A fire rages through a house. As a firefighter finds himself in the throes of the blaze, inexplicably a man calmly sits and watches the flames engulf the room. It’s not until a little later that we realize that this man is viewing a Backdraft-esque feature film as he goes from one room to the next in his home, using his DirecTV DVR which records in one room while enabling him to watch in any room.
Meanwhile the action turns up the Fahrenheit. In a dramatic film sequence, the fireman falls through a burnt-out floor and then discovers a little boy whom he rescues. Indeed the original man’s viewing experience is so intense that it looks and feels as though the scenes are literally playing out within the walls of his home as he moves from room to room.
Created by Grey New York and directed by Noam Murro of Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles, with visual effects by MPC LA, the spectacularly cinematic “Hot House” is part of a series of commercials that promote DirecTV’s multi-room viewing feature by depicting people watching films, pressing pause to freeze the action, then moving to other TV-equipped rooms to continue the flicks.
Previous spots have shown robots engaged in battle (“Robots” was directed by Rupert Sanders of bicoastal/international MJZ) and lovers romping about (Fredrik Bond, also of MJZ, directed “Love Match), and the work has been impressive.
“Hot House,” with fire licking every frame, ups the ante from a production and visual effects standpoint, and the spot marked Murro’s first time working on the campaign. The director says his biggest challenge was “jumping into an already successful campaign and taking it to the next level.”
Track record MPC LA had worked on the previous two DirecTV spots, so the visual effects team was already well versed in the art and science of creating the stunning frozen moments the campaign is known for.
“We wanted to give Noam as much freedom as possible from the technical aspects so he could focus on the story,” MPC visual effects supervisor/Flame lead Franck Lambertz said.
Murro and DP Simon Duggan shot everything in-camera, working with Full Scale Effects of North Hollywood, Calif., on the shoot. A two-story house was actually built on a soundstage and engulfed in flames.
“We had a great production designer and practical effects team who carefully planned out each set-up, with safety as the number one priority,” Murro said.
MPC was there to monitor the shoot, validating each plate’s compatibility with the visual effects requirements. “We have to give Biscuit a lot of credit because they had a lot of prep time there on the set and that paid off on the days of the shoot,” MPC visual effects supervisor/lead 3D Michael Wynd said. “We knew what we were going to get. There was nothing left to be questioned.”
The only issue that did arise on set had to do with smoke. After a take was done, it could take as long as an hour and a half for the smoke to clear.
After the two-day shoot wrapped, editor Haines Hall of bicoastal Spot Welders cut the spot, and MPC set out to match their computer-generated effects, including copious amounts of flame created in Maya Fluids, to the live-action performance. “One of the things we struggled with was just what the fire should look like,” Wynd remarked, “and it wasn’t until we went through plate by plate that we became aware of the fact that there are so many different types of fire in one shot depending on what’s burning.”
There was also the issue of how much fire there should be. “We had to make sure the fire didn’t overshadow the fireman,” Wynd said.
In addition to fire, MPC added all sorts of touches, ranging from a mix of 2D and 3D smoke to floating insulation. The fireman’s head was tracked in every shot, and reflections of the fire were added to his eyes.
In-camera advantage Looking back on the project, Lambertz said it was incredibly helpful for the effects team that Murro had shot the spot in-camera. “That meant there was no time lost describing what the scene should look like because it was shot in-camera. Everybody said, ‘Okay, a room full of fire should look like this’ because we really did it,” Lambertz said. “So our job was to make sure that we took the best of all the shots and applied the best of everything everywhere.”
“If we had generated all of the flame, it would have been a nightmare,” Wynd agreed, “because there would have been endless discussions about what the flames should look like.”
The visual effects tools deployed by MPC included PF Track, Boujou, Maya, Nuke, Flame, Photoshop and Smoke.
The fire, though, did not take center stage, which is a testament to the storytelling prowess of the director and visual effects team. Rather the flames fanned what was most important, the humanity of the piece. The fireman, his sense of duty and commitment to save the boy ring true and enable viewers to make a human connection to the commercial.
Heightening the proceedings is a cinematic score composed by Robert Miller of Santa Monica’s stimmung and sound effects courtesy of Kim Christensen of Noises Digital, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Earlier the score topped this summer’s SHOOT Top Ten Tracks Chart.
