ABC’s promo packaging for its hit show “Scandal” revolves around the shredding of important-looking documents. As a metaphor for a political thriller about covering up government snafus, it’s pretty much perfect, though until recently there was one major problem with it: Where “Scandal’s” production strives for intimate realism, the entirely digital graphics in its marketing campaign looked anything but.

So, for Season 3 of “Scandal,” ABC decided to “elevate the graphics package and have it be based more in reality,” said ABC design director Lucas Aragón. The look and feel of the graphics would be the same, only they would have that warm immediacy of the real thing. For that, ABC called upon design, animation and production company BRKLY, whose owner, Neil Berkeley, is no stranger to content that feels tactile on the screen. In addition to creating great promo work for “Project Runway,” “Top Chef” and many other programs, his documentary on the artist Wayne White, “Beauty Is Embarrassing,” is a kind of ode to the physicality of art, and to the larger-than-life works of their larger-than-life creator.

Below, Berkeley guides Brief through the process of bringing “Scandal’s” promo packaging from the digital space into the sphere of reality.


“[Production] involved renting a big stage and producing oversized documents, about 3.5 feet by 5 feet, and we shredded those. We wanted to make it more dramatic so we backlit everything, and [took] long-lens, detailed shots of the document as it was being shredded and after it had been shredded. We had eight documents in different states of shred, and then we had about 200 smaller versions that we pushed through the paper shredder. We just shredded paper for about three hours. There was one shot where the paper is just hanging down, the classic ending of the montage. It was a big document, so we built this rig that slowly lowers it into place.”


“We actually built a paper shredder. We took a paper shredder and ripped it apart, and rebuilt it using mounts so we were able to take the camera and put it above and next to and underneath the paper as it was being shredded. If you look at a shredder, it’s not just scissors. It’s these wheels that grind against each other and shred the document, and it looks really dramatic, almost Medieval. We treated that shredding of the paper as a real dramatic transitional device. We shot it all high-speed, 120 frames-per-second, using a lot of slow-motion stuff. [ABC] loved that there was paper everywhere, little pieces of paper floating in the air, light popping through.”


“If you watch [‘Scandal’], they have these really cool transitions. They’re sort of based on a shutter and a camera, where things change focal lengths and compositions real quickly, and that moves you from one moment to the next in the show. [ABC] wanted this [promo packaging] to have that feel. They wanted it to be really snappy and really quick, and they wanted the focal length and compositions to bounce around dramatically. It heightens the pacing.”

“The show has a lot of little moments where you find something out and then you get to go online and continue researching, and [those] get hash-tagged very heavily. Within the document that we show in the promo, there are a bunch of those little Easter eggs called out and highlighted. [ABC] loved that because not only is this being used for their on-air campaign, they also have a digital side that creates tons of content. There are shows that come on right after ‘Scandal’ airs and air throughout the week. And [ABC] took all of our material and they’re building those [digital] shows [using] what we’ve shot, cutting it in as little interstitials or transitional moments.”

“The biggest challenge on this one was the time. I got the call on a Friday, and we were shooting the next Friday. It was kind of good because it’s one of those things that you can test and play with forever, but if you’re on a short schedule you have to make decisions and you have to say yes to things and start working. But the challenge is getting it physically done. Getting this shredder built, getting this rig built, getting these documents designed and approved and printed. Time is always a tough thing, but on a job like this, when you’re doing all live action with this pre-production work building and designing… it was tough. But they were a great client to collaborate with, and they knew what they wanted. It was fun. One of the documents is mounted and framed, and hanging at ABC right now.”

[Images courtesy of BRKLY and ABC.]

Tags:


  Save as PDF