Whoever decided to call the latest Orkin Pest Control commercial Fake Out wasnt kidding. Directed by David Dryer of SunSpots, Hollywood, via J.Walter Thompson (JWT), Atlanta, the spot features a computer-generated cockroach so realistic that some viewers have actually destroyed their TV screens attempting to kill it.
We were very pleased at the authenticity of it, says Michael Lollis, executive creative director at JWT. Particularly if youre seeing the spot in the evening, it apparently looks quite real.
Since the ads March debut, Orkin has been deluged with responses ranging from amused to irate. Reportedly, a Florida woman who threw her motorcycle helmet at the lifelike roach is demanding a new TV set from the exterminators. Another woman told Orkin that shed dragged her neighbors out of bed, begging them to help her kill the CGI critter. The roach in question appears to run across the TV screen as a spot for Sierra, a fictitious brand of fabric softener, plays in the background. At the end of Fake Out, the Orkin man appears and kills the bug. But at that point, a number of viewers seem to have already lobbed a large object at their screens. Fake Out has generated an inordinate amount of free publicity for Orkin; the commercial received write-ups from consumer press publications ranging from The Washington Post to Entertainment Weekly. I think at last count, wed had over three hundred mentions in the press, Lollis relates. In addition to news stories about Fake Out, Orkin is sponsoring a contest for a brand new television setaall the participants have to do is tell the pest control company how the spot tricked them into believing a roach was running across the screen.
Visual effects supervisor Nick Ilyin, who also owns Island Fever Productions, Santa Monica, created the Fake Out cockroach. One of the things we really wanted to make sure of is that the roach looked like he was actually on the screen, explains Ilyin, who has worked with Dryer on spots such as Beyond Now for Logix, via Jordan Associates, Oklahoma City; and Dodges Rotate via BBDO Detroit. We did everything possible to [design] it that way.
Ilyin was on hand for the live-action shoot. We made sure that [the fake ASierra spot] was very light in color so that the roach would stand out, he says. We wanted to make the motion of the roach opposite, or contrary, to the motion of the camera in the live-action scene. So we needed to look at that as well.
One of the most difficult tasks, Ilyin says, was getting the actor playing the Orkin man to look directly at the bug which, at the time of the shoot, did not exist. We put a piece of glass in front of the camera, and aimed a laser tracking device at it, following the path the roach would take, he explains. The actors eye followed the laser.
Island Fever visual effects supervisor Michael Necci, who handles most of the companys character animation, designed the insect. [Necci] scanned in still photos of roaches to get the texture maps in, Ilyin recalls. He managed to get a lot of detail, even though the roach was extremely small.
Not too small, however. Like everything else, the roachs size is painstakingly accurate. The clients had insisted on making sure that this would work on a twenty-nine-inch screen, which is the average household screen nowadays, explains Ilyin. So we made the roach exactly one and a quarter inches on that screen. After the image was rendered, Ilyin added a glowing halo around it, to make it look as if it was being back-lit by the TV.
cause and effect
Ilyin has been involved in computer-generated imagery for more than 15 years, and has served as visual effects supervisor on a number of spots and 3-D feature films. His computer career began before he broke into advertising. He studied film for just a year at the California Institute of Arts, Valencia, Calif. It was the first year they opened in Valencia, so they didnt have enough classes going at the time, explains Ilyin of his short tenure at film school. He then took up computer programming and eventually found work as a video arcade game designer. I did that for about three years, so I learned a lot about programming a computer to do visual stuff.
When he heard that Pacific Data Images (PDI), Sunnyvale, Calif. (now Palo Alto, Calif.), needed an assistant animator for affiliate packages, Ilyin recalls, I kept pestering them and pestering them until I could get in. And that got me my break in visual effects.
While at PDI, Ilyin developed a taste for commercials and worked his way up to visual effects supervisor. He collaborated with director Dryer on spots, and also worked on several ads for Exxon that featured a morphing tiger. Ilyin also met Necci while at PDI. Mike was a producer at PDI when I was working there, and we used to go out on shoots all the time, explains Ilyin. It wasnt until later that he got into animation.
Ilyin later accepted an offer to head up the CGI department at Synchromic Studios, Maui, Hawaii. There, he supervised effects on McDonalds Fossil Fuel, which aired during the 96 Super Bowl and featured a T-Rex skeleton frolicking like a puppy and begging a museum guard for McDonalds french fries. Directed by Steve Horn of Steve and Linda Horn, Inc., New York, for Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, Fossil Fuel was one of Ilyins toughestaand most rewardingajobs. He recruited Necci for the spot, which included 45 seconds worth of animation. We had to get nineteen shots in three and a half weeks, Ilyin recalls. For a Super Bowl ad, its pretty incredible to get that late of a start and try to do that big of a shoot. It was tough, but it put us on the map, and it was an enticement for Mike to come on board in Maui.
After Synchromic closed, Ilyin, Necci and systems administrator Juerg Grieder moved back to Los Angeles. They started Island Fever for select projects, but put the shop on the backburner to take jobs at other visual effects companiesaGrieder and Necci went to Sony, while Ilyin took a job at VIFX, which has since merged with Rhythm & Hues, Los Angeles. While with VIFX, Ilyins projects included TitanicaI just did a little bit of 3-D tracking on the engine room shotsaand supervising effects on the ambitious 3-D IMAX film T Rex: Back To The Cretaceous. Mike quit Sony for that and came over to VIFX. And we got Juerg back too. As it turned out, Ilyin needed all the help he could get. At one time, I think we had eighty or eighty-five people working on that one project, says Ilyin. None of us realized how difficult the 3-D aspects of the IMAX would be. Just to get a dinosaur to fit in a live-action background that was shot in 3-D is really hard. If youre off by a pixel, youre off by a couple of feet, or youre low on the scene. We spent the last two months doing nothing but replacing dinosaurs up and down in space to try and get their feet on the ground.
When the IMAX project was completed, Ilyin, Necci and Grieder returned full-time to their own company. Though Island Fever has taken on some large-scale projects, such as Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box, the companys main focus is spot work. With films, youre stuck on them for four or five months at a time. But commercials come and go in about four to six weeks, and then youre off doing the next one, says Ilyin, who works primarily with the Houdini platform. I think [advertising] is a little more interesting. Its more variety.b
