This spot for the Mazda 3 out of JWT Dusseldorf debuted in Spain, with airing in Russia and other international markets slated to follow at press time. Directed by Carl Erik Rinsch of RSA Films, Los Angeles, “Red & White” tapped into the digital assets of digital production/visual effects studio Digital Domain, Venice, Calif. Those assets include an extensive library of landscapes, living creatures, automobiles and crowds of people to call upon and modify for projects.
Among the Digital Domain imagery used for this nearly entirely CG futuristic commercial were a highly modified digital city and a replica of a Mazda 3 model.
“The only shooting we did for ‘Red & White’ was of one man and one woman, who we replicated over and over throughout the spot,” explained Digital Domain’s Jay Barton, visual effects supervisor on the project. “Everything else was computer-generated–the car, the trucks, the plane, the buildings, the road, the paint–everything.”
The commercial opens on a brigade of women and men in skintight white suits painting every inch of their city white. They use hoses attached to fire trucks to spray gallons of goopy paint into the streets and onto the buildings. Everywhere you look it is white–but there is one fly in the ointment.
One fire red Mazda 3 hatchback is rolling down the avenues openly mocking the “white brigade.” The painters aim their hoses on the Mazda and large gobs of paint land like mortar shells all around it, but the car deftly escapes with some quick maneuvering. A prop plane swoops down and opens its cargo bay releasing a reservoir of white paint, but the car narrowly escapes into a tunnel. Things finally look grim for the Mazda 3 when it falls into a trap. Driving into an aqueduct, the car is heading straight for a roadblock of paint trucks. Behind it, a dam opens releasing a river of white paint that rushes toward the car. One of the painters flashes a confident smirk in that he Mazda is clearly cornered.
The car screeches to a halt and is engulfed by a rushing wave of paint. But the Mazda, now white, pulls a 180-degree turn and drives away leaving red everywhere in its wake. The painters’ suits turn red, the roadway is red and in the final shot, the all white Mazda heads back to the now red city.
“We used digital cityscapes, an exact CG car model, fluid simulation, animation, lighting simulation and more to help realize Carl’s vision of a quirky, uniform world,” said Digital Domain’s Ed Ulbrich, president of the studio’s commercial division and executive VP of production.
Barton noted, “We started with a CG New York City but rebuilt it for a more simplified, futuristic look. We took out many of the details and started thinking more about shapes. We adjusted the buildings and smoothed out the edges for an art deco look and more dramatic shadows and light. In the end, it looked fantastic and gave the spot a unique look and feel.
Supreme Court Seems Likely To Uphold A Law That Could Force TikTok To Shut Down On Jan. 19
The Supreme Court on Friday seemed likely to uphold a law that would ban TikTok in the United States beginning Jan. 19 unless the popular social media program is sold by its China-based parent company.
Hearing arguments in a momentous clash of free speech and national security concerns, the justices seemed persuaded by arguments that the national security threat posed by the company's connections to China override concerns about restricting the speech either of TikTok or its 170 million users in the United States.
Early in arguments that lasted more than two and a half hours, Chief Justice John Roberts identified his main concern: TikTok's ownership by China-based ByteDance and the parent company's requirement to cooperate with the Chinese government's intelligence operations.
If left in place, the law passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in April will require TikTok to "go dark" on Jan. 19, lawyer Noel Francisco told the justices on behalf of TikTok.
At the very least, Francisco urged, the justices should enter a temporary pause that would allow TikTok to keep operating. "We might be in a different world again" after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Trump, who has 14.7 million followers on TikTok, also has called for the deadline to be pushed back to give him time to negotiate a "political resolution." Francisco served as Trump's solicitor general in his first presidential term.
But it was not clear whether any justices would choose such a course. And only Justice Neil Gorsuch sounded like he would side with TikTok to find that the ban violates the Constitution.
Gorsuch labeled arguments advanced by the Biden administration' in defense of the law a... Read More