For taut drama, thrilling adventure, and sheer visual goodness, Hollywood has nothing on Birmingham and Venice. We pulled out all the stops with the Speedshape Digital reel, peppering it with thrilling car chases, high-flying jets, killer stunt driving, sultry women, and smoky burnouts–all painstakingly paired with some of the sharpest, cleanest, and most downright thrilling interactive and CG ever created.

When you’re done with your upcoming seizure, let’s talk.

It’s not how much killer work made it on our reel. It’s how much awesome stuff we had to cut out.

When you’re forced to leave some of the most impressive CG work ever done on the cutting room floor, you know you’re doing things right. What did make it in was the absolute best of Speedshape: car chases, cult star Norman Reedus, high-flying jets, killer stunt driving, sultry women, and smoky burnouts–all painstakingly paired with some of the sharpest, cleanest, and most downright thrilling CG ever created.

If you come away impressed, keep this in mind: some of this won’t even make our next reel.

Do you ever wonder, in the intense heat of the moment, if you could keep it together and make the right choice under pressure? Skinny, Skunk/Stink Digital, and Speedshape did exactly that with every aspect of the Lexus CT200h “Dark Ride” cinematic interactive commercial, and as a result, movie and web audiences are going to be joining actor Norman Reedus for a serious thrill ride.

Speedshape certainly made the right choice in joining forces with the ideal digital partners. It all started with Speedshape London winning the project, and then all of our offices jumped right in and started grinding.

Since there were no Lexus CT200h vehicles available for the shoot, CD Jonas Hallberg of the meteoric agency Skinny NYC asked us to replace the stand-in Toyota Matrix with a digital CT200h. Then, he paired us with director James Brown, Producer Ari McGarry and the rest of the highly-capable Skunk/Stink Digital production team to really make it shine.

Right out of the gate, we knew we had to make custom low light nighttime markers to create better tracking with the beautiful low-light photography by Claudio Miranda. Once captured, we used the 3D model provided by Lexus to seamlessly and transparently build the CT200h over the proxy Matrix. Then, to create the interactive user POV experience, we worked with Skunk/Stink to find the ideal lens and field of view to film the experience to perfection.

The project isn’t over yet, but there’s one thing we already know for sure: working with this crew turned out to be one of the best decisions we’ve ever made, and we can’t wait for you to be the navigator on 05-13-2010.

View the “Dark Ride” trailer in HD on YouTube

Hess gasoline makes a great holiday gift for any age kid.

It made for a great present for us, too. Since 1965, Hess Gas has been producing their model toy trucks, and every year they get better and better. For 2009, they made two smart moves: offer a “race car inside a race car” concept toy, and hire Grey Worldwide and Speedshape to handle the advertising.

The spots turned out great, and we expect these toys to burn rubber out of the Hess stations and the Hess toy web site. Working with Grey was a rewarding experience, and we were able to help out on every aspect of the project, from matte and model painting to previs and live action shoots with the child actors.

Grey was also kind enough to send us the following props: “From the epic matte paintings to the specular highlights on the car, Speedshape’s creative point of view, level of quality control, and technical expertise were instrumental in the success of this year’s spots.  Together we have made spots that the client is ecstatic over and that we are truly proud of as an agency.  Simply put, without SPEEDSHAPE, none of this would have been possible.”

Coming from all us here at Speedshape, it’s very mutual. We’ll be thrilled to find another Hess/Grey project under the tree next year, too. (And maybe a pony.)

We’d love to show you our Transformers collection.

The Chevy Camaro can go from a sports car to an amusement park ride by simply stomping on the gas. But turning it into a match for laser-shooting giant robots was another thing altogether.

To pull this off, we crafted some beautiful silver on white scenes to run in theaters during the release of “Transformers II” and during the MLB playoffs. The work turned the already attractive Camaro into a veritable “must have” in the consumer’s eyes, and generated a lot of excitement.

Best of all, we have a shiny new toy to show off to our clients and friends.