Enjoy the Super Bowl? Company 3 Sure Did

Yeah, the Saints had a pretty good Super Bowl game.  As it turns out, so did Stefan Sonnenfeld and the other colorists and artists at the bi-coastal color grading studio known as Company 3.  A total of 15 Super Bowl spots got Sonnenfeld's deft touch (not to mention his eye) -- just about half of all the commercials his company handled on the game. Out of 60-plus spots on the CBS broadcast, 31 were graded at Company 3.

So did they have a big day?  “It was great for us,” says Luis Ribeiro, VP, Director of Business Development for the studio.  “Although I think we did more last year.” More?  Is that possible?  Ribeiro laughs.  “You’ve got to remember, we’re not doing visual effects.  Our end of the process has a much faster turn-around time.”

The list of brands, agencies, production houses, editorial shops and VFX studios who share credits with Company 3 is pretty impressive.  The brands alone represent most of the major advertisers on the game: Audi, Bridgestone, Denny’s, Dodge, Dr. Pepper, Emerald Nuts, Flo TV, Intel, Kia, Monster.com, Motorola, the NFL, Pizza Hut, Snickers, Taco Bell, truTV, US Census and Volkswagen.  In addition, Company 3 handled color grading for the feature film promos for the upcoming Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood,” Mike Newell’s “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” and Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.”

Company 3 artists on both coasts worked on this treasure trove: Tim Masick and Tom Poole in New York handled work for Monster.com, the NFL, Snickers, truTV and the US Census, while the Santa Monica-based artists Dave Hussey, Stefan Sonnenfeld, Sean Coleman, Siggy Ferstl, Mike Pethel and Matt Turner worked on the rest. 

Sonnenfeld himself handled the lion’s share of all the Company 3 work: his output included the work for Bridgestone that was directed by Dante Ariola of MJZ and cut by Andrea Macarthur at Peepshow, as well as that zany Emerald Nuts spot from Gillespie which was cut by Jim Hutchins at Hutch Co. Sonnenfeld also handled work for Audi, Denny’s, Dr Pepper, Intel and Pizza Hut.

The list of directors whose work was transferred includes Bryan Buckley, Kinka Usher, Mark Romanek, Paul Hunter, Aaron Ruell, Stacy Wall, Carl Erik Rinsch and others.  Among the editorial houses that collaborated with Company 3 colorists included Final Cut, Arcade Edit, Spot Welders, Cut + Run, Union Editorial, The Whitehouse, Mackenzie Cutler, Rock Paper Scissors, Beast, Optimus and PS 260. 

This list is no surprise to Ribeiro, who says that when it comes to Super Bowl spots, agencies and clients want to make sure they’re working with the best talent.  The phone calls for holds on various artists time started in mid-November of last year, a bit earlier than usual, he adds.  “It was like, wow, it’s Super Bowl season again,” he recalls thinking.  By the middle of December, Company 3 was fully engaged in working on spots for the game.

Did this present any workflow or scheduling issues?  “No more than usual,” says Tara Dowd, Senior Producer at Company 3 in New York.  Given that these were Super Bowl spots, and hence had a greater degree of client and agency scrutiny, there were a few more last-minute changes to the edits than normal. And the NFL work, which came out of Grey, New York, was done right before the game, as the league needed to wait until the final two teams were left in the post season, so they’d know who to feature in the spots.

“This is what’s expected of us,” says Dowd about the ability of the studio to handle this kind of high-pressure workload.  “We’re set up to accommodate this kind of pace.  Yes, we’re busier than normal, but the edit houses and agencies we work with are confident that we’re going to deliver everything in a normal fashion.”

The Company 3 artists like to work as closely as possible not only with their editorial clients, but with the directors and DPs who shot the spots as well.  Sonnenfeld, for example, worked directly with Ariola to get the right look and feel for the Bridgestone spots.  “They’re used to getting a lot of input,” says Ribeiro. “Even if they can’t be here for the sessions, there’s always lots of back and forth.

Is the Super Bowl still the Big Kahuna when it comes to TV broadcasts—in terms of what they hear from agencies, directors and editors?  Ribeiro and Dowd would have to agree.  Despite the increasing amount of chatter that’s given to big event broadcasts like the Oscars, the Olympics and the Golden Globes, there’s still nothing like a Super Bowl spot to get people in the production and post production industries to take notice.  “It’s still the biggest thing that people talk about,” Ribeiro says.  And this year, they had plenty to talk about—the broadcast was the highest-watched TV program in US history.