	Maitland/Cowles Team Puts on Gameface for Wii Launch Campaign Game On Optimus Plays With Footage For Nintendo Wii Screen Magazine - 12/11/2006, by Amy Wilschke Nintendo has done it again. Just when you thought life couldn't get any better than your GameCube or DS, out comes Wii, the most advanced, state-of-the-art gaming system in Nintendo history. The system features wireless controllers and a console that offers entertainment choices beyond video games. For the product launch, Chicago post house Optimus was hired to edit the commercial campaign, as well as a two-minute documentary introducing viewers to Wii. Editor Jan Maitland and Senior Assistant Editor Vern Cowles worked together on the campaign. A 15-year veteran of Nintendo work, Maitland is no stranger to the gaming world. This was Cowles' first chance to cut work for the brand, however. Since Wii is so new and so different from any other Nintendo gaming system, Maitland says the pair's job on this campaign involved more than simply cutting footage. "One of the stated goals that we were asked to help the agency accomplish was communicating how the game was played," he says. "It has a unique interface in that it's got these two hand-held wireless controllers. The product [is] really kind of a broad-spectrum game system that Nintendo's hoping will apply to people from the age of 5 up to 95." Maitland also explains that since Wii is unlike any other Nintendo system, the agency was interested in having the product stand out from traditional Nintendo branding. "To a large extent, this is so new for Nintendo that they really wanted it to stand on its own, separate even from the identity of Nintendo itself," he explains. Maitland adds that the system had to be able to stand on its own two feet amid other recent gaming product launches. Especially now that it's holiday time, people are rushing to stores to satisfy their video gaming needs. Since the market is so competitive, what are the tricks to creating a successful video game ad campaign? "From my point of view as an editor on projects like this, quick understanding and a sense of enjoyment of using the system is pretty crucial," Maitland says, "as well as [the system] being fun to use, easy to use and hav[ing] a lot of action within the context of the game itself. "[I think having experience playing video games] makes us more empathetic," he adds. "I think it helps us to look at these not just as film editors or as people involved in a project but as gamers. It helps me to make a commercial that I want to see." Cowles agrees. "I like sports [and] I like games, and whenever we get a chance to work on either of those kinds of spots it always has a little bit of excitement [for me]," he says. "To be able to cut something of the same nature, it helps to really identify with what people want to see. I know what I want to see when I look at someone playing a game and what's cool, and I can also look for that footage and make it feel the way I think it should to make people want to play." Cowles was also responsible for cutting a two-minute documentary for the brand. The piece features behind-the-scenes interviews with "unsuspecting citizens" who are actually actors being played off as real people. For the documentary, Cowles says the agency gave him plenty of creative freedom to edit according to his own vision. "They gave me a script, and then pretty much just let me go," he says. "Jan and I were both editing in the same room, and so they would kind of watch what Jan was doing all throughout the day and then they would peek over and ask me what I had cut. "I couldn't ask for more freedom," he adds, "although, at the end, there was a lot of footage that had to come from the actual twominute piece that went on air because they wanted to make sure that all the game footage matched. But for the most part I did have a lot of freedom to do what I wanted to on that."

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