This spot for AT&T plays like a bit of an homage to Christo and Jean-Claude, creators of urban and rural works of large-scale art in the great outdoors. The directing collective Traktor, BBDO New York, visual effects house MPC L.A. and edit shop Arcade teamed on a visual story in which blankets unfurl and cover such landmarks as the Hollywood sign and the Gateway arch in St. Louis, skyscrapers, the Vegas strip, even an expansive beach.
The visual tour de force artfully conveys the message that AT&T covers 97 percent of all America.
The plan was formulated to shoot some of the blanket fabric on large models, shot high speed that would later be composited onto the live action element–in the hope this would take the pressure off full photo-real cloth. These elements worked particularly well on the St. Louis Arch, the Hollywood sign and beach scenes. However, this process worked less so on other larger structures, thus necessitating 3D support.
At the end of each shoot day, BBDO and Traktor agreed on a live action plate that MPC moved forward with on the effects front. The creatives and directors used Photoshop to draw on the 2K scan image to show MPC where they would like to see orange fabric. This saved time going back and forth approving “coverage” areas and direction of roll movement.
The live action plate was also camera tracked in 3D and passed onto the motion control camera operator. This camera track was imported into the motion control rig and the exact same camera move was carried out over the enlarged fabric model on a studio day.
Paul Martinez of Arcade continued editing the full 30-second spot while MPC tested CGI cloth simulations and tended to essential rotoscoping/clean up.
By the time the edit was fully client approved, MPC had a good head start on several key VFX shots
MPC’s CGI team created a Maya cloth script that could simulate realistic vertical and horizontal rolls, with wind and surface resistance. While render time was slow, the script helped the 3D team control the parameters of the simulation.
It was then the compositing team’s job to integrate all the CG and model elements using Nuke & Flame.
The BBDO N.Y. team included chief creative officers David Lubars and Bobby Pearce, executive creative directors Greg Hahn and Ralph Watson, art directors Jean Robaire and Stephen McMennamy, and producers Carolyn Carbone and Amy Wertheimer.
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More