’s readers would be visually sophisticated and net savvy enough to appreciate this approach. We wanted the three strands to have a unique look, but when viewed as a group would feel coherent. Our designers, Stefan Woronko, Adrian Lawrence, Chris Rolf and Greg Dunlop each used a wide variety of techniques, and brought their varied design aesthetics to their pieces.

Crush Creative Director, Gary Thomas

Cast: CRUSH

The Gum Thief - Bethany

CRUSH — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:28:00 -0400

Cast: CRUSH

The Gum Thief - Roger

CRUSH — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:17:49 -0400

Cast: CRUSH

The Happiness Project

CRUSH — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:11:01 -0400

We got involved with the project almost a year ago. The idea was to interpret the songs by Broken Social Scene’s guitarist (and one of their resident geniuses) Charles Spearin, in a visual way. The plan was to take over a house or apartment and give rooms to artistic folk to use. We wanted to do something, although we didn’t have a clear idea what. The pieces of music all started out as recordings of Charles’ neighbours talking, which he built into beautiful compositions. We felt it made sense to have people piece together the different layers of the track by themselves.

We worked with Crush technical engineers Rudy Ledvinka and Scott Carradice to design the room with a variety of sensors and switches which would trigger layers of sound as drawers were opened and people sat on the bed or chair. We also built a CG model of the room with an animated man, representing Mr. Gowrie, the man who’s narration formed the basis of our song. We had the CG model made as four physical models which we mounted in the chest of drawers, each accompanied by a story which fleshed out the narrative in the song. We added a few lights and that was that.

The piece ran during Pop Montreal in The Happiness Project’s temporary headquarters on Hutchison Street. Montreal is an awesomely great place for this kind of thing, and there were crowds every day, with people carefully checking out each room and then enjoying cookies in the kitchen with the organizers from Artist Bloc.

We were surprised at the reaction. People found it incredibly powerful. Some cried, most checked out everything and some sat mesmerized on the bed watching the projection. Everyone had a different experience with Mr. Gowrie. It was an incredibly useful exercise for us, being that we’re used to delivering finished visuals which are meant to be seen passively. This was a whole new world for us, and one that we want to explore further.

more info happiness-project.ca

Cast: CRUSH

Ron James - Bath

CRUSH — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:10:15 -0400

We created this segment for Canadian comedian Ron James' CBC TV show.

Cast: CRUSH

Ron James - Superball

CRUSH — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:04:57 -0400

We created this segment for Canadian comedian Ron James' CBC TV Show.

Cast: CRUSH

Generation A - 10 Question for Douglas Coupland

CRUSH — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:48:54 -0400

This is the first in a series of three films we created for Douglas Coupland's latest novel Generation A - a follow up to his 1991 cult hit Generation X.

Since the characters in Generation A are all isolated and asked a series of seemingly random questions by a disembodied voice, in this film we decided to subject Douglas Coupland to the same experience.

Full credits and a Q&A with Gary Thomas, Crush Creative Director, is posted here: glossyinc.com/genainfo.html

Cast: CRUSH

Generation A - The Tragic Death of the Channel Three News Team

CRUSH — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:43:59 -0400

The second in a series of three films we created for Douglas Coupland's latest novel Generation A - a follow up to his 1991 cult hit Generation X.

Full credits and a Q&A with Gary Thomas, Crush Creative Director, is posted here: glossyinc.com/genainfo.html

Cast: CRUSH

Generation A - Colour Samples

CRUSH — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:39:08 -0400

The third in a series of three films we created for Douglas Coupland's latest novel Generation A - a follow up to his 1991 cult hit Generation X.

Full credits and a Q&A with Gary Thomas, Crush Creative Director, is posted here: glossyinc.com/genainfo.html

Cast: CRUSH

Generation A Teaser

CRUSH — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:38:16 -0400

A teaser for a series of three films we created for Random House Canada to promote Douglas Coupland's latest novel, Generation A (a follow-up to his cult hit Generation X). The three films are free to view & download on iTunes tinyurl.com/l65n4w

Cast: CRUSH

R.E.M Man-Sized Wreath

CRUSH — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:28:51 -0400

Winner of Best Music Video at the 2009 LA Shorts Fest.

Title: Man-Sized Wreath
Artist: R.E.M
Label: Warner Bros. Records
Director: Crush, Toronto
Crush Creative Directors: Gary Thomas, Stefan Woronko & Natasha Rand
Production Company: Crush, Toronto
Executive Producer: Jo-ann Cook
Producer: Stephanie Pennington
Assistant Producer: Kristen Van Fleet
Editor: Kim Knight, Sons and Daughters, Toronto
Shot, Designed & Animated by: Crush, Toronto

Here is the story behind Man-Sized Wreath, written by Gary Thomas, Creative Director, Crush.

The project is a continuation of the work we started with Hollow Man. That video was intended as a statement about isolation, the fear of losing who we are. This film is a more pointed statement about the state of the world politically, and the idea that we are all hypnotized by so much meaningless diversion we don't focus on things that matter.

When we first talked to Michael Stipe, he gave us the background to the song, concerning Bush's visit to Martin Luther King's memorial, we felt that there was a point to be made about disconnected power and the obliviousness of authority to people. Toward that end, we seized on the idea of a motorcade from the lyrics and built a number of scenes with a crudely animated motorcade crashing through people and anything in its path.

The other strand that runs through the video is a live action thread with an "everyman" figure, moving through the world bein followed, surrounded and eventually chased by the bright colours and diversions of the media. His moment of realization is the denouement of the film. We presented our ideas to Michael Stipe and he was on board, so we just continued to add layers of meaning to the shots.

The main challenges were partially time (although the band and label allowed us the flexibility to flesh out our ideas), and technical. We wanted to keep the video fluid and rough, so shooting was guerilla style, meaning a lot of laborious 3D tracking.

We used every tool at Crush. We shot all the elements, edited with Kim Knight at our sister company, Sons and Daughters, did After Effects design and animation, Flame work 3d Tracking and Maya CG.

The project was a huge labour of love for everyone at Crush. It is rare that we get a chance to work on a project as satisfying as Hollow Man, which allowed us to spread our wings, and then be able to develop on those themes.

Michael Stipe and REM are a dream to work with and we're spoiled forever after this project. Crush is a production company that does diverse creative work. We look for things that make sense for us creatively. This project absolutely fit that.

Cast: CRUSH

Knight Fever - Written, Directed and Animated by Christopher Minos

CRUSH — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:52:52 -0400

Christopher Minos is Crush’s animation director. He has been an animator for 25 years, starting in Sydney Australia, where he worked for Disney, and then in his own animation studio. He was at ILM for seven years, then at CORE working on “The Wild” and then at Crush.

Christopher has been developing a hybrid animation style that is part 2D, part 3D, and has a classic sensibility. “Knight Fever” was a labour of love Christopher was working on for two years (during downtime). It was finished at the end of last year and has been submitted into several festivals. It’s first screening is next week at the LA Short Film Festival.

Knight Fever
Written, Directed and Animated by Christopher Minos
Additional Story: Stefan Woronko & Gary Thomas, Crush Toronto
Production company: Crush, Toronto
Producer: Jo-ann Cook
Music and Sound Design: Scott Bucsis
Additional Effects: Mark Irish, Jacques Dell
Composting: Greg Dunlop
Technical Assistance: Aylwin Fernando
Production Coordinator: Kristen Van Fleet
Credits and Titles: Chris Rolf

Cast: CRUSH

R.E.M. Hollow Man

CRUSH — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:19:27 -0400

Title: Hollow Man
Artist: R.E.M.
Label: Warner Bros. Records
Director: Crush
Production Company: Crush, Toronto
Crush Creative Directors: Gary Thomas, Stefan Woronko
Executive Producer: Jo-ann Cook
Producer: Stephanie Pennington
Shot, designed and animated by Crush, Toronto

We first spoke to Michael Stipe at the end of February. He heard about us through the work we did last year for Doug Coupland’s new book, The Gum Thief. He wanted a video that was frantic and dense and not overly polished or fretted over. Michael has great instincts about what visuals are right for the song, but really allowed us to run with the clip, adding really good, insightful comments at the right times, even as the band began a punishing press tour to launch the new album.

When we first started talking to Michael about the meaning behind the lyrics, the song really struck a chord with us. We all fear losing who we are or getting so far down a path, either in career or personally, that we can’t get back. We wanted to build on that as our theme. The idea of isolation, the universality of that and to see how that moment of realization, the explosion of understanding changes your path.

From there we took a page from R.E.M.’s approach to writing and recording the new record. We wanted to take the “punk” aesthetic and represent it for 2008. We wanted to see the Hollow Man as a person (or in our case three people), as a digital avatar, or as a roughly drawn representation. We wanted the lyrics to stand out front, plain and confronting without losing their layers of meaning. We felt that the moment of understanding needed to feel like an explosion, and that dictated the rush of images, punctuated by moments of clarity (the falling man).

Crush works a bit like a band. We all have our roles but we collaborate, sometimes leading each other and sometimes following. The creative process was liquid and constantly changing. We knew where we wanted to go, but didn’t constrict ourselves early on, adding and subtracting until sometime around lunchtime on the day the video shipped. We started out feeling like typography was going to be the main device, then felt a hand animated section would give it the humanity the words needed, then as we explored, thought a live action representation would connect all the elements. The digital “avatar” came from Michael Stipe's comments about performing the song at SXSW, and it went on to becoming the symbolic heart of the video.

We used every toy in the building, shot footage in Stephanie (our producer’s) apartment, in our grubby stairwell, just generally got back to a place where all creative people start and then slowly get away from, to try to make pictures work like music.

- Gary Thomas, Creative Director, Crush

Cast: CRUSH

Hellmann’s - It’s Time for Real

CRUSH — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:07:08 -0400

We created this spot along with Sons and Daughters director Steve Gordon for the Hellmann's site eatrealeatlocal.ca/

Agency is Ogilvy, Toronto

Cast: CRUSH

Civilization by Marco Brambilla

CRUSH — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:42:13 -0400

Civilization is a video installation we created with artist/director Marco Brambilla for the elevators Standard Hotel in NYC. It's comprised of over 400 video clips and it takes elevator passengers on a trip from hell to heaven as they go up or from heaven to hell as they go down. Pictures of the installation and Q&A with Brambilla and Crush is posted here glossyinc.com/civilization.html

Title: Civilization (MEGAPLEX), 2008 By: Marco Brambilla
Client: The Standard Hotel, New York
Editor/Research Assistant: Beau Dickson
Assistant: Swapna Tamhane
Production Company: Crush, Toronto
Representation/Images Courtesy of: Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica
Marco Brambilla Directorial Representation:
Ebeling Group U.S.A.

Cast: CRUSH