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Hi there! After two years with the same info on our website we decided it was too much, because some important things happened and we want to share our journey with those who are interested in us. So first of all and from now on we will have two blogs (this one and http://labs.grupow.com) to keep the information flowing easier and more constantly with further content than just our current work projects.

While we get done with our new splash site (that meaning: when we finally end up organizing two years of “no-break” production) we decided that it was better to tell you what we are up to lately, so matching up with our kind of new ritual we are going to start telling this story backwards.

Our last Project, the one making us drink RedBull, coffe and all kind of taurine products for the last two months, the one we are supposed not to reveal, more than it is for one of our greatest clients that trusted us their new digital worldwide campaign!

So first, from the abstract, came the idea… this guy that could be really cool but instead he´s always being mocked by EVERYBODY because of the stains on his shirt, that way he ends feeling so depressed about that and we tried to recreate a day in his life. These are a few pics from the first storyboards that we did and reference images and scenes for the shooting.

Then we went to Mexico City for ten exhausting days, working closely with the production company Distrito Films for the shooting that took place inside the legendary Churubusco Studios. It looked like things were going fine but then we realized that when pre-planning the shooting we had missed the most important part: how we were going to shoot the central part of the story!

Just before all of us had a panic attack, Jezz solved it with a brilliant idea. He made a few changes here and there, fixing a couple of things and explained that to everybody in case nobody had understood already. In a few words, Jezz saved the day.

Then, by surprise, the actor for the leading role told us that he was busy for the day of the shooting, oh my God! everything was set up but suddenly we had no main character! So we needed a Shafty actor and we needed him fast! Later that day, the casting company sent us via e-mail a new casting, but to make it saucier we had not any internet connection available… we had to go to the closer Starbucks which was about to close the day and plead them for a little while there so we could check the videos. In the last one of them, just when the management was throwing us out, it appeared just what we were looking for, Gerald Leon Morton is his name and a hell of an actor, you can trust our word about that :)

We had our detective!

As we said, we can’t tell much about the plot of the site right now. What we can say is that involves thieves, cops and a lot of funk!

Everybody cracked up with the acting of Chris Guckenberger playing the role of a surreal thief.

Funny as hell, but nobody could understand what he was saying, I mean come on!

We had been told before, but fortunately Erika and Marcia, our administrative squad at W headquarters reminded us that in the middle of that week there was going to be a gala night for the Cannes Lions organized by Reforma, representatives of Cannes Festival here in Mexico.

So we went to get our CyberLion for our Rexona’s “Quién es Fermín” site at the middle of the production in Mexico City. We found out that all you need for not being early to a meeting in Mexico City is not living there, and of course we got lost in a funny adventure of commuting from subway to public buses.

In the end we arrived to the gala an hour and a half late but we finally got there. Thanks for waiting us, it wasn’t on purpose! So cheers for the prize, but the lion must sleep tonight…

We had to get back to work… and we’re very lucky to have Rodrigo as our main producer:

He’s the one making all of that Gantt stuff that we all hate called timelines and those diagrams to check everyone’s activities to see if we’re still on time or not.

As in everything, the whole stuff starts really well organized but in the end we all get tropical, as in this annotation for Caleb and a part of his music that has no better name than “TakaTakaTan” (it’s supposed to be the rhythm of that beat and it must be erased)

These are some pics and images of the process from the first sketches to the final scene with the final color correction applied and so on. Big props to Doncha and Álex . The funny thing of that car is being the same one appearing on our beloved Stuntman project.

The first storyboard for that scene:

Jezz and Robert playing Stripes and the thief:

The original shooting:

The first 3D wireframe:

3D render:

The first composition:

Color correction:

Comparing the original and the final takes:

For the experience of the site, we decided that this time we were going to put special attention to the music and the audio in general, it’s like that the project itself demand us that. Caleb started creating digital music but it sounded too… “digital” (i’m a hell of a writer huh? haha), and not at all in the mood we were looking for, so we were to create a real soundtrack in a recording studio, looking for that 70s sound we were interested on. Even the walls in the studio rooms defines the kind of music that can be recorded out there, so after three weeks of composition and pre recording sessions, finally Caleb and Nelson founded themselves in a recording studio for a week with David Guzmán as a producer and a bunch of great musicians waiting for their guidance.

This was the first time we recorded an original song for a website, the best way to describe our sensation is Nelson’s phrase “I realize the kind of project it was when the trumpets, the saxophones and the clarinets leaved the cabin and all the cords entered”.

This is Nelson about how the chorus should be sung:

A few pics from the studio installations:

The musicians:

And the vocalist!

And finally, mixing up the tracks:

Of course the soundtrack will be downloadable, but besides that, some other goodies like a paper toy, and a screensaver would be available during the site’s experience.

This is one of the first versions of the papertoy:

And this is Fyr showing how to build the papertoy from the scratch, spin-shot included!

So that’s pretty much what we’ve been up to for the last few months. Exhausting work, but as the time goes by and the project gets developed, our faith grows because it feels that all the effort was worth it.

This site will be online starting 2009, we hope you enjoy visiting it as much as we enjoyed working on it ;)