Armed with a pair of X-ray glasses, a woman at a groovy restaurant amuses herself by checking out what’s under people’s everyday attire, in a new spot for Levi’s Dockers Mobile Pant. It’s directed by Jim Sonzero of bicoastal Venus Entertainment/HSI Productions via FCB San Francisco.
The :30, called "X-Ray Vision" opens in an airport restaurant. As a waitress reaches a table where a man is dining alone, suddenly, from the floor up, the scene is transformed. Everything appears transparent, in shades of grayed blue and white, allowing us to see people’s skeletons and undergarments. The breathy gasp of a female voice alerts us to a couple at a second table. The man and woman are deep in a conversation that X-ray vision reveals is being taped by a recorder hidden in her purse. (According to the agency, the man confesses that he is about to leave his wife.) Still unseen, the female voice observes, "Oh, he’s so busted."
With normal sight, we watch the waitress listen to another customer—a portly, middle-aged man complaining about his food. Our vision alters again to reveal that he is wearing women’s underwear—lace panties, garter and a bra—under his suit. "He’s got issues," breathes the female voice, which is now revealed to belong to a sassy, sexy woman who is watching through a pair of oversized plastic glasses.
Over at the bar a cell phone rings, attracting our watcher’s attention, sans glasses. A man wearing Dockers excuses himself from a group of other men, reaching into a pants pocket to answer his cell. We see a close-up of the woman’s eyes, again behind her X-ray glasses, as she inspects the man’s trousers from across the room. The sound of Velcro opening prompts us to discover and examine his four deep, well-stocked pockets; he removes his palm pilot from one of them.
The woman doing the spying is then shown sitting with a male companion, who studies an instruction manual for X-ray glasses. As the Dockers man finishes his conversation, the woman removes her glasses and says, "Nice pants." Sensing he is being watched, the Dockers man looks up and then glances down at his trousers. "These things are amazing," declares the woman—and we cut to a close-up of the pants with a super, "Dockers Mobile Pant." Those words are repeated by a voiceover stating, "Introducing Dockers Mobile Pant." The last shot is of the trousers viewed in X-ray with the contents of the pockets fully exposed.
The agency team consisted of executive creative director/art director Rooney Carruthers, creative director/copywriter Brian Bacino, art director Michael Powell and executive producer Steve Neely. Since this was the launch campaign, FCB basically wanted to give a product demonstration of the pants’ main features: the hidden pockets. An X-ray technique seemed like a natural idea, according to Bacino.
Sonzero, who has previously worked with the agency, was approached to direct the spot. "Jim’s film is always interesting and his aesthetic is very fashionable," explained Bacino. "A constant through the ‘Nice Pants’ theme for Dockers is to use all the tools of the high-fashion industry, but inject a little guy humor."
While Sonzero explored his options in terms of visual effects, Neely was approached by Rick Wagonheim, executive producer/ partner, Rhinoceros Visual Effects & Design (RVE&D), New York. Wagonheim had heard that FCB was working on a campaign featuring an example of an X-ray. Neely said that initially he was "pissed" because the project was meant to be a secret. Wagonheim sent FCB a reel which Neely originally ignored, but took along to Los Angeles when he went to meet with Sonzero. The reel included an X-ray sample, which wasn’t exactly what the agency creatives had in mind, but the closest they had seen to what they were seeking. That Friday, Sonzero contacted RVE&D to discuss the job, and over the weekend, RVE&D’s Arman Matin and Jeff Guerrero worked on a more specific sample—a pre-visualization-—based on a scene from the feature film There’s Something About Mary, in which live action is followed by the X-ray technique. This spec piece was exactly what the agency had in mind, and on Wednesday RVE&D executive producer/partner Michael Miller and Matin flew to Los Angeles for the shoot.
Finding the right Dockers’ man for the lead role took some time. "He had to be accessible, yet heroic, so we were seeking a model who looked like a real person. And the pants had to look great on him," said Sonzero. The live-action component took two days—a pre-light day and an actual shoot day—at Encounters Restaurant, Los Angeles International Airport. For Sonzero the most challenging part of the spot—as with any effects job—was the rigorous lining up of elements and shooting layers. "This is the antithesis of spontaneity, but you just kind of stay the course and accumulate all the layers and keep it as fresh as possible," he said.
The live-action footage was given to Spot Welders, Venice, Calif., where editor Michael Heldman and executive producer David Glean worked to provide a :30 cut. (The time-consuming nature and expense of the visual effects meant that the editing was done prior to the effects being added.) Heldman noted that the real editing challenge was pre-visualizing what the footage would look like once the X-ray effect was in place.
Postproduction took eight weeks. Matin had to devise a way to simulate an actual X-ray—which would normally only show bones, some skin and metallic objects—while showing extra details such as clothes and undergarments.
Originally, production techniques such as motion capture and motion control were considered. But instead RVE&D opted for CGI to give Sonzero an extra measure of creative freedom on the shoot, especially since the director only had a day to capture all of the live-action elements. While on the shoot, Miller and Matin photographed every single object that was in frame and prepared themselves to re-create everything in 3-D, to achieve the X-ray scenes. The actors and actresses were also photographed from every angle to capture their unique dimensions and body structures.
Once the footage was cleaned up on the Inferno, digitally removing smoke and fire detectors, and lighting fixtures, Sonzero flew to New York to work with RVE&D on placing the X-ray effect. While the spot was in editing, RVE&D had been busy creating a 3-D model of every object and fitting in every skeleton, so that when the edited version was ready, the team could track in all the shots. "This was done using Maya. Our animators did a really good job of fitting in the skeleton through a process called rotoscoping, which literally involved going in frame by frame, and matching it with each skeleton," said Matin.
Each scene had to be custom-animated and modeled. For example, the shot where the man is revealed to be wearing lingerie required the combination of up to 60 layers. "You are not only seeing his clothing, but his tie and his skeleton, and behind that the chair, and behind that the person who is sitting there, as well as her skeleton and ultimately the backdrop—and far away, the airport," Matin explained. The waitress also had to be considered. "We had to show her clothing, her undergarments, her bra, her skin, her skeleton, the ring that she’s wearing, the buttons on her coat and the bow on her skirt."
The agency requested an element of intrigue in the music, so creative director/composer/sound designer Thad Spencer and composer Al Wolovitch of Venice, Calif.-based Asche & Spencer researched different styles and went with one called "Exotica"—a spin-off from lounge that was popular in the 1950s.
