On February 19th of this year is was party-time at the Code d’Azur. In December of last year we moved to the Geschutswerf 24-26 in Amsterdam. To celebrate this joyous occasion we decided to throw a party for all our clients, friends and family.

At the party all the food, drinks and oysters were provided by Pasteuning Wine & Catering, the supperclub en restaurant Nevy in Amsterdam. Sunny beats were provided by Philip Young, Lily Road, Marcus Gehring en Onno van Velzen.

Our first commercial! Yes, we can do that too! Priscilla, our Art Director, made all the characters and everything else you see in the commercial by hand. Wit a lot of hard work, sticky, sore and glued fingers, lots of fabric and many hours of creativity, we got an amazing result!

Check out our commercial here: Kids Rights

Code d’Azur heeft wederom een award gewonnen voor de Coca-Cola Sing-a-Long. Samen met Lemz hebben we een Bronzen Esprix gewonnen in de categorie cause, charity & non-profit marketing.

Campagne: Cola-Cola Sing-A-Long
Opdrachtgever: Coca-Cola Nederland
Bureau: Lemz
Catergorie: Cause | Charity | Non-profit Marketing

Om het partnerschap tussen Coca-Cola en 3 FM Serious Request onder de aandacht te brengen, maakte Dennis een kerstsingle waarop heel Nederland kon meezingen door te bellen met 0909-8668. Meezingen betekent: direct 1,30 euro doneren. Alle stemmen werden verwerkt in de officiële single.

CATEGORIE: Beste mobiele concept
OPDRACHTGEVER: Coca-Cola Nederland
BUREAU: Lemz en Code d’Azur

Via pr, non-spot-promo’s, radiocommercials en banners werd heel Nederland opgeroepen. Op de actiesite kon iedereen zijn eigen versie afluisteren en doorsturen. Bij de Coca-Cola Kersttruck kon men live meezingen met Dennis. Op 24 december werden een ‘gouden plaat’ en 110.000 euro aangeboden in het Glazen Huis.

When it comes to nominations, Code d’Azur started this year of great. First we were nominated for a ‘Webbies Aviation Award’ for the campaign site of Schiphol Where Else. Schiphol.nl and Code d’Azur won the gold!

Then Lemz and Code d’Azur were nominated for the ‘Coca Cola Sing-A-Long’ project in the category ‘Best Media-Effort’ & ‘Best Mobile Concept’. Code d’Azur was responsible for the online realization of this project. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Like a cherry on the proverbial cake we got the news today that Lemz and Code d’Azur are nominated for 3 San Accents for the following projects: ‘Toto is terug’ in the category ’Time Off’ and ’Burendag 2008′ & ‘Campina’s Goedemorgen’ in the category ‘Fast Moving’.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Lemz on their nominations: 4 for the Spin Awards and a stunning 11 nominations for the San Accent. Congratulations guys!

Near the Code d’Azur office, on the other side of the Amstel, there is this really nice, small lunchroom called “Aan de Amstel”, click here to view on the map. So Saturday, after a busy morning we jumped on our bikes and headed for the office, luckely not for work, but for a perfect lunch. It was raining and we were so hungy we could have eaten an elephant! Because there aren’t a lot of tables, we were really lucky to find an empty one straight away. 

“Aan de Amstel” is open on Friday and Saturday from 11:00 - 15:30. For further information check their website here. The menu is small, but it has really nice dishes to choose from. We ordered two Croque Monsieur’s, when normally we’d both order something different and share, but we were too hungry to wait for two different dishes to arrive. The Croque Monsieur’s with Gruyere Cheese (Swiss) and Parma ham on thick slices of roasted brown bread, together with a good glass of red wine really turned out to be the perfect Saturday lunch.

Another pearl for lunch in Amsterdam, that’s for sure!

I am sure many of us AS3 developers have visited http://blog.zupko.info/?p=99=1 for his solution to Lens Flares, it looks great!

If you are working with Papervision 2 Great White the implementation of this effect can be a little bit of a headache! Great White has integrated the Class “LensFlare” but as it doesn’t work with “RenderLayers” but rather with ViewportLayers the adaptation of Andy’s code can be a little tricky.

_light = new PointLight3D(false);
_light.x = 0;
_light.z = 100;
_light.y = 400;
default_scene.addChild(_light);

Add any light to the scene, the parameter is false, as the camera object doesn’t have to be seen.

var h1:MovieClip = new MovieClip(); // These would be custom classes that create the lens flare shapes
var h2:MovieClip = new MovieClip(); // These would be custom classes that create the lens flare shapes
var h3:MovieClip = new MovieClip(); // These would be custom classes that create the lens flare shapes

var flareArray:Array = [h1, h2, h3];

The array with the MovieClips you want to show as LensFlares

_lensFlare = new LensFlare(_light,flareArray,w,h);

var lightLayer : ViewportLayer = viewport.getChildLayer(_light);

lightLayer.addLayer(_lensFlare);

The constructor of the ViewportLayer “LensFlare” has as parameters the light, the flareArray and we put the width and the height of the stage so we ensure that the LensFlare can be seen.

_light.autoCalcScreenCoords=true;

This is the most important line!! The LensFlare is hidden, if the coordinates of the light in screen (_light.screen.z) is <= 0 which make sense… but by default a DisplayObject3D doesn’t calculate the translation to screen coordinates and that’s why the LensFlare does’t show up without this line as the z coordinate is always = 0.

Finally at the processFrame the lens flare has to be updated
_lensFlare.updateFlare(true);

Lunch at Code d’Azur is great! So where to go for lunch on weekends in Amsterdam?
In this serie of reports i’ll show you the best hidden lunch treasures of our city.

This time me and my girlfriend went to Le Patron Anonyme on the Vijzelgracht 63. Click here to view on the map. Great sandwiches and nice atmosphere. It still has the old Amsterdam café feeling mixed with modern, simple interior design. Because it’s also open at night for a drink, downstairs is a cocktailbar though it didn’t look really promising to us because it was really dark. Really nice people and great food! Take a look!

On March 7th 2009 was the grand opening of the Jefferson Hotel, click here to view on the map. Jefferson Hotel is a fashion store with high- end, but also funky labels, original sneakers, oldskool sunglasses and much more. Code d’Azur created the website and identity for the Jefferson Hotel, which you can visit here. The Code d’Azur team had a great time at the opening of this amazing store!