It’s rare for creative teams to discuss the details that went into their groundbreaking campaigns. But Spike executives are so thrilled with their campaign for Ink Master Revenge—which Spike’s marketing and creative team collaborated with 2C Creative to produce—that they’ve released a making-of video, “Ink Master Revenge: The Making of the Launch Campaign.”

“This one is very unique. It’s special,” says Terry Minogue, Spike’s SVP, brand marketing and creative, about the colorful spots touting the seventh season of Ink Master. “This is the most ambitious project we’ve done to date.”

Minogue was looking for something to celebrate the artistry of Ink Master competitors, but wanted something that hadn’t been seen before.

“Spike was really exploring a new way to deal with ink,” says Brian Eloe, creative director at 2C Creative. “There’s a lot of really interesting ink in portraits, or the ink-blotter look that’s out there—a good reference would be the Marco Polo opening titles—but that wasn’t what anybody wanted for this.”

Fortunately, 2C’s initial concepts aligned seamlessly with Spike’s vision.

“We thought it could be possible [to accomplish], but didn’t know how it would be possible,” Minogue says. It was up to 2C to make it happen.

CG was considered. Briefly.

“We did a lot of research initially, and realized it was way too much work to even get a decent result,” says Luis Martinez, design director, 2C Creative. “It would take many more hours [than practical effects] and never get the amount of detail and realism we wanted.”

Another option was combining CG and practical effects.

“A lot of people are doing fluid dynamics with a blend of CG and practical, but from an artistic standpoint we wanted this to look as real and organic as possible. That pushed us in the practical effects direction,” Eloe says.

Presenting their Spike counterparts with a visual of their concept was next to impossible without a motion test.

“We almost had to shoot it before we could show them what it was like,” Eloe says. “It was a crazy leap of faith on Spike’s part, trusting us. We were able to give enough of a roadmap about what it was going to look like, but couldn’t give them as dynamic of a prototype as is usual for these situations.”

Another hurdle was getting usable green screen footage of the show’s talent on media day, with just 20-30 minutes per person. That meant quickly assessing each person’s personality and drawing it forth in order to work with and complement the exploding ink concept. That footage was winnowed down to a dozen or so moments that could make what Eloe calls “dynamic ink performances.” An animatic was made.

Cinematographer Chris Webb of Christopher Webb Films was tasked with capturing exploding ink on film.

“That’s basically his specialty, shooting in-camera visual effects,” says Eloe.

The team submerged pieces of cardboard in tanks to deflect ink as it was injected into the water in an attempt to coax the swirls to fit with the green-screen footage.

“We shot really big plates of the ink, it was like 5K or something like that, to be able to manipulate it in post, just in case we ran into things we couldn’t use, which was the case. I’m glad we ended up shooting big and having that flexibility,” Martinez says. “We used certain parts of the cardboard shots, but were able to patch together the rest.”

It took a lot of finessing to fit the exploding ink around the green-screen footage to achieve the final look, but the work was worth it to all involved.

It may seem like a lot of effort and expense to promote the seventh season of a reality-competition series, but Minogue believes this will have legs sprawling beyond the on-air spots that began airing in late December.

“We’ll be using this toolkit that 2C delivered to us throughout the season to promote Ink Master,” he says, “We’re able to slice and dice the creative to work on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram especially. We have a giant billboard in LA. It really translates well into a seamless multiplatform experience and campaign.”

Spike shared that toolkit with Original Media, which produces Ink Master, to incorporate into the show open.

“We’re trying to get as much life out of the creative as possible because it’s been so well-received across the board,” Minogue says.

After so many seasons, sometimes it’s hard getting talent excited about doing another campaign. Not in this case.

Says Minogue: “To get them inspired and excited enough to want to share the creative on their own personal social feeds—and [show judge/rock star] Dave Novarro has a really robust social presences—is the ultimate compliment.”

Tags:


  Save as PDF