Smuack!: digital experimentation for advertising

Founded by Juan Tomicic and with offices in Madrid and Luxembourg, this digital experimentation workshop has reached an agreement with Estudio Picapalo, specialized in filming effects. Creatives and filmmakers are already working with the new advertising codes of new media, such as the Internet and mobile phones.

A place to investigate new technologies applied to advertising creation, where the study of new advertising approaches and languages ​​has a place and where creatives, digital natives, can develop their full potential with state-of-the-art equipment. This is the dream that Juan Tomicic has just captured in Smuack!, a workshop whose objective will be to offer the advertising industry a new concept in the creation of pieces with visual and graphic effects for media such as television, cinema and the Internet.

Tomicic has a recognized career as a professional linked to advertising production and visual effects, a sector in which he has created numerous companies throughout his long career, such as Daiquiri Digital Pictures, HD SpainBox, User T38, Serena Digital. He began his career as a special effects assistant for the film State of Siege, by Costa Gavras to join as a special effects assistant for the musician Alice Cooper's shows. Shortly after, he joined René Steichen's team as a producer of programs and spots at RTL Productions, in Luxembourg. He later signed as artistic director of Telson and then K2000. He was also the promoter, along with Manu Horrillo and Adela Pla, of Daiquiri Digital Pictures, where he made numerous pieces, one of them, the header of the Barcelona Olympics (today in the collection of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía). He has participated in numerous award-winning productions at Cannes. With the Alaris spot in 2000, made by Víctor García, he won first prize at the Inmagina Festival in Monte Carlo. Among other awards, he was also awarded a Goya for best special effects for The day of the beast, by Alex de la Iglesia.

Madrid-Luxembourg

Smuack! promotes a new way of understanding advertising, effective and fast, which is making its way not only due to the advertiser's need to adjust their advertising investments, but also due to the growing strength that new media, such as the Internet and mobile telephony, are experiencing, and where creative development has not yet reached the levels of quality typical of television.

The new experimentation workshop, however, mixes the most cutting-edge technology with other more traditional ones, so that from the sum of all of them a new global concept is born.

Smuack! utilizará las instalaciones de la actual sede de Picapalo en Madrid, tras un acuerdo alcanzado para su explotación conjunta. La experiencia en efectos especiales de Jorge Alsina, propietario de Picapalo, cierra el círculo creativo de Smuack! con la incorporación de técnicas artesanales más orgánicas que complementan la imagen sintética,

Además de los estudios madrileños, Smuack! contará con oficinas comerciales en Luxembrugo. Actualmente, está realizando trabajos para Luxair, la compañía aérea de este país, y para el Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio español.

El diseño gráfico y visual, como protagonista de los trabajos de Smuack!, permite una creatividad sin límites y una gran capacidad de diferenciación respecto al spot tradicional. Se trata del desarrollo de imágenes enriquecidas para crear un lenguaje directo, que se apoye en elementos simbólicos con capacidad de transmitir modernidad y diferenciación respecto al spot clásico, tanto para televisión como para internet.

Rodar para la Red

Filming for the Internet is another of Smuack!'s fields of experimentation. The visual language derived from the use of effects or motion graphics has a great capacity for penetration and development in new media, where advertising creativity can be shown in a fresher way. Among the most used techniques that are adaptable to new media is animation through Stop Motion.

This way of producing not only consists of the escape from the aesthetics of the traditional advertisement, but also aims to adopt a language designed for new media and users and in which, paradoxically, there is also a place for artisanal techniques typical of the special effects traditionally used in cinema.

Un lenguaje diferente, una puesta en escena conceptual, más cerca del símbolo que de la imagen real, constituye el verdadero puente de la publicidad hacia los nuevos espectadores, que ya no se conforman exclusivamente con la televisión y han dado un giro en su consumo audiovisual hacia la red, la telefonía móvil y las video consolas. Es precisamente este valor, la espectacularidad, uno de los factores que más está contribuyendo a la viralidad de las campañas online.

El equipo de Smuack! está formado por creativos y realizadores capaces de interpretar en todos los medios. La Red posee otro lenguaje audiovisual, y de la misma forma que ha surgido un nuevo concepto de “televidente” y nuevas formas de publicidad, también se está desarrollando una nueva forma de narrar. Surge así el realizador 3.0, especializado en la web como medio de comunicación, un profesional que ha nacido con el ordenador e internet ya desarrollados y que ha tenido acceso a herramientas creativas de altísimo nivel desde que comenzó a desarrollar su talento.