Ceri Payne, part of the creative team at The Discovery Channel in the U.K., directed this promo for the new show Fifth Gear featuring the slowed-down reaction shots of people inside and beneath a car jumping from a ramp and going airborn. The :30 is marked by a sense of both awe and fun.
Payne worked closely with The Studio at Smoke and Mirrors, London, to develop the spot. The original idea was to have the 5th Gear team do a surreal car jump in an Audi R8 in a hyper-real contemporary warehouse setting. The car would then travel towards a huge concrete discovery D suspended within this space. But due to time constraints with delivery and shooting schedules, the decision was made to shoot the Fifth Gear team in an Audi R8 on a green screen stage as reference (and for the interior shots of the car). Everything else was created in CG.
The Smoke & Mirrors team initially pre-vised the jump to get the idea of camera heights and angles. The warehouse, car and other elements were all created using Maxon’s Cinema 4D with some texturing created using elements of Bodypaint 3D and the Adobe creative suite. The angles and camera moves were matched to the footage to allow the windows with the talent to be replaced within the 3D scene and then this was composited using Nuke replacing the green screen with the renders from Cinema 4D. The finished piece was then graded using Da Vinci Resolve.
SUPERLATIVE Signs Director Claudia Abend For Spots and Branded Content
Latin American director/editor and documentary filmmaker Claudia Abend has joined SUPERLATIVE for her first U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content.
Abend's empathetic docu-style POV has garnered several international awards for the documentary films Hit (2008) and The Flower of Life (2018). Her spotmaking credits include such brands as Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. SUPERLATIVE has already worked with Abend, together producing a new ad campaign for digital agency Tinuiti and The Honest Company, a consumer goods corporation featuring eco-minded products.
“We found Claudia through her poignant documentaries on the festival circuit,” said SUPERLATIVE creative manager Stefan Dezil. “We are excited about her textured narratives, emotional storytelling, and her powerhouse long-form storytelling abilities, currently on her third feature film. As SUPERLATIVE continues to build our brand after premiering our latest films at Sundance and SXSW, Claudia is the kind of multidimensional artist we are excited to partner with on branded content and beyond. Fluent in English and Spanish, her reel shows real prowess with infants, food and skin products, families both young and old. Great visual storytelling and inspirational doc work.”
Abend began her career in her native Uruguay, studying film and editing in college. “My dad would show me films like Citizen Kane,” she said. “I love cinema and became an editor. It was here that I learned all about communicating human emotion.”
From the get-go, Abend hit it big as a documentary director, teaming with Adrianna Loeff on Hit, a movie chronicling pop artists of Uruguayan music. Abend took home a Best Editing... Read More