Sarofsky

John Wells Productions came to us looking for a main title sequence that captures the essence of their series “Shameless.” Our solution features all the characters in a way that is both distinctly humorous and slightly voyeuristic. The success of the main title as a portrait of the Gallagher family hinges on its unique location. The bathroom as the setting allows the viewer to connect with the family on a very human level, while at the same time it communicates their circumstances, closeness and innate humor.

Last year, Oscar nominated filmmaker Richard Robbins came to Erin to discuss his latest documentary, Girl Rising.

This film journeys around the globe to witness the strength of the human spirit and the power of education to change a girl - and the world. Girl Rising consists of nine different girls' stories of how education factored into their life circumstances. Each girl was paired with a female writer from her own country, and then her story was filmed and narrated. Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Selena Gomez and other acclaimed actors contribute voice performances to the film, which also features original music from Academy Award winner Rachel Portman and Grammy Award winner Lorne Balfe.

Robbins’ approach to the film created a unique challenge: how do we create an open and interstitials that add a depth of knowledge and global context, as well as maintain the flow of the movie? That's where Sarofsky helped. After lengthy discussions and numerous script revisions, we developed a series of scenarios that feature a group of girls, who present important statistical information in both a playful and filmic way. Combining our visuals, Robbins’ writing and Liam Neeson’s voiceover made for not only a beautiful piece, but also an effective way to weave the different stories together.

In the end, we are proud to be a part of a project that delivers a simple, critical truth: Educate Girls and you will Change the World.

AMC and Fuse Entertainment came to us looking for an opening title sequence for their newest series, The Killing. In our sequence, we introduce The Killing by taking a journey through eerie, wet Seattle from the perspective the main character, Sarah Linden. As she drives from the city to Discovery Park, multiple environments are seen through the foggy, rain saturated windows of her car. However, throughout the drive, we also cut to erratic and fast moving images of a dead body. We introduce the setting of the show, while at the same time, we witness the inner workings of Sarah's mind.

The team at JWT came to us to incorporate branding and typography into their most recent Smirnoff commercials. We started off with Smirnoff's font, Trade Gothic Condense Bold, then altered it so it would fit seamlessly into their spots. The solution we came up with is a reflection of the neon elements that run throughout the commercial. We then tracked the new typeface into the environment. What we produced included a subtle animation technique and a unique typographical treatment, creating a beautiful super in both English and French.

This year started out with a fun, live action project from Peter Mayer Advertising: CenturyLink - "Yep." Erin Sarofsky directed the live action shoot for this quirky dialogue spot, where we were able to add a bit of humor to the script. We then created and integrated 3D elements in post production, as well as edited and finished the final pieces.

The Playboy Club show creator Chad Hodge came to us to create the main title for this awesome series. Our goal was to create a sequence that would capture the retro, 1960s vibe of the show, but would also maintain a modern, contemporary style… The solution uses a stark black and white foundation as the color palette, which allows the Bunny outfits to pop. We produced a live action shoot of the show’s main characters: Eddie Cibrian, Amber Heard and Laura Benanti, as well as three additional Bunnies.

Over the past couple of years, our relationship with MRM Worldwide has continued to grow. With this exploratory project, we were given the creative freedom to develop something unique for the Verizon FiOS brand.

The team behind Men at Work, the newest comedy on TBS, came to us for a fun main title for their series… Our concept takes us through a series of photographs featuring the history of traditional working men... Construction workers, lumberjacks, mechanics, etc. We end on the stars of the show: four somewhat metrosexual guys who work for a magazine… Today’s version of "men at work."

Our friends, the Russo Brothers, recently reached out to us to create a main title for the NBC's new comedy, Animal Practice. Our solution features treated photographs of a variety of animals... Including a few stars from the Sarofsky office.

The Russo Brothers and creator David Caspe asked us to create a short main title for their latest endeavor: Happy Endings. Our solution captures the fun spirit of the show, while simultaneously interjecting bits of Chicago scenery. We shot the entire sequence with stills in different locations throughout the city, including several shots from our own backyard in the West Loop. We then edited them together to create a constant stream of "happy"s.

We are proud to share our main title for "Community." After some discussion and development, we landed on the cootie catcher as the perfect device to take us through the credits. The cootie catcher is inherently amateurish, nostalgic, rich with texture and totally playful... All of which speak to the show and its characters... And it provided the perfect paper canvas to display credits. We executed this entirely in 3D and composited the cootie catcher into the actual library where the majority of the show takes place.

We created the feature main title for the new animated movie “Superman/Batman: Public Enemies” for Warner Video and DC Animation that tips the hat to Saul Bass. The project is a 2:17 long animated piece that captures the spirit of classic 1960’s film titles. Bold and slightly abstract, the animated twists and turns are geometric references to the power of comic heroes as pop culture icons and a playful lead-in for the graphic novel-style drama to unfold.

The team at Ogilvy & Mather came to us looking for a treatment that would feature three bold new Motorola phones, as well as communicate the various attributes that MOTOBLUR has to offer. We filmed the hand model using the phones to make sure the user interactions felt natural. We then replaced the phones with their CG equivalents to create all the flips, turns and other phone movements and composited in the various screen operations.

We teamed up with one of the most up and coming interactive companies (welikesmall) and one of the most talented agencies out there (Weiden + Kennedy) to create this iPhone application for Coca-Cola. The concept is simple, the Coke bottle is a visual take on the traditional magic 8-ball. All you have to do is shake the bottle, pop the cap and watch one of the answers reveal itself as the liquid washes the screen.

Some amazingly talented people at Harpo Creative Works asked us to help create the graphics package for The Nate Berkus Show. We started by creating a fully dimensional logo in 3D. This logo consists of lacquer textured typography encased in a glass box with wallpaper matching The Nate Berkus Show set lining the back panel. From there, we developed custom, photo-real 3D backgrounds that placed Nate's name in real world scenes. Then, we shot hundreds (yes, hundreds) of macro still-life images to use as backplates for bumpers, info graphics and on set graphics.

AMC came to us to create a promotional package for their War Heroes Weekend, a movie marathon that spanned Memorial Day weekend. We started off by creating a concept that incorporated the different branches of the military. From there, we developed a design armature that housed imagery relating to those different branches. We created all the graphics from scratch… Everything from the logo and the bumpers to the film opens, lower thirds, snipes, bugs, etc. We also produced a live action shoot that included both active and retired United States military personnel. Those live action portraits were used in all the elements we created.

After falling in love with our main title sequence for Happy Endings, Executive Producer Betsy Thomas came to us for a title card for her new NBC series, Whitney. In developing the title card, we started by designing several options for the Whitney team to choose from… Once we narrowed it down to the “Piggy Back” option, we produced a live action shoot of Whitney and Chris… Then edited them to create the perfect sequence to introduce the series.

USA Network came to us looking for a fun and edgy main title for their series, Necessary Roughness. The title sequence we created captures the vibe of the show, both literally and symbolically. We focus on a football, as it flies gracefully through Dani’s flawlessly manicured home. This juxtaposition creates a visual tension that is mimicked throughout the series. At the end of the sequence, the ball crashes into a series of objects and comes to a rest at Dani’s feet… Creating a perfect metaphor for the series.

We were delighted to have Warner Brothers Animation ask us to produce another main title for their latest Batman film. This movie explores some gritty and sinister themes and is set in the gloomy streets of Gotham City. We created an opening that embellished these ideas by employing dark, graphical compositions that took advantage of textural elements like rain and fog. We created a minimal palette with blacks, grays and blues, then used the iconic Batman yellow as an accent color.

Our friends at Peter Mayer came to us to do some simple, sophisticated typography on their latest round of Louisiana Tourism spots.

Our friends at Peter Mayer came to us to edit, create graphics and finish this charming CenturyLink commercial. The spot has already proved to be a successful branding tool and has even driven record sales.

We created a commercial for Rotary International that works with the rest of their new campaign. A campaign that uses a puzzle and its individual pieces as a metaphor for what an individual person can do in the world. To produce this, we created all the elements in 3D and composited it together to create a lovely, cohesive look that acts as a compliment to the rest of the materials in their new campaign.

We created this commercial for Verizon Perks out of MRM Worldwide. For this spot, we created charming animation techniques and graphical icons (both 2D and 3D), as well as some playful typography. In addition to all the graphics, we also produced a live action shoot of the food elements. This commercial introduces the newest feature of the Verizon network in a fun and visually appealing way, while keeping in line with their current overall style.

Our friends at Skylab-B asked us to come up with a solution that transforms the witty one-liner billboard advertisements of Turner Pest Control into a series of six 15 second commercials. We created a computer-generated world that centers around large 3D typography. The world has a lot of dimension, but maintains a strong graphical look. We bring the viewer through the copy in a way that adds to the comedic effect and also ensures legibility. All of the commercials have the same color palette and overall design approach, which continues to solidify Turner's strong brand.

Originally, we developed this look and concept for GM's President's Day Event spots... We continued down this same path for their July 4th Sales Event. To evolve the piece, we developed a different graphic armature for the supers and created a few new animations for the backgrounds. To produce the look, we created a series of fully animated backgrounds to be projected onto a 120x60 foot scrim behind the cars. In addition to main projections, we created a bunch of other elements that were projected onto the cars themselves. Once in post, we developed and produced all the graphics elements.