Urban legend.(new computer racing game from EA Games)(Product/Service Evaluation)

To create a cutting-edge television and cinema ad campaign for EA Games' Need for Speed: Underground 2 racing title, digital artists took to the streets, combining artwork from two urban legends: renowned street artist David Choe and computer game giant EA Games. The result is an edgy, state-of-the-art look with a digital twist.

In the two 30-second spots, titled Alter Ego and Hunter Hunted, the group at MK12, a designer-director collective, along with its production company, The Ebeling Group, animated David Choe's 2D urban illustrations, turning them into 3D imagery for the big and small screens. In addition, MK12 augmented the graffiti with CG imagery created in-house, and later, combined all the graffiti-style artwork with imagery it had acquired from the city-style EA racing game to complete the commercials.

This project, in fact, is the first venture into broadcast and cinema for Choe, who has won acclaim as a street artist, painter, muralist, and designer of graphic novels and magazine covers. After EA's ad agency initially tapped Choe to create Need for Speed: Underground 2's print campaign, it decided to extend his work into other media--television and film--where the commercials would be shown.

The completed productions feature graphics of the game's cars speeding through various hand-drawn environments illustrated in Choe's distinctive style, and animated by MK12 using ...