W/M Animation crafts a game for Kraft

In an effort to bring more exposure to their snack Ritz Crackerfuls, Kraft foods launched a facebook game created by W/M Animation and produced through Acme Filmworks.  The game is a first-person scenario where the user plays as the main character who is experiencing hunger at work and gets to make decisions and follow different paths for the character to take resulting in an array of various endings.  The game and entire Ritz campaign was conceived by Euro RSCG Worldwide and took a lot of figuring out to keep track of the scenario segments and ensure the continuity is maintained so that the different paths transition smoothly.
We wanted to try and bring some familiarity and reality to the spot so while the characters were created in and animated in flash, the backgrounds were done with a more photo-realistic feel and the office environment was built in After Effects to give the characters a "3D" environment to walk through to enhance the illusion of the user AS the character. 
The game hopes to connect with adults 25 - 54 who may often find themselves at their desk waiting for their lunch breaks and hoping to have a snack they can munch on till then.  While deciding what to eat, why not try out the game on facebook?
facebook.com/RitzCrackerfuls 
      Here is a recent NY Times article about the project.
Kraft Tries Again With a Ritz Snack, Aiming Younger
Thanks to our crew and all the people at Euro RSCG for seeking us out to work on this project.
Special thanks to Pernille D'Avolio who did a great job of producing this for Acme. 

     For W/M Animation:

Produced and Directed by:  Robert Marianetti, David Wachtenheim
Characters Designed by:  David Wachtenheim
Animation by:  Sean Lattrell, Dan Madia, Steve Mead, Frank Summers, Mike Wetterhahn, David Wachtenheim
After Effects:  Dale Clowdis
Backgrounds: Kevin Lacroix, Robert Marianetti

     For Acme Filmworks:

Produced by: Pernille D'Avolio
Animatic Editing by:  George Khair

     For Euro RSCG Worldwide:

Producer:  Miriam Herzfeld
Executive Creative Directors:  Israel Garber, Steve Kashtan
Writer: Will Thomsen
Art Director: Andrew Di Peri, Patrick Jones

Weird Al Polka

Weird Al Yankovic is most famous for his parodies of popular hits but he also has recorded a number of polka medleys which are snippets of songs that he reinterprets as polkas complete with accordian, tuba, clarinet and a slide whistle or two. Mostly the videos for his medleys are clips from the original artists music videos that are strung together and occasionally sped up to allow for the sometimes peppier beat of the polka.
For his latest medley, which features songs from Lady Gaga, Kay Perry, Pink and many more, he decided to have the video done in animation and enlisted the aid of Acme http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifFilmworks to put it all together as a sort of anijam type of film where various artists will do each segment.
We were requested by Yankovic to participate and had a lot of fun in producing six of the segments for the video which will be featured on his Comedy Central special "Weird Al" Yankovic: The Alpocalypse Tour which prremiers Saturday, Oct 1 at 9/8c.
The remainder or the segments were produced by the following talented filmmakers:
Dan Meth, Philip Eddolls, John Dilworth, Janet Perlman, Anna Bergmann, Chris Hinton, Greg Holfeld and Sharon Colman Graham.
It's an eclectic piece of animation but quite fun to watch.