Nice Shoes Creative Studio helped filmmaker Robert Rugan and producer Molly Mayeux, bring Rugan's short film Danny and the Wild Bunch to life with a collaboration with the studio's lead compositor Adrian Winter and colorist Sal Malfitano. The film stars Rob Tepper as Danny and Nora Zehetner as a children's book author who is told that her new manuscript needs to be darker, but when her revisions enrage the characters in the book, they come to life to make some changes of their own.
The main challenge for the Nice Shoes team was to integrate the animated characters from the Danny and the Wild Bunch book into a live action world in a believable way. Winter, who worked with Rugan when both were at Superfad, encouraged the director to bring the film to Nice Shoes for the final composite and color grading to seamlessly marry the two worlds.
Robb and I hit it off immediately when we worked together at Superfad. His creative choices are always very strong right out of the gate, but he also lets the artists play and experiment, said Winter. I proposed to Rob that we could bring the entire project inside Nice Shoes Creative Studio and incorporate the color department into the project pipeline. This would allow us to work on color and comp in tandem with one another and allow me to work on refining shots up until the very end of our working window.
Adrian was my first and only choice for lead compositor. He and I have worked on multiple projects together now, and on every one of those projects, he has taken what was there and elevated it, said Rugan. In my mind, a shot isn't finished' until Adrian puts his eyes on it.
The workflow Winter and Malfitano employed between After Effects and Baselight factored in the film's tight delivery schedule, as Rugan's film festival deadlines were looming. The two artists, both recent additions to the Nice Shoes team, enthusiastically tackled this challenge and welcomed the opportunity to explore the possibilities of the studio's infrastructure.
We decided to conform and maintain the cut inside the Baselight, which allowed me to tweak and revise the grade as Adrian provided me with newly comped shots, said Malfitano. The process really became a back and forth between us, and later in the process he began supplying me shots with mattes for specific parts of the 3D, which really aided me in the grade.
I knew the first time I spoke with Sal that DANNY was in good hands, added Rugan. On set, director of photography Pete Konczal and I worked to tell a visual story where the look changed dramatically from bright and cheery to dark and spooky in a very short amount of time. Plus, on top of that, we were inserting animated characters into live action. So there were a lot to juggle. Sal's grade really brought the whole thing together. It's seamless.
The benefit of a shop like ours is that we have lot of tools in the arsenal, both in terms of people, and in technology, said Winter. We have the ability to figure out a way to get what we needed to get done - done, while keeping things as simple as possible. That's a big advantage on a project like Danny and the Wild Bunch, and I'm really happy we were able to help Rob deliver this stellar project.
The short screened at the Bahamas International Film Festival, Indie Memphis Film Festival, Atlanta Shorts Fest, and picked up wins at the Las Vegas Film Festival, Catalina Film Festival, Asheville Film Festival and LA Underground Film Festival. Following the films successful festival run, Rugan has made Danny and the Wild Bunch available for all to see on Vimeo, where it has been selected as a Staff Pick.
###
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
28/08/2025
IBC stand 5.F81
Wowza to Reveal Next-Gen Video Streaming Innovations at IBC 2025
Amsterdam, August 28, 2025 Wowza, a leader in video streaming infrastructur...
Nice Shoes Creative Studio helped filmmaker Robert Rugan and producer Molly Mayeux, bring Rugan's short film Danny and the Wild Bunch to life with a collaboration with the studio's lead compositor Adrian Winter and colorist Sal Malfitano. The film stars Rob Tepper as Danny and Nora Zehetner as a children's book author who is told that her new manuscript needs to be darker, but when her revisions enrage the characters in the book, they come to life to make some changes of their own. 
