SHORT CUTS
The Mill, London, completed visual effects and post work for Barclays’ "Fluent in Finance" campaign. Comprised of four :30s, "Change," "Helping Hand," "Bear" and "Tools" were directed by Dante Ariola of bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander. The ads star actors Gary Oldman and Donald Sutherland, who replaced Samuel L. Jackson as spokesperson. The spots showcase Sutherland as a wise man and Oldman as a cynic who discuss the tale of a man who learned to nurture money—just like Barclays does—by growing it on trees. The Mill contributed heavily by creating trees in 3-D accompanied by leaves made from money notes in various currencies. Since the production entailed creating millions of 3-D objects, it posed an enormous rendering problem. Because of the minimal schedule, it was decided that the conventional approach to building 3-D trees had to be reappraised. Instead of generating trees as individually animated units, The Mill built core data in particles that were interpreted by the renderfarm to automatically "grow." An example of this was that a large branch extends to smaller particles (branches to twigs to buds) during the rendering process. The 3-D team decided to implement this new working practice by tackling the tree-build in four separate teams: team one modeled trunks; team two built branches around the trunks; team three built twigs around branches; and team four generated hero "money leaves" for close-up shots. Particular attention was given to these money leaves—the team experimented extensively until they’d generated money leaves that grew elegantly and organically. To make the most of a tight schedule, the 3-D process was kicked-off while the month-long shoot took place in Los Angeles. Once the footage had been cut and sent to The Mill, each shot was assigned to the appropriate 3-D team. The end shot’s forest scene was made from approximately one million 3-D trees. The Mill’s Flame team contributed their talents as well. Lead Flame artist Chris Knight spent four weeks on the shoot, advising the production crew on how best to shoot trees in order to achieve seamless blending. Initially, the plan was to shoot and use real trees wherever possible, but upon seeing the footage, it became apparent that not all trees were neat enough to efficiently convey the story. So the Flame team stripped out all unusable trees to create clean plates for inserting 3-D trees. The 2-D crew also spent much time manicuring the few real trees that were used within the edit. Knight and the crew ensured each tree was placed correctly within the orchard scenes, inserting shadows as necessary. In addition to Knight, other Mill credits go to producers Mel Wickham and Helen Weil; 3-D producer Stephen Venning; telecine artist Paul Harrison; Flame artists Gavin Wellsman, Edwin So, David Birkhill and Judy Roberts; and animators Jordi Bares, Eric Deltour, Ludovic Walsh, Laurent Makowski, Hitesh Patel, Robert Petrie and Martin Gauvreau.
Framestore CFC, London, completed postproduction on three ads for London agency St. Luke’s Communications and its client BT. Each of the spots use atmospherically filmed, mildly surreal scenarios to illustrate a different aspect of customer care. "Snow" shows a cross section of Londoners preparing for an event, which later is revealed to be a snowfall. "If you knew when to expect things," says the voiceover as the snow starts falling, "imagine how much more you could do with your day." BT’s pledge to keep appointments is memorably evoked. The promise that a human operator will always be available is illustrated in "Football." A young girl whispers instructions—under the shouts of her father and his brothers—to a football team on the television. The team hears these orders and as a result is victorious in the game. And in "Sounds," a woman struggling to sleep against a variety of outside noises goes out onto the balcony of her hotel to find that the whole neighborhood is willing to get together to bring the noise level down. All the spots close with the BT logo and the tag, "More committed to service. More power to you." "Snow" and "Football" were directed by Dom&Nic for Outsider, London, while Nick Gordon helmed "Sounds" for Academy, London. Framestore CFC created digital effects for the three ads, as well as telecine work on "Sounds." Inferno artist Ben Cronin supervised the "Snow" shoot for Framestore CFC. Cronin’s effects work includes several varieties of artificial snow, both practical and digital. The culminating event of the spot—a snowfall on Primrose Hill—required Cronin and 3-D animators Chris Syborn, Jake Mengers and Matt Estela to put snow in the air and all over the grassy rise. With the camera moves tracked, the 3-D snow elements were created, providing Cronin with a variety of depths of field with which to compose his shots. He achieved the ground dusting of snow through the application of a couple of "keys," using the textures and lighting of the grass to help form the snowy "surface." The heavy sky over the north London scene was also a digital construct built by Cronin. Cronin additionally worked on crowd replication for "Football," as the entire match the family is watching was actually shot in Scotland, with local team Inverness Caledonian Thistle—and 250 of their fans—providing the action. Dave Ludlam provided the telecine for "Sounds," complementing the atmospheric look. Helen Stanley was post producer for Framestore CFC.
MUSIC NOTES
New York-based metaTechnik provided sound design for a trio of new MTV "Watch & Learn" station IDs. The promos, part of an ongoing campaign created by producer/illustrator Matt Vescovo, were inspired by Vescovo’s "InstructoArt" vignettes. "The Hierarchy of Uncomfortable Experiences" shows five common unpleasant experiences, including the discomfort of having corn stuck in one’s teeth and sitting down on a wet toilet seat—a sound that was created by recording floppy boots stepping in mud puddles. "Bling Bling 1997-2003" chronicles the life and death of the slang term. The spot features a variety of characters including rappers, athletes and others who utter the phrase "bling bling" in different social contexts. MetaTechnik composer/sound designer/producer Victoria Gross and composer/sound designer Shahin Motia teamed up with Vescovo on the talent casting call and wound up using a cross section of various people, as well as the metaTechnik composers and Vescovo for the voice work. And "Lull" identifies the flow-disrupting silences that occur during dinner conversations. For the effect, Gross, Motia and Vescovo laughed themselves into a lull, finally achieving the proper sound after about 20 attempts. The musical tag was provided by JSM, New York.
John Wiggins of Wonderland Sound, New York, created sound design for the documentary Hitler’s Pawn, a look at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, which aired on HBO in July. The film tells the story of young Jewish athlete Gretel Bergmann, a gold medal contender in the high jump, who was used as a pawn by Hitler in his strategy to secure American participation in the Olympics in the face of a possible boycott. The documentary combines archival footage of the era, interviews with the 89-year-old Bergmann and her former teammates, and newly-shot vignettes depicting Bergmann’s life and times. Wiggins painted a complex soundscape, spending 45 hours layering and editing 24 tracks of sound on Digidesign ProTools to craft realistic-sounding scenes for the 58-minute program. Wonderland Sound offers sound design and audio post services, and is a sister company of Wonderland Productions, a full-service New York-based postproduction boutique.
CLIPLAND
Hollywood-based Encore Visual Effects provided services for "Looks Like They Were Right," the latest music video from Lit, and the debut release from the group’s self-titled CD. Encore compositors Rob Williams, Johnny Wilson and Jeff West applied their artistry to virtually every frame of the video to make it appear as though the band is going through a series of instantaneous costume changes. Directed by Nathan Cox, the video is entirely made up of performance footage, showing the band energetically working their way through the song on a small stage. As they perform, the players’ clothing and instruments change each time the song hits a beat. The illusion was accomplished by shooting the song five times, each time with precisely the same staging, but with the band members wearing different clothes. Cuts from the various takes were then edited together. To make the effect work properly, each cut had to match perfectly. Williams, West and Wilson accomplished this by stabilizing and aligning adjoining shots, and by eliminating small changes in the background environment. Artists resolved changes in the background environment through a cut and paste operation. For instance, if an amplifier was moved slightly or something hanging on a wall had shifted, that element would have to be cut out of one scene and composited into the adjoining scene so that it appeared to be in the same place at all times. To further complicate matters, some scenes involved parts of different takes combined in the same frame. In those instances, Encore’s team of artists had to make sure the two halves of the frame matched so well that the seam was invisible.
KromA, Los Angeles, provided CG, visual effects and compositing services for the first two video releases from the soundtrack to Spider-Man 2. The studio collaborated with bicoastal F.M. Rocks director Antti J for both "Ordinary" from Train, and "We Are" from Swedish rocker Ana Johnsson. For the Train video, KromA created a computer-animated commuter train modeled after a train that appears in the climactic scene from Spider-Man 2. The full video intercuts scenes of the band performing in a subterranean train station with clips from the film. The CG train appears near the end of the video, rocketing through the station behind the band. The sequence with the band was designed to blend seamlessly with the film scene that precedes it. To make it work, KromA animators had to create a replica of the train from the film, which was also produced via CG. KromA also lent a hand to the scene that follows the train sequence, adding a ball of fire behind Train front man Pat Monahan. For "We Are," KromA’s work primarily consisted of image enhancements. The video again mixes movie clips with a romantic scenario involving the feisty singer and a man from the apartment next door. In order to convey the intensity of Johnsson’s performance, KromA helped to create an effect where the loudness of the music seems to cause the furnishings of the man’s apartment to slide across the floor. KromA credits go to compositor Adam Fisher and executive producer Amy Yukich.
