Ad agency KBS, production studio MJZ and VFX studio The Mill joined forces to create an epic, 60-foot purple monster for Monster.com’s “Opportunity Roars” in which the creature grabs a woman from a high-rise building, rescuing her from an unsatisfying job. At first she screams in horror but eventually she comes around to view the monster quite differently even as he seemingly wreaks havoc on the city. Turns out the beast is taking her to a better place of employment.
The spot, directed by MJZ’s Matthijs Van Heijningen, is a metaphor for the job process—a little daunting, but Monster will be there every step of the way until you find the right fit.
The monster is an anthropomorphization of Monster.com—he’s in the corner of job seekers as their champion and equalizer, by helping to smash through the challenges they may face in the workplace. He knows you deserve better, and will stop at nothing to help you find it.
The Mill’s CGI team built a full muscle system under the monster’s fur in order to simulate the weight in his body while moving. This heightened the level of realism in the character’s movements and interactions.
The team meticulously crafted each wrinkle, pore and hair, which were carefully simulated to interact with his surroundings, from lighting to wind changes.
The spot features several fully CGI environments, including streets, alleyways and office spaces, which are seamlessly integrated with live action shots captured in Toronto and augmented to mirror the streets of New York with matte paintings and digital assets.
Challenges
The spot posed myriad challenges to The Mill NY ensemble. VFX supervisor and 3D artist Kevin Ives said, “The design of this character was a unique challenge. Its original introduction was in a U.K. print campaign, where there were only a few poses and limited lighting. The challenge for us was to bring him to life, without veering too far from the original reference material. To do this we looked to nature. We gave Monster a bone structure and muscle system similar to that of humans. We then sculpted the hands to have similar wrinkling and color variety as orangutans, but because Monster is so giant, a straight orangutan scale up would have looked very odd, so we looked to larger animals such as elephants, rhinos and alligators to add coarseness and scale to the skin texture.
“For the fur we looked to bears and apes. The texture was more bear but the back fringe and arms were more chimp or orangutan. We really wanted the fur to look lived in, so we had to groom the fur to have clumps, partings, and flow that reflected how his body moved. This actually developed alongside the animation—the more we saw Monster move, the more indication we had of where the hair needed to be pinched and flexed permanently. The goofy walk really came out of Monster’s anatomy and the desire to undercut the muscular physique with an awkward comedy. Last but not least, the feet were elephant mammoth.
Kyle Cody, The Mill’s VFX supervisor and sr. compositor on “Opportunity Roars,” noted that “the obvious challenge we had creatively was how to composite a 60-foot giant purple monster into live action plates with no reference. It was a fine balance of managing the purples throughout the spot and adding the right amount of haze and atmosphere to the monster in order to show that he is giant…but not too giant.
“One of our biggest creative challenges in compositing,” Cody continued, “was the sheer number of set extensions and enhancements we did on each plate. Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side when we shot, and as such the majority of our street photography was dark and dreary. Creatively, the spot has to be hopeful and optimistic so the compositing team set about painting with light to add sunny blue skies, shafts of light and reflected lighting all throughout the streets and buildings. The compositing team and DMP department also managed a great deal of set extensions and matte paintings. Some of the locations we shot at were not the right size, so we created a number of background replacements in order to get the right city feel.”
Ruben Vandebroek, head of 3D for The Mill, added that the close collaboration with MJZ’s Van Heijningen proved invaluable. “Working with the director Matthijs van Heijningen, we pre visualized the entire spot. It gave us an idea early in the production of what was required to capture all the right elements on set. We also worked closely with production designer Jan Roelfs and the special effects company in Toronto who came up with a few different rigs to capture all the live action elements required. These include a green screen shoot with a gimbal rig for our hero actress and a custom hydraulic rig that could lift up and move through the office for the opening sequence.
“It was a pleasure working with Matthijs, as he knows exactly what he is looking for in each shot, and has a very thorough understanding of the postproduction process, meaning he was involved all the way through until the end through weekly cinesync sessions.”
See the October 2017 Top Ten VFX/Animation Chart here.
