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Crossroads for the Arts

Mar 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Eric Melin

Content creation in Kansas City.

           

Based in Kansas City’s Crossroads Arts District, TakeTwo (T2) is a full-service production and postproduction design and effects company that has worked with industry giants such as Time Warner, Sprint, and Wal-Mart through its ad-agency clients.

TakeTwo

The first thing you notice when you enter the two-story TakeTwo (T2) facility, also located in the Crossroads Arts District, is an ultramodern architectural design that's disguised by the 100-year-old brick building exterior. The company's place of business is a metaphor for its work ethic — one that revels in surprise. Never satisfied with merely doing what its clients expect from them, the artists at T2 promote a creative culture of always pushing things one step further.

The full-service production and postproduction design and effects company is housed within 15,000 square feet and contains not just your typical edit suites, conference rooms, and shooting stage, but also a bar and a kitchen area — which houses T2's executive chef.

It's a long way from T2's beginnings as an inhouse video department for former hardware giant Payless Cashways. CEO Teri Rogers started TakeTwo, which was about a block and a half from where it is now, in 1984 with two other partners. In four years' time, it became a profit center. Ten years later, in 1998, T2 had grown to around 20 employees, and the company separated from Payless completely. By 2002, Rogers was the sole owner. The new space, which was finished in 2006, ties in perfectly with the aesthetic of the burgeoning Crossroads District — which is populated by creative companies, hip art galleries, and trendy shops.

Kansas City also houses two of the top independently owned advertising agencies in the country. T2 has been able to capitalize on this to build the company, and it has worked steadily with industry giants such as Time Warner, Sprint, Hallmark, and Wal-Mart through its ad-agency clients. “The advertising work that we do is what really gives us the opportunity to push the creative work we do,” says T2 Director of Marketing Linda Buchner.

In the rapidly changing world of content creation, where software moves forward almost as fast as business trends, companies have to stay one step ahead of the game. As tools become less proprietary and more desktop-driven, the focus of T2 has evolved into the motion-graphic design and visual-effects side of things. This concentration on postproduction has as much to do with desktop software and affordability as it does with the nature of emerging talent.

“Before, graphic designers tended to be print-background-oriented, and the video world is very technology-driven. Right now with the software becoming more friendly to designers, designers are more open to designing stuff for motion graphics,” Creative Director Michael Ong says. “It's a merging of these two areas that's making today's TV content more design-driven.”

“Graphic designers coming right out of school always have some sort of interest and knowledge of motion now,” Buchner says.

Because of this motion-graphics-design-driven direction, T2 has acquired more clients in the entertainment industry. Two years ago, the company designed the broadcast identity for ABC's fall season. It also recently did work for MGM Network's cable channel rebranding in at least 10 different countries. Its motion-graphics department is currently getting quite a workout from an unusual documentary that is being filmed in the IMAX format by Inland Sea Productions, a Kansas City-based production company.