LIMEY director Scott Weintrob traveled to South Korea to collaborate with ad agency Innocean Worldwide Europe and client Hyundai on a series of brand films introducing Hyundai’s entrance into the 2013 World Rally Car Series and a continuation of their “Thinking Forward” message and campaign. The promotional campaign, which launched last month at the Paris Auto Show, highlights Hyundai’s World Rally Car based on the re-designed and popular i20 car.
This branded film begins with the all-new Hyundai i20 lakeside. The car disappears and then re-appears as it transforms into the company’s new World Rally Car. The vehicle then shoots off at high speeds through treacherous yet sweeping landscapes, continuing to disappear and re-appear as it races through the countryside. They shot some of the most beautiful scenery in Korea including countryside locations, rice fields, and lake scenes. They also shot at the Hyundai R&D track. The film was shot with Arri Alexa cameras. With the use of a Milo motion control rig and repeatable heads, the team brought together state-of-the art technology and creativity to execute the various visual effects. A duplicate car painted completely black was also used in various plate shots and removed in post.
“It was very important to me that when the car disappears and reappears, the various elements –dust, water, rain–continued without the car,” said Weintrob.
The agency had reached out to LIMEY early last summer to secure Weintrob’s expertise shooting in the automotive genre. Because this was Hyundai’s re-entrance into the World Rally Car Series after a few years’ hiatus, the pressure was on. Under a strict NDA, Weintrob was brought in to view Hyundai’s design of a new Rally Car based on the popular i20 compact 3-door model sold in various markets around the world but not the U.S. Built by a team of engineers at the Hyundai R&D center in Korea, the car would be seen for the first time at the Paris Auto Show.
“Quite often, I am called in to work on a car commercial before the vehicle itself is actually finished,” explains Weintrob. “But this was a truly unique situation with the car being created for the World Rally Car Series. It was really cool shooting in South Korea, they have everything there in terms of equipment and technology but as can be expected they had their own style of shooting. I enjoy that part of shooting overseas as it’s always interesting to learn and witness a different system. This was truly an international job with creative and production talent coming from literally around the world: we were the Epcot Center of film for one week.” Even losing half a day of shooting due to a record-breaking typhoon didn’t put Weintrob off: “I’m from England, so what they called a typhoon was a bit of wind and rain to me. Also, when the skies get dark and cloudy and the wind starts to blow, those are ideal conditions for shooting cars. That’s when things get interesting.”
AI-Assisted Works Can Get Copyright With Enough Human Creativity, According To U.S. Copyright Office
Artists can copyright works they made with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by the U.S. Copyright Office that could further clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields.
The nation's copyright office, which sits in the Library of Congress and is not part of the executive branch, receives about half a million copyright applications per year covering millions of individual works. It has increasingly been asked to register works that are AI-generated.
And while many of those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, the report issued Wednesday clarifies the office's approach as one based on what the top U.S. copyright official describes as the "centrality of human creativity" in authoring a work that warrants copyright protections.
"Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection," said a statement from Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, who directs the office.
An AI-assisted work could be copyrightable if an artist's handiwork is perceptible. A human adapting an AI-generated output with "creative arrangements or modifications" could also make it fall under copyright protections.
The report follows a review that began in 2023 and fielded opinions from thousands of people that ranged from AI developers, to actors and country singers.
It shows the copyright office will continue to reject copyright claims for fully machine-generated content. A person simply prompting a chatbot or AI image generator to produce a work doesn't give that person the ability to copyright that work, according to the report. "Extending protection to material whose expressive elements are determined by a machine ...... Read More