Nickelodeon Bumpers/Next IDs (1998-2000)

Contains the following bumpers:
0:00-0:26: "Candy" #1/#2
0:26: "Laffo'rama" bumper
0:31-1:02: "Doodle Guy" #1/#2
1:03-1:33: "Cootie Catcher" #1/#2
1:33-2:26: "Socks" #1/#2
2:26-2:47: "Puppet Legs" bumper
2:47-3:23: "Hamster Pad" #1/#2/#3
3:23-3:43: "Turtle Trax" #1/#2
3:43-4:30: "Marching Monsters" #1/#2/#3/#4
4:30: "Paper Dolls" bumper
4:35-5:23: "Flipbook" #1/#2
5:23-6:02: "Candy" Next ID
6:02-6:23: "Laffo'rama" Next ID
6:23-6:53: "Cootie Catcher" Next ID
6:53-7:14: "Socks" Next ID
7:24-7:45: "Puppet Legs" Next ID
7:45-8:05: "Hamster Pad" Next ID

From Creative Planet Network:
The staff of (Colossal) Pictures had to approach a current Nickelodeon campaign with kid gloves. In creating 11 IDs, menus, and bumpers for the network, the San Francisco company chose to showcase childlike images-pet hamsters and turtles, wind-up toys, lollipops-and likewise returned to the youthful days of production with plenty of practical techniques.

"We wanted the spots to look like kids could have imagined making them, even though we brought the design to a more professional level," says Stephanie Hornish, who served as senior producer on all the spots. "The assignment was to think like a kid again, to capture what you'd be doodling in your notebook as you sit in the third row of the classroom."

"Candy," directed by Lucy Blackwell, uses stop-motion photography to lead lollipops, licorice, and candy corn in a samba dance around the network logo. Blackwell also directed "Laffo'rama," in which skits are acted out by hands in a flat doll house set reminiscent of Laugh-In. Both "Doodle Guy" and "Cootie Catcher" rely on cel animation, the latter composited with live action in Quantel's Henry, courtesy San Francisco's Realtime Video. A number of the spots use stop motion, including "Socks" and "Puppet Legs," both directed by Jim Matison. All live action for the campaign was shot on35mm.

"When we originally pitched ideas, they were of every conceivable technique," says creative director George Evelyn. On using traditional techniques, Evelyn says: "At first, we thought it would be kind of limiting, but then it really became a kind of spark. All these techniques were things we like to try, anyway. It wasn't like we said, 'Oh-stop motion?' We love it, especially when there's just a tiny bit of it, and it's not like Nightmare Before Christmas.

"Hamster Pad" and "Turtle Trax" star real, live versions of the title animals-who turned out to be as disagreeable as human actors. "The turtles were difficult, and so were the hamsters," says Hornish. "The hardest thing for myself was watching the turtles snap off pieces of live worm, which were used to get the turtles to move." Hornish reports the hamsters even administered a few bites to their wranglers from Bow Bow Productions in Campbell, California.

One stop-motion bumper "Marching Monsters" seemed simple enough: Have about 50 wind-up Godzilla toys march to a foreboding score then fall comically to their demise like lemmings. "We thought it would be easy," says Evelyn, "but it turned out to be really hard. We had this big plan of how we'd wind them up. They'd be in a little frame, and at the last minute we'd pull the frame up, but it didn't work. So then it became this comedy of winding them up, with each grip and lighting guy winding three or four of them up, and we'd put them in the frame while the camera was running. It was this Lucille Ball adventure. In the end, we had about 50 takes, and we had a great editor in Mike Tuomey who cut it to tell a story. It's a common story in filmmaking: You think you're going to do it one way, then you say, 'OK, it's time to punt.'"

Animator Bill Hunt also worked in Mac-based Adobe Photoshop and After Effects for 2-D animation in certain spots.