Spots comprised of stock footage are often straightforward affairs, with images from a library used to supplement live action footage. Alternatively, commercials can be comprised entirely of stock elements which have been edited together. However, a recent campaign for Inktomi—an Internet technology company that provides software to run search engines—uses select stock shots to enhance computer-generated graphics.
The three commercials in the campaign—"Soul," "Mind" and "Air"—via Arnold Ingalls Moranville, San Francisco, realize their concepts not with actors, but with abstract, animated graphics. Those graphics include purple bubbles that pop into view, and a heart-shaped line of fire, as well as a cornucopia of light beams, luminous glows, and metallic circles.
"If you’re going to use stock footage, ‘art spots’ [such as these] are the best arena for it," says Maury Rosenfeld, president/visual effects artist of Planet Blue, Santa Monica, the effects shop that created the graphics for the ads. Live action stock footage is much easier to blend with abstract graphics than it is with other real-life images, he adds. Photographic realism, Rosenfeld explains, has strict parameters for manipulation and creativity. Blending stock with an effects element, even though these two types of images have different lighting, color, and camera-angle requirements, was less rigorous for this job.
Inktomi’s "Soul" opens with that word appearing in supered form against a black background. The word then transforms into a flaming heart surrounded by roses. The throbs and pulsations of the heart are set against a driving beat while the roses bloom. The heart then explodes with a flash, and the Inktomi name and logo appear, followed by the campaign’s tag—"Inktomi: essential to the Internet."
"Soul," as with "Mind" and "Air," was based on the agency’s original print campaign for Inktomi that broke earlier this year. "Basically we animated the print," relates Steffny Wallace, executive producer/head of production at Arnold Ingalls Moranville. She provided Rosenfeld with Photoshop illustrations created by Chicago-based fine artist Tony Klassen, which were originally used in the print ads. Rosenfeld, along with Planet Blue CG artists/animators Konstantin Promokhov and Matt Merkovich, then used the artwork as a jumping-off point for the animation.
For the "Soul" spot, Wallace searched for a time-lapse shot of a single rose blooming. Since the print execution was the basis for the ad, Wallace knew what type of rose she would need for the project.
After requesting clips from various stock footage companies, Wallace found just what she needed from gettyone/Energy Film. (The company, which has multiple offices throughout the U.S., is part of Seattle-headquartered Getty Images’ gettyone, the print advertising and television division of the firm. Other stock houses under the gettyone banner include Calgary, Alberta-headquartered EyeWire and bicoastal/ international Allsport Concepts.)
Credit for locating the clip goes to Philip DeLuca, an account executive at Energy. DeLuca says that although the footage was for a CG spot, he proceeded to find the rose in the same way he would for a live action commercial. "We don’t differentiate," he points out. "We just go by the request." In this case, the parameters were cut-and-dried: "Steffny Wallace said she needed ‘a time-lapsed rose,’ so that’s what we provided." He adds that Energy’s roses are relatively popular, so he already had a preview reel of time-lapsed blooms ready to send to Wallace. The turn-around time for the request was approximately five minutes.
DeLuca notes that the clip Wallace selected for "Soul" had been shot by Energy co-founders Louis Schwartzberg (now president/director at Blacklight Films, Studio City, Calif.) and Jan Ross (now retired) in the ’80s. Of the shot, Wallace says, "The photography was beautiful, and the rose was positioned in the frame in a manner that was usable to us."
With rose footage in hand, Rosenfeld’s job began. Although manipulating an image without having to preserve its realism makes things less strenuous, he relates, some tweaking was nonetheless necessary to make the real-life rose compatible with its more abstract surroundings. In order to give the rose a more graphic quality, Rosenfeld says he "warped" it slightly, color-corrected and then replicated it several times.
In addition to the flower clip, "Soul" also made use of footage of a horizontal line of fire. Rosenfeld found the fire clip from a Planet Blue-owned compilation disk. (He told SHOOT that he did not remember the manufacturer and title of the disk he used.) The fire shot called for extensive manipulation, since it was going to be the central design element of "Soul," rather than a complement to the heart. To create the effect, Rosenfeld employed Photoshop to curve the line of fire into the well-known love symbol. He then composited "glows" and beams, and finally inverted it so the flames would burn on the inside and out. "I had a lot of license [in creating the heart]," explains Rosenfeld.
Inktomi’s "Air" also integrated an item of stock footage to match visual effects: an image of the sky, with time-lapsed clouds as they travel toward the frame. Rosenfeld found the sky footage on ArtBeats’ White Puffy Clouds compilation CD.
Similarly to "Soul," this second spot begins with the word "Air" supered on a solid, black background. The spot then bursts into a kaleidoscope of the sky. At the center of this background, purple bubble-shaped representations of air gradually come into view. Appearing behind what becomes a globule of water are translucent wings, which open and close. The spot concludes with the Inktomi name and logo, followed by the tag.
"Stock footage is [also very] easy when you’re just using it as a backplate for graphics, to establish a setting," says Rosenfeld. He adds, though, that he did need to give the sky footage a stylistic slant. He created the kaleidoscope effect by mirroring, or folding, the footage of the sky horizontally and then vertically.
Inktomi’s "Mind" was purely visual effects and without a backdrop, Wallace explains, so no stock imagery was necessary. The commercial features ring shapes, beams, and other abstract objects, which rush toward the camera and the edge of the frame. As the shapes glow and darken, a human eye fades into view, then dilates and contracts along with the lighting. " ‘Mind’ didn’t call for stock footage," says Wallace. "If it did, though, I assume we could find something. You can get almost anything on stock these days."g
