Director Chris Palmer of Gorgeous Enterprises teamed with Passion Pictures, Framestore and BBH on a yearlong collaboration which yielded this visually ambitious spot (:90, :60 and :40 versions)
promoting Barclaycard’s contactless payment service.
The piece begins with a confused dad, daunted by the prospect of choosing a toy for his son from a busy toy shop. That is until he meets a talking monkey called Mr B, who leads him through a world of living, highly competitive toys. From ‘little hairy bears’ to flirtatious dolls, he is guided through a postproduction landscape of shot multi-layered elements, including green screen live action, wind-up toys, puppeteered dolls, bears, pandas, remote-control cars, helicopters, transformers, and much much more.
Framestore’s Flame team led by Jonathan Hairman, composited layer upon layer of elements, carefully composing each shot. Once this was achieved, Framestore then set about the task of making Mr B talk. Using a second puppeteered head and a crafted script, Mr B’s new head was tracked, re-lit and fine-tuned into each shot to bring him to life.
Every viewing of the film will reveal another level of the huge detail all parties went to, each eye and mouth movement (even on out of focus characters in the background) has all been animated, and timed to frame accuracy. The project was a huge undertaking and involved a vast team of compositors, trackers and producers.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More