Animal Logic, Sydney (which also maintains an office in Venice, Calif.), has a lot of reasons to toast with Carlton Draft. It created the effects-laden “Big Ad” for the beer–which is currently airing in Australia; the spot has garnered a flood of attention, along with two Gold Sharks at last month’s 43rd annual Shark Awards, held in Ennis, Ireland last month.
The comedic “Big Ad”–directed by Paul Middleditch of Plaza Films, Sydney, via agency George Patterson Partners in Melbourne–is epic in its look, feel and music. It contains a cast of thousands of men in robes–two groups (each with a different colored robe) with serious looks in their eyes that march toward each other across a sweeping New Zealand landscape. The images and music create the feel of The Lord of the Ring‘s Battle at Helm’s Deep. The cast begins to sing lyrics that include: “It’s a big ad we’re in– It’s a big ad for Carlton Beer–Expensive ad. This ad better sell some bloody beer.”
The crowd creates the formation of a man drinking a beer, revealed at the conclusion by an aerial shot. The tagline “Made from Beer” follows and it appears as though thousands of men are lifting beers, but it was actually very few who got their hands on the beverage.
This brilliant piece of advertising started with a great concept, supported by excellent production, effects, music–and a clever piece of software called Massive, an animated crowd simulation tool that can be used to give each digital actor individual behavior through the use of artificial intelligence.
Able to scale to create hundreds of thousands of digital actors, Massive was developed in New Zealand, with the specific purpose of creating the epic battle sequences in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy (all three films won Academy Awards for visual effects). After production wrapped, a standalone Wellington-based company called Massive Software was formed, and the software became commercially available.
It’s been honored for scientific and technical achievement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its impact on the feature world, and now it’s making its mark in advertising.
The software was first deployed in a commercial by The Mill, which has offices in London and New York, on Sony PlayStation 2’s “Mountain,” which was directed by Frank Budgen of Gorgeous Enterprises, London–he’s repped stateside via bicoastal Anonymous Content–for TBWA/London. (The spot was the Grand Prix in film at the 2004 Cannes International Advertising Festival, as well as a string of other high profile accolades.) The spot featured a city full of people attempting to get to the top of a mountain formed by fellow citizens–it concludes with a memorable shot of 146,000 digital actors forming a “mountain” of people.
Now, an increasing number of commercial visual effects houses around the world tap into Massive’s potential. In the U.S., visual effects shops such as Digital Domain, Venice, Calif., Rhythm & Hues, Los Angeles, A52, West Hollywood, and Method, Santa Monica, are among those that have used the software for commercial production. And abroad, post and visual effects houses such as The Mill, Animal Logic and Mexico City’s Ollin Studio have found the benefits of Massive.
Charlie Itturiaga, director of production at Ollin, reports that Massive offers tools that help make creating commercials with crowds creative, flexible, practical, affordable–and in some cases, possible. He recently used Massive on “China” and “Alaska,” two :60s in a three-spot campaign for Corona via Leo Burnett, Mexico City, and directed by Kiko Guerrero of Quittani, Mexico City. In “China,” a man drinks a Corona on the Great Wall, as roughly 80,000 Mariachi band players come running. (A similar occurrence takes place on an icy Alaskan setting for the second ad.)
“China” was lensed in 35mm film on location in China, and motion capture was used as the basis for the individual movements of each member of the digital cast (and CG horses), which were created with Massive. Additionally, Alias’ Maya and Filmbox (now MotionBuilder) were used for the 3-D; Renderman was used for rendering. Ollin also handled postproduction; the film was scanned as 2k data and finished in high definition, in order to create deliverables for both theatrical and television releases.
Iturriaga explains that Massive gave Ollin heightened creative control over the digital actors–where they were placed and how they moved. “They had to look appealing to the eye,” he emphasizes. “We could not have done this spot without Massive. We don’t have the R&D [to have] achieved this in the three months that we had for production.”
BIG GUNS
For the aforementioned “Big Ad,” all the ground level shots were achieved in camera with 300 extras while all the helicopter shots were filmed as background plates with CG crowds. Andrew Jackson, visual effects supervisor at Animal Logic, explains, “this could have been done before Massive, but it would have taken longer and would not have been so flexible.”
For the CG cast, Animal Logic started by creating 3-D CG human extras, clothed them in flowing robes and then brought them into Massive. They were then replicated thousands of times over, with each character being assigned its own random movement and direction. Pre-visualization for the 3-D commenced about a month prior to the shoot to determine the camera angles of the crowd shots and the number of digital actors that would appear in each shot. The Animal Logic team–which collaborated closely with director Middleditch–included Jackson, lead compositor Angus Wilson and visual effects producer Caroline Renshaw.
“EVERYDAY HEROES”
Meanwhile, in the U.S., visual effects and design company A52 used Massive on a pair of ads. The first was Budweiser’s “Everyday Heroes” directed by noted DP Robert Richardson of bicoastal Tool of North America via Waylon Advertising, St. Louis.
The spot tells the story of Anheuser-Busch’s “Here’s to the Heroes” cross-country tour, held last spring. The spot features two eight-horse Clydesdale teamSáone from New York, one from San Francisco–who go to major cities along the routes to St. Louis, where both teams met. In some 21 cities along the way, citizens participating in tour events sent messages of pride and appreciation to the nation’s troops and took part in other patriotic activities and celebrations. The conclusion of the spot featured a crowd of thousands celebrating the tour’s patriotic causes and the two Clydesdale teams coming together in St. Louis.
A52 used Massive to create much of that crowd (the spot was completed prior to the actual tour’s conclusion). With the software as part of its toolbox, A52 showed clients the placement and overall motion of the crowd, and it was able to instantly make adjustments based on their direction. While Richardson shot on location in St. Louis, A52 offered on-set visual effects supervision. Back in the studio, A52 worked on the digital characters, which were composited into the scenes using Discreet Flame.
More recently, A52 again tapped into Massive’s potential to create crowds on Nike Golf’s “Kid Tiger” via Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore. The :60 spot shows a five-year-old Tiger Woods seemingly teeing off at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland, during the British Open. He hits one remarkable shot after another in front of a jubilant–and digital–crowd, and celebrates his performance as his mother and father look on. The spot was achieved with all stock footage and CG, A52 reports.