Tronic for Target

Tronic has recently released some stylish new projects for Target. The first three are minimalist semi-narratives (1 | 2 | 3) following marbles through abstractions of the Target logo. The fourth is a longer form live-action piece featuring graffiti artists Mr. Jago and Kofie One. I’m more into the marble pieces, though. They’re simple but engaging, playful without being silly.

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If you’re near Dallas’ downtown Victory Park, you can see them in person, where they play three times a day. In the interest of geeking out, here’s some tech info on the venue:

“Victory Park is one of the largest high-definition outdoor media installations in the world. Barco has provided over 46,000 Olite 510 outdoor LED modules for the Victory Media Network, which will include two fixed 20×20-foot tower displays, a digital portal, and eight movable 15×26-foot LED walls installed in two four-panel groups facing each other across the 60-foot wide Victory Plaza. The movable media displays are mounted on rails, and stacked two-on-two. The panels can be choreographed individually with discrete video and surround-sound feeds, or locked together to form one 30×50-foot, 16:9 HD screen.”

That sounds totally insane. The next time I’m in Dallas (which, with any luck, won’t be for a while), I’ll have to check that out. I wonder if they’ll let me hook up my Wii.

Marbles 01 | Marbles 02 | Marbles 03 | Revolution

And, for those who are interested, there are a few more behind-the-scenes technical nuggets in this press release. Audio design for the marbles spots was handled by Statique Sound.

About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.

11 Comments

krozm

Well executed from a conceptual standpoint, though I struggle with the branding connection to Target. I don’t know how it is in the States, but if this was screened in Australia it would miss the ‘Target’ audience all together. Oh dear, that was horrid.

MilkmanD

Krozm, did you know https://www.krozm.com/reel.mov is a dead link?

TheTofuFactory

Krozm – A bunch of us here at Cellfish Media watched it and we caught on it was target right away just by colors. I think Target in the US may be a heavy hitter when it comes to posting in peoples memory. White and Red of that type are directly related to target here in the US but maybe thats just my opinion. Does anyone else think so?

Either way, great spots. I had a very calm and focused moment while watching each of the spots.

KGB

I agree that these don’t have really strong branding, but considering how often they are meant to be played back I think its a good thing.

Looks like some fun 3D with clean materials, and physics simulations. I personally like Marbles 03.

I’m not really into the Revolution piece, although the two are talented artists and I like the extruded 3D at the end.

Cool stuff overall.

Would be cool to see a video of the installation if anyone can swing that :-)

electric

The long form piece can be seen as a metaphor for motion graphics in general- artists spending countless hours designing beautiful pieces that in the end boil down to a corporate logo and a meaningless slogan. “Art for Everybody?” What? Target is a place to buy Q-Tips in bulk and expensive Swiffer replacements. Great work though, Trollback. The short pieces are gorgeous.

electric

excuse me, Tronic. I was just looking at Trollback’s new reel before that. Sorry.

KGB

Very informative press release BTW…thank you.

beerad

Awesome, really dig the second one, reminds me of playing with this (minus the google branding).

ochyming

Tronic are more about Cross Platform art video.

They are cold and aloof, so I love them.

MetalGuru

I have to agree with krozm on the marbles. Pretty, but completely meaningless. First marble one was boring, second better, and third best. I’m from Canada so maybe it means more in the US as Tofufactory states, but I really have no idea as to how they serve as ads. I loved the popup Target ads.

And I’d second electric on the stupid slogan. I got bored during the piece, skipped through it, and was puzzled by the ending. But that’s just my 2 cents.

jo3

I agree with the meaninglessness already mentioned. Also the animations themselves regardless of the association with target don’t make sense, they seem stale and don’t reference anything exterior to themselves. The actual character of the marbles appears as though the environment they exist in has 90% normal gravity.

To me, it’s just pretty reflection and the correct refraction settings for glass marbles.

Oh, and I haven’t looked at the other link yet.

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