Two buddies sitting at a coffee shop counter have a chat, with one asking the other if there are any nearby Capital One Bank branches. Armed with a laptop computer, the man responds that he has a new mapping system software that should instantly locate convenient branches. On his computer screen, we see a push pin appear on a map, designating a local branch.
    But this red push pin system plays quite differently in the real world as we see a giant pin plummet from the sky, landing on terra firma where a Capital One is located–more accurately, the pin lands on a taxi cab, smashing the vehicle which is parked in front of a Capital One branch. Suddenly other red push pin “missiles” fall from the sky, hitting a sidewalk, a fire hydrant in front of yet another branch, and so on. Looking out the coffee house window, we see the last pin land just across the street–talk about convenient.
    A voiceover relates that Capital One Bank has hundreds and hundreds of branches and ATMs.
    A cabbie then appears on camera next to the sight of his taxi hood impaled by a huge push pin. He utters the Capital One Bank slogan query, “What’s in your wallet?”
    “Push Pins” was directed by Tom Routson from bicoastal Tool of North America for BBDO Atlanta. Lesley Robson-Foster served as VFX supervisor for Tool.
    Stephen McMennamy was creative director for BBDO Atlanta, with Melanie Lambertson serving as agency producer.
    Filmworkers Club, Chicago, assembled a VFX team led by creative director/lead compositor Rob Churchill, which created the giant push pins as CG elements and integrated them into the background scenes.
    “We tried to make the push pins as realistic as possible by adding nicks, scratches and mold markings,” Churchill said. “We also took reference photos outside of objects made from similar rounded plastic to see how they would react to the light.”
    Churchill and his team applied a myriad of subtle touches to make the effects look real. That included adding CG elements of bursting concrete and asphalt and exploding dust to the impact sites, as well as shadows and reflections of the falling push pins. In one instance, a stream of water from a broken water main was applied to the scene. Shaking and bouncing cars were added as foreground elements and, in some scenes, the entire background environments were fabricated.
    While the background environments for most of the effects scenes were shot with a static camera, Churchill added artificial zooms and camera moves to make them look more dynamic. “For the final scene in the restaurant, we added camera shake as if the impact of the pushpin had caused the building to move,” Churchill observed. “For further emphasis, we put in lighting fixtures and caused them to sway and also added shaking blinds to the window.” The entire scene viewed outside the restaurant window–including the pushpin and the Capital One bank branch–were added during the visual effects process.
    Noting that the spot is intended to be funny, Churchill said that it was important that the falling push pins didn’t appear too menacing. “We didn’t want to evoke tragedy so we scaled down the destruction a bit,” he recalled. “When the pins hit, they break up the concrete, but it remains very localized.”
    A graphic that appears near the end of the spot, where the camera pulls out of a satellite image of New York and reveals the Capital One Bank logo, was created by Filmworkers Club’s affiliated design studio, Lift Motion Design. Filmworkers Club also produced an alternate version of the spot set in New Orleans.
    Editor was Dustin Stephens of P.S. 260, New York.

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