We open on a skateboarder coming across a seemingly normal pedestrian bridge. After pounding his board onto the walkway, the bridge begins to break in a rumbling cloud of dust to form a roll-in for an eight-step drop. As he lands, the ground breaks away to create another stairway and handrail for the skater to slide down.
The film, titled “Transformation,” then follows a group of skateboarders–led by pro skater Johnny Layton–through downtown Los Angeles as they hit quarter pipes breaking out of walls and sidewalks.
Literally the entire city appears to be morphing into a challenging skate park as living terrain gives way to dynamic surfaces on which our boarders deftly execute nearly impossible-to-pull-off tricks.
After the skaters have tackled everything that has formed in their paths, one of them looks back at the cityscape to see a town turned into a customized skate park.
It’s as if the entire city has been transformed into an X-Games extreme sports venue.
A concluding super reads, “The transformation begins in fall 2010,” followed by the Shaun White Skateboarding logo and a website Facebook.com/ShaunWhiteGame.
Meanwhile another miraculous, unlikely creation made to appear surprisingly doable and realistic highlights DirecTV’s “Opulence” spot which introduces us to a Russian billionaire who enjoys every extravagance of life.
This commercial takes us into his mansion replete with priceless works of art, an entourage of beautiful women, a gold-embellished couch, the finest jewels and of course state-of-the-art DirecTV.
But his prized possession, a most curious oddity indeed, is a pet, pint-sized giraffe, which gives the billionaire–much to his delight–a kiss.
“Transformation” and “Opulence” headline this quarter’s SHOOT Visual Effects and Animation Chart.
Ring of Fire, Santa Monica, Calif., was the visual effects house on the chart-topping “Transformation” while right behind it was “Opulence,” for which The Mill, New York, handled visual effects.
“Transformation” Directed by the team +jacksonkarinja of bicoastal Rabbit for San Francisco advertising agency Cutwater, Ubisoft/Shaun White Skateboarding’s “Transformation,” a two-minute online tour de force, meshes live action and CG into a photo-real environment that stays true to the physicality of both the skating and the morphing city. It’s an aesthetic balance that represents a feat tricky enough to rival the most elaborate skateboarder maneuver on the most uneven, treacherous pathway.
The directing team of +jacksonkarinja also served as live-action DPs for the assignment.
Every stunt in the piece was performed in-camera, with a prime Ring of Fire goal being to have the environment and its transformation resemble the changing world that players can create in the new Ubisoft/Shaun White Skateboarding game.
This was one of those jobs where the directors’, the visual effects artists’ and the skaters’ talents all had to come together,” related Ring of Fire’s Jerry Spivack, visual effects supervisor/creative director on the job. “We wanted to make this spot as real as we could which meant finding locations that worked for the skaters to do these tricks and then use visual effects to support the photography.”
Spivack noted that +jacksonkarinja did all the location scouting and that after each scouting day they would share the images with the Ring of Fire creative ensemble.
“We’d discuss each location and the possibilities it gave us,” recalled Spivack. “There were no real pre-conceived tricks that we had to use so it gave us the flexibility to find the best locations that worked for the tricks and visual effects.”
Thorough, meticulous preparation was essential in bringing the film to full fruition.
“Every aspect of each shot was carefully planned so on the shoot day we were just executing,” said Spivack. “On the tech scout all of the skaters were involved so they saw their location and got their head wrapped around the trick they would do and we’d discuss the ramps being customized for each trick.”
Spivack explained that a different postproduction approach was deployed for each shot.
“All of the compositing was done using the Flame,” he related. “We used Boujou to create the 3D tracks for many shots, but also created some of the tracks in Flame based on what type of track was needed shot by shot. We used Maya to create some of the 3D effects. Everything else was created and composited in Flame.”
After the principal photography was completed, the Ring of Fire team of artisans did a small element shoot in the art director’s garage.
“Very low tech but effective,” assessed Spivack. “I wanted to create a visual effects tool kit that we can use during compositing.
“We created a black environment in the garage where we shot a variety of elements: baby powder, dirt, rocks and dust particles,” noted Spivack. We shot specific elements for specific shots as well as generic elements we could layer and use on a variety of shots. These elements were dust, rocks and other debris elements in the shots. We could have created these effects in post but I always want to shoot as many elements practically and composite them.
Spivack concluded, “The end result you get using real elements is always going to be better. Real is real.”
John Myers, executive producer at Ring of Fire, observed, “From the onset we challenged ourselves to come up with innovative ways to reveal ramps and half pipes, combining as many real photographic elements as possible.
“We collaborated to find a balance–to find a line in the sand that says ‘you’ve gone too far’–then toying with that line, stepping over, then back again quickly…keeping it all as real as possible while designing cause and effect with the action and visual effects within environments we were working with, combining real things to create unreal results.”
Ring of Fire’s Toolbox on the job included Flame, Maya, AfterEffects and Boujou.
“Opulence” Tim Godsall of Los Angeles-headquartered Biscuit Filmworks directed DirecTV’s “Opulence” for agency Grey New York.
The 30-second commercial earned the number two slot on SHOOT’s quarterly chart.
The visually engaging piece has as its most captivating sight that of a miniature giraffe sitting on the golden couch next to the billionaire Russian in the mansion’s living room.
Paradoxically the image of the giraffe both stands out yet seems organic, with the miniature animal looking as natural as a house cat perched on a love seat.
That natural feel is part of what The Mill strived to achieve.
“The giraffe was in the script, but we were part of the conversation with the agency about what the giraffe should be doing,” said Ben Smith, The Mill, New York’s joint head of 3D and shoot supervisor on the project. “We suggested movements that were very giraffe-like.”
Smith and his team did extensive research, compiling a motion gallery of clips and photos, which helped to pinpoint muscles, fur, features, common movements and stances natural to giraffes. This detailed information infusing the giraffe with a realistic appearance and behavior was then simulated in 3D.
“We used a muscle system to dynamically recreate the wrinkles of the giraffe’s skin,” noted Smith. “We also added some touches that make the giraffe more feminine like longer eyelashes and an elongated neck. We used very subtle animation for the ears moving, eyes blinking and puckering up for a kiss. We also rebuilt the cushion the giraffe sits on in CG so it could deform as our giraffe moved.”
There are other animal antics in the commercial that aren’t as high profile yet add to the whimsy of the proceedings. For example, there’s a fleeting glimpse of dogs playing poker akin to those canines pictured in the famed C.M. Coolidge painting.
“We had dogs on set, but there were a lot of computer-generated elements we added,” explained Smith. “We replaced the paws with arms, added a jeweled choker, had poker chips scattered, and replaced the base of the table they were sitting at with a style that matched the [living] room.”
Westley Sarokin, The Mill’s lead Flame artist on “Opulence,” related, “From the 2D standpoint, integration touches helped marry the giraffe into the footage. Color balance, contact shadows and edge blending finished it off nicely.”
Smith concluded by affirming, “It was a great funny script to begin with, there was room for interpretation and the agency was open to letting the idea play out even more. It was the best kind of creative process.”
The Mill’s Toolbox included XSI, Maya, Zbrush, Photoshop, Mental Ray, Nuke and Flame.
