Head Gear's work on the Milk Dots Campaign is profiled in the March/April Issue of Communicatins Arts. The article can be found in the Exhibit section.

Still Looking At Blackbirds by Katie Haegele

A writer's hand brings its creations to life in a short Web film based on the poem "Budapest" by Billy Collins. Don't get me wrong: I love ink and pulp, journals and 'zines, secondhand bookstores and the smell of a library. But digital literature, that just keeps surprising me.

In fact, it was a piece of digital poetry that taught me there are more than 13 ways of looking at a blackbird.

Edward Picot is an English writer and critic who, this month, completed 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (www.edwardpicot.com/blackbird), a collection of animated pieces inspired by the Wallace Stevens poem of the same name. The original poem is broken into 13 short stanzas; likewise, Picot's project consists of 13 individual Flash animations. His very short films bring to life - new life - Stevens' startling images, such as "barbaric glass" and "the bawds of euphony."

Picot is also a fiction writer, and in 2000, he decided to put some of his work online. What began as a cheaper alternative to print self-publishing became an interest in the literary possibilities of the new medium, and he started writing nonlinear fiction. He told me that he views digital poetry as a natural extension of 20th-century experimental poetry.

Picot said that "many of the ideas of concrete poetry" - in which the shape of the typography on the printed page is an element of the poem - "have been picked up by hyperliterature. Instead of having a poem about a bird which is shaped like a bird, you can have a poem about a bird which is shaped like a bird and moves across the page like a bird."

Picot's Web site (www.edwardpicot.com) is home to the Hyperliterature Exchange, which offers links and criticism of digital literature, his own original pieces, and the Blackbirds sequence. He says that to be successful, visual "interpretations" of poems must be original pieces of art in their own right.

"If you're going to be literal-minded, then you'll never get anywhere. You have to remake it as something new. I suppose the paradigms would be something like Verdi making an opera out of Falstaff, or Tchaikovsky making one out of Eugene Onegin, or Hitchcock making a film out of Rebecca or even Walt Disney's Fantasia. Not slavish translations of existing works of art, but new works of art which use the old ones as jumping-off points."

Or, as the Sundance Channel would have it, action poetry!

Last year, the independent-film channel commissioned animators to create shorts based on poems by Billy Collins. The resulting Action Poetry Series (www.bcactionpoet.org) consists of 11 short films, each narrated by Collins, who recites his poems in a deadpan that reminds me of Kevin Spacey's eternally amused voice-over in American Beauty.

The animated films for three of the poems - "Some Days," "Budapest" and "Forgetfulness" - were made by Julian Grey, director and partner of Head Gear Animation in Toronto (www.headgearanimation.com). Head Gear makes stop-motion animation, Claymation, mixed media and live-action films for commercial and broadcast clients, such as MTV and Kellogg's.

I talked to Grey about his films, which are dark, witty, and clever, like the poems themselves. Although he wasn't familiar with the poems he chose beforehand, he was already acclimated to the idea of taking another person's concept and making it visual.

"As a commercial director, I am often engaged in interpretation of ideas and brands, translating concepts into a visual medium that can engage the viewer," he explained.

In the poem "Budapest," Collins describes a writer scribbling, his pen "intent as any forager with nothing on its mind but the grubs and insects that will allow it to live another day." For his piece, Grey shot an actor's hand frame by frame, then added wiggly little creatures resembling pen doodles in cel animation. The result is a film about a writer who literally makes things come to life.

If that's not a good metaphor for literature, both on the page and on the screen, I don't know what is.

"Forgetfulness" and MTV 48Fest is featured in the venerable IDN Vol 14 No 1 2007 magazine as well as DVD

Screen Magazine

CRAZY GOOD: Head Gear Animation For Leo Burnett And Pop-Tarts By Julie Mynatt

Sometimes the best things are the simplest ones. For Pop-Tarts Toaster Pastries from Leo Burnett (Chicago), Head Gear Animation (Toronto) was charged with creating four simple, cel-animated spots that are a refreshing break from the more typical high-energy, high-volume advertising for kids.

Simple black-and-white line animated Pop-Tart characters (designed by Leo Burnett art director Amy Servidea) are seen in a number of silly, slightly absurd situations. The French Toast flavored Pop-Tart is served up as a beret-sporting Francophone complete with pink poodle. The Wildberry Pop-Tart is a daredevil who leaps toasters Evil Kneivel-style. Each of the Pop-Tarts are pursued by wily kids (each with their own quirks) who want to gobble up the delicious pastries.

Head Gear Animation usually does their own character design, but director Steve Angel was so taken by the whimsical characters that Servidea created, he was instantly interested in bringing them to life. "When they approached us we figured why not. They were so quirky and the voice casting was so funny and strange, we liked it right away," says Angel.

Angel also says that his collaboration with Servidea, copywriter Pete Levebvre and producer Scott Gould has been pretty open, allowing him to pitch in ideas to add to the silliness. "They've been good in giving me a lot of license to come up with funny bits," says Angel.

So far, Head Gear has completed four spots for the campaign, and they've enjoyed every moment of the process. "The scenarios are so funny, its been engaging and fun the whole time," says Angel. "It's funny and simple. It cuts through [other kids' advertising] as a result of that." Head Gear Animation is represented in the Midwest by Liz Laine Reps, Inc.

Crazy Good Pop-Tarts By Marc Loftus

Toronto- Head Gear Animation wrapped up work on the third cel animated spot in a four spot campaign for Kellogg's Pop-Tarts through Leo Burnett/ Chicago. The :30s are part of the Crazy Good campaign, which introduces new flavors and also features the classics. The first spot shows French Toast Pop-Tart as a stereotypical Parisian, with beret and snooty poodle. In the second, an indignant Cinnamon Roll is berated for having sticky buns. The third spot cast Wildberry Pop-Tart as a thrill seeker, and the final spot features Blueberry as a bluesman with a guitar.

Head Gear co-founder Steve Angel directed. He and Jacob Bauming animated with help from Isaac King and Nick Fairhead, who led a team of After Effects compositors.