In a world bombarded with visual ephemera across ever expanding mediums, grabbing your attention and delivering a message is no easy task. L.A. / NY based Buck do this every day, as routine. They meticulously plan, construct and output graphic commercials to make our lives a much prettier place. We caught up with Ryan Honey, Buck’s Creative Director, who talked us through why a spoonful of Buck a day helps keep their clients smiling…

Hi there Thunder Chunky welcomes you! How’s your day been?

Its been pretty good. We’re juggling various projects currently so things are a bit hectic.

Talk us through a normal day at Buck…

Well… I drive to work in the morning and talk to the NY office for about 20 minutes. Catch up with my partner and co-cd there about the goings ons and the what nots. Then I park, walk to the office, get a coffee, and we have our morning production meeting. We talk about all the jobs and how the fuck we are possibly going to get them all done in the time we have. After that it is pretty much a mix of client calls, creative meetings, budget meetings, talking to people about projects. Change this, that, what about trying this… yadda yadda. Sometimes I am on set , sometimes I have to go out and do meetings or color and audio sessions, but most of the time I am in the office from 9 am to 8 pm at the least.

For those who may be unaware – possibly the Non US folk. Tell us about yourself in 3 easy-to-follow steps.

1. I am a Canadian expat
2. I used to be the cd of heavy.com/team heavy in NY and moved to LA in 2003 to start Buck.
3. Buck is now 2 offices and about 35 people fulltime. We make commercials and graphics for advertising campaigns.

Your work is so diverse, from explosive 3d renders to 2d animated cuteness, to hi-impact intense sports campaigns. What methods do you use to find the appropriate style and are there any underlying factors / objectives which you try to achieve with each project, regardless of the client?

We are in advertising so we try and find the best style/technique/concept for the particular job based on what the client wants to accomplish. Most times we also throw in one or two really out-there/different concepts/looks in the hopes that the client will want to do something different and strangely sometimes it works.

What has been your favourite project personally to work on, and why?

Well I can’t talk about my favourite project just yet cuz it hasn’t aired. But my second favourite would be the Toyota campaign we just did because we got to build and shoot a bunch of miniature landscapes and buildings. After working on a computer for most of your life, it was pretty awesome to actually build something.

Would you care to quickly walk us through a project you’ve undertaken.

Well last year we did 4 little 15 sec ids for Fuel tv. We called them at the beginning of 2007 and asked if we could meet and talk about doing some projects together. They agreed and at the meeting they asked us to pitch them some ideas for ids for the network. We came back in 2 weeks with 6 concepts, they picked 4. We did the beast and damn gravity in about 2 months and then delivered the last 2 in November. The interesting thing about these was there was not a huge rush and when we weren’t super busy on other projects we worked on them. This gave us the opportunity to try out a lot of new techniques and noodle with them until we were happy. A lot of work ended up being done by hand like the gravity monster and the hookups girl in below deck because we wanted it to look a certain way and we weren’t so concerned about time or money. In the end we had 4 really nice style pieces for the reel, people here were pretty proud of them and the client was happy so a good outcome all around.

I remember first seeing your work from the 2005 idents for MTV Movie awards, and they really had a distinct style for their time. Do you think your work has changed since then, and do you anticipate any new direction you’d like to get involved with?

I think the thing that has changed the most about us is now we can really achieve any style without worrying how to pull it off. This gives us the freedom to pitch whatever we want. I think the one area we will continue to grow in is the live action and vfx areas. We have already started doing more live action and more realistic cg. It is just a matter of time before we can combine the two to create some super interesting work.

Whose work are you really enjoying at the moment?

Mmm, national, psyop, smith and foulkes, carlo vega , blur, pleix.

What other things rock your world? (Outside the industry) e.g. music / photography / architecture etc.

I am into everything. I would say especially architecture, interior design and fine art.

What exciting projects will you be working on in the summer months?

Not allowed to say, but there are some awesome projects on he horizon.

If buck didn’t exist, what would the world miss?

Some pretty looking commercials.

Finally, what’s the one thing everybody should do today?

Do something you enjoy immensely.

For a more in-depth trawl around their work, check out Buck’s site. There’s loads of video clips, stills and concept work for you to check out!