KATY PERRY "ROAR"

JONATHAN WU
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
2ND UNIT DIRECTOR
Production: Motion Theory
Post Production: Mirada Studios
Awards & Recognitions:

• People's Choice Awards: Favorite Music Video
• Over 1 Billion hits on YouTube

The video opens with Katy and her boyfriend stepping out of their crashed plane in the middle of the jungle. Katy's boyfriend is eaten by a tiger, forcing her to face exotic jungle obstacles on her own.  Timid at first, she increasingly befriends (and beautifies) jungle animals and transforms from city girl into a female Tarzan.

Once her fears are conquered, she's at home in the jungle. She challenges the legendary tiger to a roar-off in the ultimate battle of power. We end the story with a victorious Katy as the Queen of the Jungle, surrounded by her animal friends.

Production

Coupled by the vision of Directors Grady Hall and Mark Kudsi to make a mini-blockbuster film, we collaborated to create a narrative thread of empowerment. We developed story options using "Katy-isms," many concept frames for set design, and inspirational pulls to pay homage to vintage heroines.

Live-Action

As 2nd Unit Director, I shot several "Katy-ism" beats and captured many animal performances along with the environments and double.

Post Production

To achieve this thematic music video, I led a team of the industry's top artists consisting of: editors, designers, animators, compositors, matte painters and FX. I collaborated alongside VFX Supervisor Michael Shelton, Art Director Daryn Wakasa, and Post Producer Derek Johnson, who were also involved in the Production and Live-Action processes.

Production

Worked closely with Director Grady Hall from the earliest stages of the concept, helping to develop scenes, dance moments, and vintage looks that would help to create his vision of a mash-up of the past 100 years of dance in one big dance circle.

Live-Action

As 2nd Unit Director, I captured and crafted Ryan Merchant and Sebu Simonian's green screen performances. I also shot multiple narrative beats of dance performers emerging back to life at the Los Angeles Theater.

Post Production

Using a combination of archived footage and shot footage, I led a team of editors, designers, animators, and compositors. We created our film to be fun, uplifting, and filled with surprises in serving the ultimate mash-up concept.

NINTENDO "MK8"

JONATHAN WU
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Production: Motion Theory
Post Production: Mirada Studios

Mario Kart 8 launched with a series of comedic, larger-than-life outtakes and bloopers from a fictional "test facility" for the game.  If this video game were real, what would it look like, and what crazy things would you do in it? How about shrink a friend's head with the lighting bolt, or fly upside down in a hover kart?  Any piece of magic in the game became the possible basis for a comedy scene.

As one of Nintendo's best-selling video games, this slapsticky ad shows the fun and playfulness that goes on in creating the game features. The mischief between the lab technicians, test driver, and power-up items in each test facility forms a comedic partnership. These comedic, "real-life" demonstrations of the game magic invite viewers to imagine how they'd use this power in real life.

Production

Imagining the Mario Kart 8 world as if it were real life, Director Mark Kudsi and I collaborated on maximizing the comedic aspects using a Mario-like-world test facility.

Post Production

I led an incredible team of designers and VFX artists, alongside VFX Supervisor Danny Zobrist, to bring a slapstick Mario Kart world to life.

Aesthetic

In partnership with the Leo Burnett creatives, I guided the look of the facility to stay grounded in the brand's DNA, also bringing the game's fantasy elements to life as real-world settings and characters.

IBM "THINK" EXHIBIT

JONATHAN WU
SENIOR ART DIRECTOR
Production: Motion Theory
Post Production: Mirada Studios
Awards: 

• ADC (Interactive / Physical Installation): Gold Cube award & audience award
• AICP / NEXT: Next Integrated Campaign award & Next Experiential award
• IDSA: IDSA gold award
• One Show Entertainment: Gold pencil

An Immersive Story Experience – In Three Parts

Channeling the spirit of the awe-inspiring experiential spectacle of the IBM Pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair, SYPartners and Mirada forged a creative partnership to design a new, expansive, multi-platform interactive exhibit that would chronicle some of the great discoveries, inventions, trials, errors, and triumphs that have paved humanity's long road to improving the way we live and function, and show how such significant advances—how humans go about accomplishing them—tend to follow the same distinct, repeatable pattern of progress. Just as importantly, the exhibit highlighted pivotal present-day advances, innovators, and future trends born of these centuries of scientific progress.

The overall exhibit experience was designed and constructed to flow seamlessly, taking audiences through three unique consecutive stages – a fluid three-act structure, if you will: 1) a massive exterior data visualization wall; 2) a 14-minute, fully immersive, "multiple-surround-screen" film; and 3) a final "deep dive" learning segment, wherein audiences could engage with, and navigate their own way through, countless aspects of the history and future of human science via giant interactive touch screens.

Digital Wall

For the IBM Exhibit, I directed a series of teaser videos that were showcased on the massive exterior wall at Lincoln Center. 

Film

With Director Mathew Cullen's vision of creating an immersive story experience, I led a team of the most creative coders, designers, and animators to visualize data in creatively compelling new ways as part of the audience's surround-screen experience.

Interactive

I worked closely with the design team on creating the initial UI layout to transform the landscape of the digital culture.

Live-Action

As 2nd Unit Director, I shot several monuments and landmarks with the production team over in France and England, and participated in the shoot back at Disneyland and around Los Angeles.

Post Production

I led a talented team of designers, animators, and compositors that brought the magical story of Disney's "Giants" to life.

Animation

We collaborated with Disney and Pixar on character animation, gestures, and color for an epic celebration at Disneyland's Main Street.

LEXUS "DECEMBER TO REMEMBER"
DIGITAL VIDEO

JONATHAN WU
DIRECTOR
Production: Motion Theory
Post Production: Mirada Studios

When one of Santa's most inventive gift-giving methods, a teleporter, is operated by amateurs, a Lexus RX ends up about as far as you can get from a garage.

This comedic approach features two elves at work, along with their forest friends, in the North Pole. As excited as they are to be operating Santa's new teleporter, they just have no clue what they're doing. With a hopeful pull of the lever and a couple of finger's crossed, the Lexus RX is teleported to the top of Thor's hammer at Bryce Canyon. All the while, our elve's unwittingly carry on with their regular work day.

LEXUS "DECEMBER TO REMEMBER"

JONATHAN WU
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Production: Motion Theory
Post Production: Mirada Studios

Lexus's "December to Remember" ads, with the luxury vehicles done up in those famous giant red bows, have become as much a part of the holiday firmament as Santa Claus himself. And this year, Team One aims to capture the full spirit of the season by suggesting a new Lexus is the only thing that can give grown-ups that magical feeling of being a kid on Christmas morning.

Three spots feature parents telling their children fantastical stories of how they received a Lexus for Christmas. And no, one spouse didn't just surprise the other by festooning it in an oversize ribbon and parking it in the driveway.

"Christmas Train," which evokes The Polar Express, shows a Lexus IS F Sport sedan being delivered via rail from the North Pole. "Magic Box" shows how large objects, like a Lexus ES sedan, can come in extremely small packages. And "Teleporter" tells of a special ice-covered elf machine that transports a Lexus RX luxury crossover from a winter wonderland into a family driveway.

APPROACH

With the task of visualizing Santa's magic, Director Grady Hall and I collaborated on finding ways to not only make Santa's magic an impressive device, but we also wanted to stray away from typical holiday clichés.

So we thought, what would Santa's magic look like in the modern day?

Well then, of course Santa's train would be a streamliner, obviously his magic box would be filled with gears and cogs of luxurious parts, and undoubtedly the arctic teleporter would look like the ice hotel powered by tesla energy.

Oh, and if the elves are new to operating the teleporter in the artic, the vehicle certainly wouldn't land on a peak of a desert canyon. Or would it?

LEADERSHIP

I had the great pleasure of jumping between Creative Director for the television campaign and Director for the digital piece.

I led an impeccable team of designers, animators, and vfx artists, alongside VFX Supervisor Zach Tucker and CG Supervisor Michael Shelton, to bring the magic of Santa Clause to life. Our goal: treat these with the same level and quality of a feature film, make every shot fascinating and realistic, and especially make each spot look as grand as possible.

FIAT "GET READY"

JONATHAN WU
SENIOR ART DIRECTOR
Post Production: Mirada Studios
Awards:

• D&AD: Yellow Pencil
• ADC (Interactive / Physical Installation): Bronze Cube Award

“Get Ready” launches the Fiat in North America after an absence of almost 30 years. Set to Vivaldi’s Concerto in D Major recreated by MassiveMusic, “Get Ready” features slick documentary-style footage of an assembly line in the new Fiat plant in Toluca, Mexico. This footage, which captures cranes, robotic arms and other factory machinery as beautiful precise objects whose movements create a mechanical ballet -- are combined with four loose storylines of regular individuals getting ready in their homes. 

Movement

I oversaw a small team of After Effects animators to find the golden composition in each scene. Carefully crafted animations establish a new form of dynamic split screens that effortlessly convey a heightened connection between car and driver.

Color

We used color as a tool to contrast our two worlds - the warmth of humanity and the coolness of the factory's robotic assembly.

Music

We synced the animation to the pace and rhythm of the key beats in the musical cadence.

UNDER ARMOUR "SPEEDFORM"

JONATHAN WU
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Production: Motion Theory
Post Production: Mirada Studios

THIS IS WHAT FAST FEELS LIKE.

You feel it instantly. It’s the cleat you were born to wear. It molds so perfectly to your foot that it feels like it’s engineered just for you. No drag. No distractions. Just explosiveness. The human foot is no longer just a foot…it’s the engine of the world's fastest machine. 

Production

In closely working with Director Chris Riehl, we developed story beats to describe what it looks like to be in the shoes of Patrick Peterson, begging the question...what does fast feel like? We brainstormed several ideas and made many story beats, concept frames, and inspirational pulls. Using high-speed filming to emphasis Patricks Peterson's ability and ramping the effect to contrast with his opponent's.

POST PRODUCTION

Our team of the industry's top artists consisting of: editors, designers, animators, compositors, matte painters and FX help bring this to life. A collaboration with VFX Supervisor Zach Tucker, Julian Sarmiento, and Post Producer Andrin Mele-Shadwick.

Aesthetic

The overall look and feel of the piece was very important to us. We wanted a cinematic, but grittiness to it: beginning with the attitude of the animation, the textures of the gears and cogs, the tone in the color grade, and leading up to the editorial pacing of the film.

MAYTAG
"BUILT FOR DEPENDABILITY"

JONATHAN WU
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Production: Motion Theory
Post Production: Mirada Studios

An incredible way to tell the origin story of the beloved Maytag Man... to reveal the source of his great confidence and durability, and the dynamic camaraderie from which he is forged. The Maytag Man is the embodiment of the American work ethic. But he also embodies American dry wit – the key underlying ingredient that permeates the entire spot. This uniquely inspiring, confident, and reassuring trait is the glue that fuses the whole story together. And the admirable humility it exemplifies lives in every character... in every worker... 

Production

With the vision of Director Mathew Cullen, we pushed an idea of what it would be like to both see the Maytag man being assembled in the factory and also as if he was getting ready for the start of his day at work.  Making of the clothes, brushing of his teeth, and tailoring him to all it's detail. After all, he is the hardest working appliance in the household.

Live-Action

The shoot took place in several locations, one being the Whirlpool factory in Clyde, Ohio. Employees from across the country got to join in on the fun.

Post Production

Using 3D body scanning, CG Maytag men were created to help us populate the factory throughout. I collaborated alongside VFX Supervisor Zach Tucker to lead a talented team of designers, 3d modelers, lighters, and compositors.