To promote their new Cranberry Raisinets product, Nestlé and their agency Ogilvy teamed up with World Leaders Entertainment on a series of Flash-animated webisodes about this antioxidant-rich snack. The first episode, titled Talking ‘Bout Cranberry, sees the Original Raisinets questioning whether or not the Cranberry Raisnet really exists (hint: she does).

As you may have seen at lineboil.com yesterday, City Harvest, a NYC-based food rescue program, has commissioned a number of animated PSAs by way of their agency DraftFCB. The campaign is titled Rescue Food, and NYC animation studio World Leaders Entertainment created these two:

Fried Green Tomatoes

Butterfinger

To help rebrand the hotel chain Econo Lodge, World Leaders Entertainment animated this :30 spot, which was overseen by Arnold Worldwide. Mike Foran, the Executive Creative Director at World Leaders, directed the spot, and Ben Stein produced. With Disney teasing their upcoming 2D feature The Princess and the Frog this week, Econo Lodge gets us in the mood with this spot titled Storybook Ending.

We also offer you a behind-the-scenes vignette of the production process.

What a year for Flash animated productions. El Tigre took home the top prize at the Annie Awards, Sita Sings the Blues snagged the Best Picture award at the 32nd Annecy Animated Film Festival and now the advertising world has bestowed upon upon a Flash project. Last month, the animated Net10 campaign was awarded a Gold at the Cannes Lions – considered the top advertising festival in the world.

In honor of this moment, we present to you an interview with Mike Foran, the Executive Creative Director at World Leaders Entertainment, the studio where the Net10 campaign was produced.

AARON SIMPSON: How did you guys end up partnering with Droga5 to work on this eight spot campaign for Net10?

MIKE FORAN: Droga5 was looking for an animation studio that could tackle a retro style reminiscent of Alex Toth and 70’s era Hanna Barbera superhero cartoons. Seeing that World Leaders produces The Venture Bros. for [adult swim] and that our VB artists design in a similar style, Droga5 selected us for the competitive bid. They asked us to submit a style frame, which we produced, revised, and then we offered a second style frame with even more characters. We leveraged the talent of our crew, particularly Matthew I. Jenkins, a lead VB Character Designer to create the frames that dictated which studio would win. They really liked our approach and aesthetic sensibility and awarded us the eight commercial campaign.

AARON: How long did the production last?

MIKE: The eight spots took about six months – from an extensive character and background development process through the final effects pass and delivery. Last summer we spent a good deal of time refining the look, feel and color for each of the League of Evil characters. Concurrently we spent time creating a fun-but-evil lair to house this unique cast of villains. Every subtly was dissected and discussed over numerous conference calls. Everyone really wanted to make this campaign the best it could be – time wasn’t really the issue.

AARON: What was involved in the production and who was responsible for each step?

MIKE: Droga5 provided us with the excellent scripts and rough character concepts. Matt Jenkins handled the character and background design and oversaw the storyboard process with me. I sat in with them during recording to provide some input on animation issues. Once we had the scratch tracks we got started on the storyboard process. The storyboards, layout, and pencil test animation were completed directly in Flash on Wacom Cintiqs, which allowed us to move quickly. But Flash alone didn’t provide the right look for our project as we needed a more traditional look. So we developed a Photoshop process for digital ink and paint, while still using the Flash environment for speed and versatility. The finished elements were then imported into After Effects for compositing and effects. We developed our own techniques for recreating the exact look of 70’s era film stock, with all their original imperfections and the effects of age.

AARON: What was the most difficult part of the production?

MIKE: It was a challenge to keep things in the realm of the era we were satirizing. Our work pipeline is all digital, but the artists of the era worked solely on analog tools. We had to concentrate on working in an analog way, as if we were working with traditional paper and pencils. We didn’t want to use a lot of short cuts that Flash provides, as they would have seemed out of place on this project. And with all the digital effects at our disposal, it’s very easy to utilize some esoteric thing that wouldn’t have been used back in the 70’s, particularly with the budgets they had.

AARON: How does this production process differ from some of World Leaders other productions?

MIKE: This is actually a progression of the production pipeline that we’ve developed and used for many of the studio’s projects in the past. By combining Flash with our other tools in such a seamless fashion, we’ve created a very versatile pipeline that’s as cost effective as it is quick to use. The new Adobe CS3 software helped in this case as the work we were doing in Flash integrated more quickly with After Effects, so we were able to save some time and increase our flexibility for changes.

AARON: How long have you been using Flash in your productions?

MIKE: World Leaders has been using Flash since we founded the studio. Back when it was called FutureSplash, I used it on some cut scenes for video games. When we founded World Leaders, our first project was producing 10 episodes of WB’s Gotham Girls (recently re-released on the Birds of Prey DVD) which were produced and delivered with Flash. We have used Flash in some capacity on practically every job we have ever done.

AARON: What’s the best part of using Flash in a production?

MIKE: Simply put – speed. It allows us to quickly test out animation with real time playback. We have developed a fully digital production pipeline that helps us to go from storyboards, animatic, layout directly into pencil test or final animation very quickly.

AARON: What was your reaction when you heard that your campaign had won Gold Lion at Cannes Lions Advertising Festival?

MIKE: I was very excited – it’s the most prestigious award in the advertising industry. But all along, I had high hopes for this campaign. From the moment we saw Droga5’s excellent creative, we knew this was going to be a great project to be a part of. They clearly understood the subject matter they were satirizing, and from World Leaders experience creating The Venture Bros., they knew we got it. I’m extremely excited that everyone else gets it too.

AARON: What commercial jobs have you been working on since?

MIKE: We recently completed a fifteen second commercial for Choice Hotels, featuring their rebranding of Econo Lodge. That’s really exciting because they have not advertised nationally on television in over ten years. We’re also starting up production on a web PSA in collaboration with DraftFCB for City Harvest. They are a fantastic nonprofit organization that rescues perfectly good food from restaurants that would otherwise go to waste, and donates it to homeless shelters. DraftFCB’s creative work on this project is great, so I am really excited to direct this spot.

AARON: What else is in the pipeline for World Leaders?

MIKE: The Venture Bros. Season IV is underway, and we have some ten entertainment projects in various stages of development that we are particularly excited about.

AARON: What has been your favorite Flash animation production?

MIKE: The one I am working on RIGHT NOW. Nothing excites me more than the new.

AARON: Thanks for the interview, Mike, and congrats on the award. For more Net10 animation, head over to the no-evil.net mini-site.

By day Miguel Martinez-Joffre is the Creative Director at World Leaders Entertainment, where he worked The Venture Bros. seasons 1 and 2. But when the sun goes down, Miguel has, for the past two years, been hard at work on his independent animated short Tickle Me Silly. It’s the tale of young raccoon crime fighter, and to bring this children’s story to life he relied on his volunteer animation roster – Jean Tsen, Art Siriamonthep, Yuri Fain, Justin Roth, Justin Offner, Danny Hynes and Joe Cappabianca. The film was recently selected to be apart of the 2008 KIDS FIRST! Film Festival and the 2008 California International Animation Festival, where it Tickle Me Silly has been nominated for two awards – Best 2D Animation and Best Children’s Animation. Congrats to Miguel and the production team!

Below is a short clip from the film: