Pixel Brothers announced today another major move that plants itself firmly into the high-end television commercial production world; bringing on tabletop production industry veteran Director Michael Azzariti.

As a Full Serve Media company, Pixel Brothers can now serve its clients with a fully stocked ‘Producers Toolkit’ of traditional and cutting-edge specialties, from their 12,000 sf facility hosting 12 SD/HD Final cut edit suites on the city's near-west side. Services include video and film production, editing, color correction and sound sweetening, and with the addition of Azzariti, they now add motion control, high-speed photography and special effects to their exclusive talent pool of award-winning 2D and 3D designers/animators, an in-house interactive department. They also host the Chicago Convergence.

Azziriti, a 24-year veteran of television commercial production, has been a part national and regional campaigns for major advertisers. He comes from a background in fine arts and commercial photography as well as having been technical director for several major opera companies and performing arts centers.

Azzariti began working in commercial production as an effects rigger and in 1990 was hired on as staff at Peter Elliott Productions in Chicago, the busiest production studio in the nation at the time. He was responsible for designing, executing and often lighting and shooting all the special effects scenes for nearly nine years and developed a reputation as the best effects rigger in the Midwest.

He became a critical part of that creative team and helped to launch Tom Lazaravitch and Mark Klein as directors. From there he went on to operate in a similar capacity for other production companies including Big Deahl Productions, MK Films and Directorz in Dallas. He was given the opportunity to work as a Director of Photography for these clients, and after a time began to direct. In 2007, he created his own production company, Black Bag Films, Inc. working as a director and cameraman.

Pixel Brothers services already include full-scale production, motion graphics, 2D and 3D animation and modeling.

See a sample of his work.

Founded by Pixel Director of Business Development, John Patterson, The purpose of The Chicago Convergence is to collaborate new ventures in technology, interactive media, social change, entertainment and the arts: to create digital expressions of ‘ideas with global scale’. The Chicago Convergence is a large networked community that hosts and promotes a series of it's own events, sponsored and partner events and online media. This includes hundreds of video talks from savvy pioneers, user generated content and a social media network that connects previously diverse industries in one portal; where talent, ideas and code collide.

The Chicago Convergence was welcomed by Mayor Daley in April of 2008 and is being touted by World Business Chicago as “The new media glue”, bonding a community together on behalf of a global vision for Chicago; the city of innovation, hope and change.

Pixel Brothers Scott Murphy, Andrew Ryann and John Patterson hold three of the ten board positions for this newly created non-profit organization. Launched in April of 2008, The Convergence has seen over 2500 people at exciting events. www.chicagoconvergence.com

Richard Dominick Productions has turned to the Pixel Brothers team for more than fifteen years as a production and post-production partner. They have collaborated on such properties as NBC Universal's The Jerry Springer Show and The Steve Wilkos Show, and VH1's The Springer Hustle.

Ace Pixel Brothers field teams -- directors, videographers, lighting designers and sound techs -- consistently shoot killer HD footage for the editing and motion graphics staff to shape into the latest projects for Richard Dominick Productions.

A dozen HD edit suites in a state-of-the-art facility on the near west side of Chicago provide the power to craft hours of network programming daily. Cutting edge HD cameras, the latest in LED lighting technology and digital field audio kits are some of the tools that keep our crews shooting all around the nation and the world.

Pixel Brothers' recent expansion to Los Angeles extends the company's reach to another coast. Located in the Hollywood Hills, Pixel Brothers Entertainment develops original content and is able to explore and create partnerships and production opportunities in the heart of the industry.

Richard Dominick Productions

Colorist: Bob Sliga

‘Color’ (Apple’s FinalCut Studio 2 application) is a powerful software-based color corrector that interfaces with FinalCut Pro seamlessly.   It has correction power that rivals expensive systems such as daVinci and Baselight.

The last 5 years Bob has been working for Apple developing FinalTouch (predecessor to Apple’s Color) and then Color, after Apple released the product in April 2007.

With 30 years of color correction experience from short form spots to long form documentaries and feature films, he is considered worldwide as a leading specialist in Color.

He served for 2 1/2 years as the lead QA for Color in Cupertino.  He created all of the Color FX prebuilt looks for the current and future versions of Color.  He was responsible for creating and debugging workflows between Color and Final Cut Pro, and instrumental in helping design the Color application.  With his experience it is safe to say that Pixel Brothers has the most experienced and knowledgeable user of Color anywhere in the world. He knows all the tricks and secrets of Color.


Feature films he has completed with Color include “Paul McCartney The Space Within US” concert film,  “Cast In Gray”, “Lana’s Rain”, “Mindy” “Kevin’s Room”, “Hot Baby”, “Burden” and currently in post production: "Hunger" and "Dog Jack".

His client list includes Paul McCartney, Leo Burnett USA, DDB Needham, Foote Cone, & Belding, J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvie & Mather, Burrell, Bozel, A. Eicoff and Company, Nicholson Kovac Inc., LBC Advertising, Icarus Films, Big Time Productions, Eisner and Associates, Knupp & Watson, Image Gate Films,  ESPN, NBC, CBS, ABC, John Roach Productions, Studio USA Television, Major League Baseball, The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, Baltimore Orioles, and Baltimore Ravens.  Bob has also color corrected many independent features.

See Samples

In the spring of 2008 when they first came to Pixel Brothers Interactive, Concierge Preferred was struggling to maintain a stable web site. After initially working with them to iron out the bugs and get the site stabilized, we began a redevelopment of the site design and feature-set. There are other players in the Chicago travel industry, but none shares the truly unique relationship Concierge Preferred has with the Chicago concierge community. The endorsement from the concierge community provides a significant value to the CP brand, and the new site is built to capitalize on that relationship. Pixel Brothers Interactive has assisted CP in developing a digital strategy, stabilizing the current site, implementation of new front-end design, custom functionality and SEO best practices.

When NBC Universal approached Pixel Brothers Design to reinvent the open to The Jerry Springer Show, we jumped at the chance. It needed to contain some essential elements (like the legal disclaimer at the top of every show) and fit within the 30 seconds used by the show's previous open, but other than that the canvas was relatively blank.

The creative team of Mark Rizzo, Demian Krentz and Sean Maloney immediately began development of several different concepts, but one quickly stood out from all the others. Borrowing from the show's grungy, industrial-looking set design, we used 3d modeling and animation to create a first-person POV walkthrough of a fictitious garbage-strewn alley outside the studio. The sense of mood created by the environment was heightened even further with the addition of police lights & sirens and the crescendoing chant of "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!", all culminating with a dramatic burst through the studio doors to see the frenzied crowd welcoming the iconic Springer as he entered stage. See it here