By Kristin Wilcha

The Visual Effects Society (VES) has nominated three spots for the 2005 award in recognition of outstanding visual effects in a commercial. The winner will be announced and honored–along with recipients of visual effects awards in film, television, video games and music videos–during a gala event for the third annual VES Awards later this month.

Each nominated ad is a wonder of seamless visual effects, painstakingly achieved. While all the spots were for air in the U.K., companies from London, the U.S. and Canada, created effects in the ads. SHOOT talks to the artisans behind the nominated work, to get a feel for what went into creating each.

 

“TREE”

Daniel Kleinman directed “Tree” for Johnnie Walker out of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), London. The spot was produced via now-defunct Large; Kleinman now works through Kleinman Productions, London. Effects for the ad were created by a team of artisans at FrameStore CFC, London. Credit goes to: William Bartlett and Murray Butler, lead compositers; Jake Mengers and Andy Boyd, lead animators; and producer Helen Stanley.

In the ad, a tree uproots itself from its home in a forest, and travels through the countryside, eventually winding up in the city, where it then settles itself in front of an office building. The theme is meant to underscore the long-running Johnnie Walker tagline “Keep Walking.”

Butler, who recently relocated stateside to the New York office of FrameStore CFC, notes that Mengers and Boyd “did a lot of work in developing a photoreal tree, which I think was the real big challenge. It involved creating leaves that were all separate geometries that could be lit, and shaded, and–have everything that an organic tree has.”

Butler, who attended the shoot with Williams, relates that creating the tree’s movements involved a great deal of developmental work prior to the shoot. While shooting, an animatronic tree was used. “We were going to use it in the close-ups,” reports Butler. “We were going to blend [the animatronic and CG elements], so we wouldn’t be so dependent on the CG shots [for close-ups]. Even though the tree was working quite well, we ended up replacing almost all of those shots with CGI, because we found that the CG was standing up to being quite close to the lens. Not that there was anything wrong with the animatronic tree, but it meant that we could animate it a bit more carefully with the other scenes.”

Maya was utilized to create the tree, while Butler and Murray used Inferno for the compositing. If “Tree” wins the VES award, it would represent a hat trick of sorts for FrameStore, which has taken the top honor in commercials each of the first two years of the VES competition. Last year, the effects shop scored the commercial honor for “Fish,” also for Johnnie Walker and BBH, and directed by Kleinman. And the company won the award in ’03 for Xbox’s “Mosquito,” also helmed by Kleinman for BBH.

 

“NETWORK”

Joseph Kahn directed “Network,” for British Telecom out of Exposure Films, London, for agency St Luke’s, London. (Kahn is repped stateside via bicoastal HSI Productions.) Effects for the spot were created by a team at Cafeé FX/The Syndicate, Santa Monica. The artisans from the shop included: David Lombardi lead CG artist/visual effects supervisor; Richard Mann, producer; Kevin Prendiville, Flame artist, and visual effects supervisor Eric Durst.

The spot–which involves several effects scenes–demonstrates how British Telecom, a.k.a. BT, uses its vast information network to service the needs of customers. In “Network,” business takes place in a large city–the catch being that products and services being delivered to and from people are flying through the air in different environments.

Lombardi notes that creating effects for the spot took about five months–the actual post work took about three months, with an additional two months to create animatics. Lombardi was also on the set for the spot.

“Network” involved both 2-D and 3-D effects, and were created using programs such as  LightWave, Maya, Boujou, Synthesize and Fusion. Flame was also used on the spot. One would imagine that creating a spot with as many effects shots for an agency in London would make the approvals process somewhat difficult. Problems with approvals were minimal, reports Lombardi; he and his team of artisans were able to post work-in-progress using Cafeé Synch, a proprietary approvals system, which allowed for real-time collaboration with the London creatives.

Lombardi thinks that “Network”–with its numerous vignettes and “complex CG environments–has a good shot at winning the VES honor.

 

“TRANSFORMER”

“Transformer,” for the Citroen C4 automobile out of Euro RSCG, London, was directed and edited by Neill Blomkamp of Spy Films, Toronto. The Embassy Visual Effects, Vancouver, B.C.–in which Blomkamp is a partner–created the spot’s effects.

The ad, which makes extensive use of motion capture, shows a car on a roof-top parking lot that transforms itself into a robot made of car parts–doors, windows, etc. The robot dances around, than transforms itself back into a car.

Blomkamp relates that in order to make the CG seem as real as possible, he motion-captured choreographer Marty Kudelka–who has created routines for the likes of Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Lopez. Kudelka’s moves were later used to animate the robot. “[The spot] was all CG, and we wanted to make it look as real as possible,” notes Blomkamp. “I’m a big fan of realistic CG.”

After the motion capture shoot (at Blur Studio, Santa Monica), the car itself was scanned, and the data brought back to The Embassy. There, Blomkamp created the robot, giving it the moves from the choreographer’s shoot. To create the environment around the car, Blomkamp related that he and his team used HDRI–high dynamic range imagery, which lights 3-D scenes to look real. “Nothing was eyeballed or simulated or guess-work,” says Blomkamp. “It was all mathematically correct.”

Winston Helgason, founder of The Embassy, served as producer on the spot, and notes that it took about five weeks to create the spot.

The team at Embassy included: Blomkamp and Helgason, as well as Trevor Cawood, visual effects supervisor/CG artist, and Simon Van de Lagemaat, animator. To achieve the look of the spot, the team used Vicon’s motion capture system, Modo, LightWave, and Apple’s Shake.

MySHOOT Profiles