BigShinyThing

Psyop have created six 15 second station idents for MTV’s high definition channel which will feature exclusively HD work and 5.1 surround sound from MTV, VH1 and CMT. The idents are extracts from a 90-second film which will also be aired in its entirety on MTV HD. According to Justin Booth Clibborn, Pysop’s executive producer:

MTV asked us to “do our thing” and create a spot that would really push the limits of the format. They gave us their complete trust and support to come up with something very different and unexpected. What we gave them can best be described as a ‘visual haiku,’ a spot that is all the more detailed and effective because of its seeming minimalism.

For those of us old enough to remember MTV’s heyday of allowing experimental filmmakers to do its idents, this is a nice return to form. It is also for our money the first truly interesting bit of HD promo work (if you exclude the BBC’s pushing of Planet Earth) that also gets the possibilities of the medium. Co-creator Marco Spier says:

We’ve done HD work before, but always with the knowledge that the work would also be viewed in NTSC. This time, viewers will only be seeing this in HD. We had the unique opportunity to take advantage of the technology and include detailed elements that would be very problematic to accomplish in NTSC. That’s how this spot ended up with so many thin, high-contrast lines that would buzz like crazy on regular television. We were able to actively work with those kinds of elements, knowing the resolution would support it.

Via lovely Proteinos. Watch the full film via the Dexigner site.