Honda Fit’s “Mecha-Mosquitoes”–a commercial in which hybrid mosquito/gas guzzling cars (circa the 1960s) prey on fuel tankers but meet their match when they try to assault a Fit–and Audi A4’s “Living Room,” a visual tour de force which moves us through a living room that elegantly forms and deconstructs, modernizing over the years before our eyes in a single camera move, are SHOOT’s Visual Effects & Animation Chart toppers for the fall quarter.
The former takes us on a wild surreal ride. We open on a gas tanker barrelling down a desert highway toward a shiny city in the distance. Off to the side of the road, we see another huge tanker gutted by strange flying mosquito/automobile creatures who are dipping their stingers into the abandoned metal tanker, siphoning gasoline as a mosquito would siphon blood from a person.
The mosquitoes then see their next victims zipping down the thoroughfare–two other large tankers and a quick, nimble Honda Fit. The mosquitoes take flight and the pursuit is on. Some hop aboard the moving tanker and sink their stingers into the vehicle to suck out gas. But several other aggressive mosquitoes go after the Fit. One of the predators gets outmaneuvered by the Fit and winds up crashing on the highway.
Yet its mosquito colleagues continue the chase. From the POV of one of the mosquitoes we see that the 33-miles-per-gallon Fit is indeed elusive. Still the mosquitoes are on its tail as we enter the earlier alluded to cityscape, veering over and under a maze of highway overpasses–but the winged predators cannot get by what looks like a light tower.
The Fit escapes as in the background we see the mosquitoes getting fried in the tower which resembles a giant bug zapper.
“Mecha-Mosquitoes” was produced by Digital Domain, Venice, Calif., for agency Rubin Postaer and Associates (RPA), Santa Monica.
Meanwhile, in Audi’s “Living Room,” the camera floats through an ornate Victorian living room, replete with carved wood, leather chairs, hanging chandelier, and a carefully coiffed Afghan dog. As the camera continues to orbit the room, however, the room itself changes with the shifting daylight. Floor-to-ceiling windows replace brick walls, revealing a Zen-like garden; simple, more modern furnishings supplant their flamboyant predecessors; natural light displaces light bulbs; and a more rough-and-tumble dog succeeds the Afghan. The piece-de-resistance arrives as the spot closes, when the Mercedes-Benz in the driveway is replaced by the Audi A4 and the tagline: “Progress is Beautiful.”
Method, Santa Monica, was the effects studio on the Audi spot.
“Mecha-Mosquitoes” RPA entrusted Digital Domain to create a CG world where the Honda Fit could play and act out scenes. But the trust went even deeper than that as the agency didn’t outsource the project responsibilities to a conventional production house but rather chose to keep the project under one roof by turning to Digital Domain to produce the spot using its own directors, Eric Barba and Brad Parker. Barba and Parker additionally served as VFX supervisors on the three-spot Honda Fit campaign that includes “Mecha-Mosquitoes.”
For the Digital Domain team, creating a world for the Fit meant every single element needed to be designed, discussed and delivered. “You make thousands of decisions about what the world will look like, what the creatures will look like, what their makeup will be and how they will behave,” explained Parker. “Literally nothing exists. Every pixel is designed from the ground up.”
Digital Domain creative director David Rosenbaum made key decisions giving the spots a characteristic look and feel. “Everything was beyond photo-real — dramatic colors in the sky, roads with unbelievable twists and turns, tankers that are more massive than they’d ever be in reality — all of those cues help define Fit world.”
Directing duties came naturally to Digital Domain’s Parker and Barba who have directed numerous spots via the digital studio. And both men credit the entire team that wanted to create a spot worthy of the concept and were inspired by the creative control that comes from directing in-house.
“Our goal was to establish a signature look for the brand — something that was not derivative in any way, but was visually interesting to the extreme,” said Barba. “That decision led us to design the campaign entirely in CG.”
As a CG creation, elements of Fit world and its inhabitants were easily translated into the online space, with Digital Domain contributing assets created for the spots to RPA’s interactive website for creative consistency and production efficiency.
“The business is changing,” observed Digital Domain’s Ed Ulbrich, president of commercials and executive producer, “The new breed of director feels as comfortable behind a workstation as they do behind a camera, and they’re able to create fresh looks that work across media. Our approach to this campaign really speaks to that evolution.”
“Living Room” Jason Smith, who at the time was with Bob Industries, Santa Monica, served as director of this commercial (he has since joined bicoastal/international HSI Productions), for the Audi A4 out of Venables, Bell & Partners, San Francisco.
The ad tracks the stylistic and functional changes of home, garden and automobile over the years.
“This project seamlessly blends 3D and live action in a unique and interesting way,” said Andy Boyd, lead 3D artist at Method. “Audi’s core message is about elevation, refinement, and style; about working towards a higher, more elegant goal. For this spot, we had to present an environment that is rapidly constructing and deconstructing with the passage of time, but present it in a pristine, stylish fashion. To achieve that, we tied beautiful footage together with some imaginative, photorealistic 3D animations.”
The progression centers on the living room and thankfully Method was able to make progress on the project from very early on. “We were fortunate to be involved from the very beginning of this project, recalled Jake Montgomery, lead 2D effects artist at Method. “We spent a good deal of time providing input right up front and determining how the deconstruction of the room should unfold. We were intimately involved in the previsualization process with Gregg Lukomski and the team from Halon, and we investigated just about every possibility before opting for this elegant, stop-motion style look. Once that was decided, we only had a couple of days on a stage to shoot our footage. That was a bit of a challenge, but we got it done.”
Boyd explained, “There were three different motion control setups, in two different rooms, with motion control lights moving around the room to reflect the time of day. The three motion control setups needed to be tied together into one seamless shot. To achieve that linear feel, we used 3D to fill in what was impossible to shoot or things we didn’t have time to shoot on stage. It was a huge challenge, but my happiest moment on the job was when Jake showed me how he had managed to stitch the plates together, with the motion control lighting moving smoothly through the scene. I knew then that this was going to be a very cool spot”
Faced with a tight timeline and a challenging vision, the Method team of 20-plus artists banded together to create a polished, pristine spot that conveys the essence of luxurious style.
“More than anything else, this spot highlights how well we work together as a team,” observed Montgomery. “We accomplished roughly five weeks of postproduction work in a little over two weeks, and that’s mainly because we have such a talented, tight-knit unit. Creative ingenuity was spontaneous, and we really had to be on our toes, because we knew we were only going to get one shot at this. Working with Jason Smith is always very nice and collaborative.”
