The Future Of Weathercasting
The first quarter of 2001 was a time of falling back on well worn old tricks for me. Where “Cyber Cops” referred back slightly to the Windows-look images I had done at WACY and KPBI, this campaign retreaded territory which I had already visited with WACY’s Prime Time Invasion campaign. Using Universe and Paint Shop Pro, I devised several layers of elements, including starry backgrounds, the Earth, the moon, the sun, a nebula, a black hole and some special text. I used the Avid to layer these together as intended, creating a spot which was, in a way, a sped-up, reverse-gear tribute to the opening three minutes of the movie Contact. It repeatedly got the comment from people both inside and outside the station that “this doesn’t look like something we produced.” That’s actually quite a compliment! It implies that we blew money out-of-house on it, which couldn’t be further from the truth. This promo campaign was backed up in the week leading up to the April 16th premiere of our new logo/look and our new weather gadgetry by a campaign of legal IDs which wordlessly proclaimed “The Future of Weathercasting begins in X days” as thunder and wind could be heard in the background, with a lightning/flash edit (accompanied by a clap of thunder) into the station logo. As 40/29’s Avid isn’t quite as stacked in the memory department as WACY’s was, this was a major undertaking - but fortunately, the logo change necessitated a purge of all old graphics from the system, which allowed us to completely purge the system of all existing media. After this effects-heavy promo, it was desperately needed.
