CHRLX Keeps Its 'Garde' Up
The iconic New York design and effects house reboots its brand, sexes up its work and lets its hair down.
Iconic New York Effects and Design Studio
CHRLX Keeps Its' 'Garde' Up
From humble beginnings – "$1,600 and a telephone," says Co-Founder
Alex Weil – the studio has grown into a second-generation
creative hub for agencies and brands.
"CHRLX was formed in 1977 as a video freelance duo to support 'Last Men,' our punk rock band, with a total capital of $1,600 and a telephone," recalls Alex Weil, Co-Founder and Creative Director of the company formerly known as Charlex.
What began as a live/work space with a soundproof studio in a red barn Weil owned in the woods of Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island has since evolved into a 30,000 square foot VFX studio in midtown Manhattan, employing 130 people and including a 3D department that's 30 strong.
More significantly, Weil notes, the company is coming full-circle creatively, as any of the 400 guests who attended the CHRLX "HeadSpace" re-launch party in June will attest. (Visual installations at the bash included a lumisol animated gif photo booth, a multimedia peep show and a giant eight foot-tall, wall-mounted "head.")
"We grew at a nice pace our first two years," says Weil, noting that the breakup of his band occurred at just the right moment. "Because the entire field of 'video' was new, we were essentially experts at anything and everything," he observes. "What we didn't know we learned fast. Shoots, graphics, special effects and editing all combined was really the only way to work with us."
Soon enough, the studio had substantial clients like Y&R, Compton Advertising (now Saatchi) and ABC News giving these young renegades free rein and support. "I think it was our energy and 'we can do anything!' attitude that attracted clients," notes Weil.
The work helped. The avant garde CHRLX team experienced a breakthrough year in 1984, with The Cars' "You Might Think" video, which won MTV's first-ever Best Video of the Year award, and an opening for "Saturday Night Live" that won an Emmy for Best Opening Title Sequence. As a result of this work, CHRLX became known for creating visual innovation (such as the video collage techniques seen in "You Might Think") that they now created on behalf of brands ranging from IBM to Nickelodeon to Bubblicious gum.
What's Old is New
The succeeding decades saw CHRLX evolve into a full studio offering award-winning commercials, broadcast promos, music videos and network IDs and interstitials, while offering creative editorial, graphics and visual effects. Weil and his team continued honing their craft as a growing number of nimble, high-quality shops were cropping up all around them. Last year, Weil was determined to reclaim their turf. "It's time for a reboot, as we stand here at the precipice of the Mayan end of times," he mused back then.
The impact of the studio's reboot has been profound. Along with a reimagining of the company's space, there is the addition of Kristian Mercado and Elliot Lim as Creative Directors, and the promotion of Ryan Dunn to CHRLX's Executive Creative Director.
Even with its new energy and influx of new talent, Weil remains at the creative heart of the company. As Dunn explains, "Alex lives and bleeds CHRLX, and the brand itself is as much a part of him as he is of it." Creatively speaking, however, Dunn is on board as a symbol of renewed creative intensity, and has dedicated himself to the pursuit of bigger and brighter horizons for the studio.
"We're getting back to pushing art and technology for big brands, and continuing to deliver on our promise of creating a great experience with our clients," Dunn explains. As more and more film and design studios open, close and open again, he notes, CHRLX is re-calibrating its team and goals to maintain its foothold as a key player in the next chapter of design-driven production. "It starts on the inside and works its way out," Weil adds. "We have lofty goals, high hopes, and a deep belief that it can be done effectively."
A Thing of Beauty
Also part of the current evolution is a focus on beauty work. "We've developed a talented team of designers, Flame artists and 3D specialists that really think with the beauty aesthetic in mind," says Corey Budro, Executive Producer, Beauty at CHRLX. "This category has a language all its own, whether it be with design or retouch, and we felt it was important to create a division within CHRLX that specializes in that language."
The boutique division has a built-in advantage in that it is able to combine a variety of services, including photo-real product shots, 3D demos, beauty retouch and specialized beauty design, all backed by the overall strength of the studio, its talent and its insanely fast render farm. Among the spots the studio has worked on are Cover Girl ads featuring the celebrities Queen Latifa and Sofia Vergara, as well as a recent Revlon spot featuring actress Jessica Biel and hip hop producer Pharrell Williams, among others.
A Multi-Faceted Design Studio
At the core of today's CHRLX is the DNA that spurred the company to its initial successes. With a shift in the industry comes an ability to adapt as needed to remain relevant and pioneers in the field. This is accomplished, Weil notes, with an equally vigilant eye on remaining fiscally responsible, strategically viable and confident in the bonds CHRLX forges with its clients.
Those traits are cemented by the vim and vigor of Chris Byrnes, President of CHRLX. "We're proud of the way our left and right brains play together," Byrnes says. "We can deftly take on 100-spot retail rollouts while simultaneously executing high concept long-form narrative work." He cites as an example the company's "ShapeShifter" short film, which demonstrates the creative range CHRLX is interested in pursuing. The darkly evocative film takes viewers on a journey through an all-CG world populated by dazzlingly detailed creatures and environments.
In addition to producing work like this, Byrnes points out that CHRLX "has made a business out of great client services, due to our size, strength, and perfection of process. This credo has led to several great and lasting relationships with clients of all shapes and sizes." The studio is also widening its palette of disciplines, from live-action to stop-motion to new CG techniques that support its innate pioneering attitude.
Clients have noticed the changes. "CHRLX always comes through for us; it's why we work with them so often," says Tom Murphy, Co-Chief Creative Officer, McCann, New York. "Any creative problem we give them, they jump in and make it their problem. They attack every project with a massive amount of energy and skill – whether it's a big visual effects job or simply an end title sequence. They become a creative extension of the agency. In addition to all that stuff, they're simply good people."
A Leaner, Meaner CHRLX
Finally, the name itself has undergone a revision of sorts, as it now exclusively uses the CHRLX moniker. What's behind the transition? "The absence of vowels is a nice way to mark our transformation," says Dunn. "We are shedding our skin, becoming more nimble, more efficient, more aggressively focused on telling simple stories, simply. In the myopic sense of our mission, it feels right to slim the nomenclature down in kind."
Influencing this shift is the varied approach the studio takes on multiple projects since its new focus took hold. For example, Dunn cites a three-spot stop-motion campaign for Krylon, a line of spray paint products, from the Detroit agency Doner (see "Projects," "Dual" and "Dresser"), or a pair of teasers for high-end timepieces from jewelry designer David Yurman that were shot on CHRLX's stage using a Canon 7D.
The spots represent new directions, genres and techniques for the studio, beyond its legacy in motion graphics and visual effects. Another good example is a piece titled "Pin Drop" for Sprint and htc. It's an all CG, photo-real launch video for the cutting edge phone maker that prompted the client to ask after screening it, "What did you shoot this with?" "Or even our work with MMB in Boston for Subway," Dunn adds, "where we delivered nearly ten distinct spots in the past year, each one very different from the last.
"As long as we're pursuing a mastery of the crafts and disciplines that we deal in, and are continuing to push ourselves, we're happy," he concludes.
"In the end," Weil adds, "our team creates ideas together, not in a vacuum, and in our business ideas are product. They have to be top quality every time."
Published 8 August, 2012
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