What’s more impressive in the digital effects world? A spot that employs so much CG work that it’s a technological feat of smoke and mirrors, or one that achieves the same effect without any CG effects at all? A behind the scenes look at the work done by visual effects supervisor/artist Cedric Nicolas of Method, Santa Monica, for Hewlett-Packard’s (H-P) "Il Postino," via Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, San Francisco, and directed by Fredrik Bond of bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ) makes a pretty convincing argument for the latter.
"Il Postino" is one of those commercials you see on TV and wonder how it was done. The :30 opens on the embodiment of reliable, the postman, delivering mail day after day to the same house. An earnest voiceover lets us know that no matter what the elements—snow, rain, heat—he’ll be there. Pretty standard stuff until the voiceover continues to add other crippling conditions to the postman’s day, such as a temporary loss of gravity, robots made of washing machines and black holes that swallow up the entire known universe. Each mounting calamity is presented as part of the mailman’s routine. Cars, sandwiches, and even a dog float through the air during one of those pesky bouts of gravitational loss. The mailman adeptly avoids a gangly, 40-foot high robot that kicks a car out of its way. This is nothing compared to the depiction of the earth getting sucked into a black hole as the postman hangs on for dear life to a mailbox as one by one, houses and trees are vacuumed off the Earth and upwards. We are assured that H-P will keep the U.S. Postal Service on its appointed route. The live action portion of the spot cuts to an animated assembly line sorting mail and packages that will eventually make its way into the hands of millions of customers. The voiceover concludes, "H-P technology will make sure the mail never stops."
"Il Postino" is part of an ongoing campaign that illustrates how H-P technology enhances businesses with varying needs. Previous works, such as "Digital Crime Fighting," directed by Bond, "Restore," helmed by Rupert Sanders of Omaha Pictures, Santa Monica, and "Bang & Olufsen," directed by Tim Hope of Passion Pictures, London, and bicoastal Notorious Pictures, are all distinguished by visually arresting material. For instance "Restore" shows how H-P’s digital imaging technology has been used to restore old paintings at the National Gallery in London. The spot builds a live action commercial out of a 17th century painting. (Effects on the ad were created by A52, Los Angeles.) "Digital Crime Fighting" features the arrow-shaped cursor found on computer screens pulling a French gangster away from his buddies and straight to the paddy wagon. (Method worked on the effects.)
The Process
Nicolas had collaborated with Bond on H-P’s "Digital Crime Fighting" last year. When the job for "Il Postino" came up, Bond brought in the visual effects artist at the storyboard phase to help start planning the shoot in light of the effects that would be involved. Early on they also collaborated with character designers Stan Winston and Alan Scott of Stan Winston Studio, Van Nuys, Calif. (of Aliens and Terminator fame), which created the washing machine character. Full Scale Effects, North Hollywood, Calif., weighed in on all the live action special effects, including the Volkswagen that drops from the sky and the snow and rain. Venice, Calif.-based Motion Theory handled the end graphics.
"At that [early] stage we were working on some real camera solutions versus CG solutions and we decided to take the CG option out of the equation really early on in the process," recalls Nicolas. "Fredrik [Bond] wants to have as much as he can in-camera, and personally I’m not a CG oriented person so I try to do as much real stuff as I can. I do CG when I have no other option or when it makes sense and Fredrik is the same kind of director, so we were on the same page."
What resulted from this decision was a lot of creative solutions during the three-day shoot that at times harkened back to student filmmaking days. For instance, the floating objects in the scene depicting zero gravity were shot in slow motion against a blue screen. At the last minute, Bond spotted a crewmember’s dog on set and thought it would be funny to have it in the shot. Nicolas ended up having to hold the dog in the air while the shot was filmed.
According to Nicolas, several parties weighed in on the style and character of the washing machine robot. The agency wanted to have an over-the-top kind of situation that would stay funny and not become dramatic. Bond was into making the robot look as silly as possible and Winston and Scott worked to mold this oversized being into the campy character. The robot ended up being around eight feet tall. A Stan Winston puppeteer wore the suit to operate the "monster," while two puppeteers controlled the arms. The head was handled by remote control. Method producer Sue Troyan told SHOOT that originally the washing machines had some dirty clothes inside, but that it "didn’t look so good." The robot is supposed to appear to be 40 feet tall. To accomplish the effect, the crew used a condor crane to approximate the perspective they would later need to shoot the actual robot on blue screen.
Perhaps the most complicated effect to pull off was the black hole devouring the universe. CG might have been the easier solution for this shot, but Bond insisted it be done in camera. So the crew made the Earth with rubber on a polystyrene sphere. When it came time for sucking, it was pulled with a rope to distort the Earth’s shape. For the black hole, Bond shot a swirl in a tank that was filled with ink and oil mixed together to give it a spinning black hole effect. "It’s funny because it’s so cheesy," says Nicolas. "Scientifically, a black hole will not be like that. A scientific black hole is terribly boring."
What was not as funny was creating the shot just prior to the sucking scene where the entire town gets swooped upwards. Originally the shot was supposed to include four or five model houses and a couple of miniature trees, while the postman holding on to the mailbox and the robot were shot against blue screen. In the end, Bond shot 75 houses and 300 trees. "Fredrik wanted to go that far," laughs Nicolas. "In the beginning there was supposed to be a couple of houses lifted and we ended up lifting the whole county."
"Il Postino" was composited in Inferno by a team of visual effects artists that included Russell Fell, Chris Staves and Amanda Sorenson. Executive producer on the job was Neysa Horsburgh, with Troyan producing.
Of all the arduous tasks to be done for "Il Postino," the vacuuming scene was the hardest. "It really challenged the software because to put all that stuff together in the same shot without doing any kind of CG … it was really challenging in terms of all those layers," explains Nicolas.
Nicolas is working on yet another HP spot. "[The new ad] is very visual effects heavy, but it’s a completely different style. It’s very graphic," he shares, unable to disclose more at press time.
