These are indeed challenging times on many levels, particularly with the state of the global economy. But regardless of the tenor of the times, at the upper echelon of filmmaking there are always inherent creative and logistical challenges–a fact of life reflected yet again in this year’s crop of nominated commercials in the seventh annual Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards.
The Mill, with VFX/post studios in London, New York and L.A., topped the spot field with six nominations in this year’s VES competition. Three of those six came on the strength of Coca-Cola’s “It’s Mine” directed by Nicolai Fuglsig of MJZ for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
“It’s Mine,” out of The Mill, New York, was nominated for outstanding compositing in a broadcast program or commercial, for best visual effects in a spot, and for outstanding animated character (Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade’s Stewie balloon from Family Guy) in a live action broadcast program or commercial.
The Mill, London, scored two noms: one for Toshiba’s “Time Sculpture” (directed by Mitch Stratten via Hungry Man, London, for Grey London) which was nominated in the outstanding compositing category; and another for Drench bottled water’s “Brains Dance” out of agency Clemmow Hornby Inge, London (for the character Brains from cult 1960s TV series The Thunderbirds). Ringan Ledwidge of Rattling Stick, London, directed “Brains Dance.
The Mill’s Los Angeles studio also had a hand in New Balance’s “Anthem,” but this VES nom, which was in the models and miniatures category, more directly applied to New Deal Studios, Los Angeles. “Anthem” was directed by MJZ’s Fredrik Bond for BBDO New York.
Next up in the VES Awards’ spot nominations derby with three was Framestore, which maintains studios in New York and London. Framestore has won the VES Award for outstanding effects in a commercial for four of the past six years. This time around Framestore earned two noms in the category of outstanding effects in a spot on the basis of: Monster.com’s “Stork” directed by Daniel Kleinman of Rattling Stick, London (Kleinman and the aforementioned Ledwidge are repped for spots stateside by bicoastal Epoch Films); and FedEx’s “Carrier Pigeons” directed by Tom Kuntz of production house MJZ. Both spots came out of BBDO New York.
“Carrier Pigeons” additionally scored a VES Award nomination in the category honoring outstanding compositing in a broadcast program or commercial.
Getting back to the marquee VES Award commercials category for best visual effects, Bacardi’s “Sundance” rounded out the nominations, pitted against “Carrier Pigeons,” “Stork” and “It’s Mine.”
Digital Domain, Venice, Calif., was the effects house on “Sundance” which was directed by Joseph Kahn of bicoastal/international HSI for RKCR/Y&R, London.
Digital Domain registered two spot nominations as “Sundance” was also recognized in the category of outstanding animated character in a live action broadcast program or commercial.
Meanwhile one other VES Awards category–outstanding created environment in a broadcast program or spot–yielded a couple more ad nominations: Audi’s “Living Room” for visual effects studio Method, Santa Monica; and Wrigley 5’s “Fruit Shredder” for MPC, London, with Asylum FX, Santa Monica, contributing some model building savvy via Flame.
Jason Smith directed “Living Room” for agency Venables, Bell & Partners, San Francisco, back when he was at Bob Industries, Santa Monica. (He has since moved over to production company HSI.)
“Fruit Shredder” was directed by Filip Engstrom of Stink, London, for AMV BBDO, London, and Energy BBDO, Chicago.
The VES Award winners–which also span features, TV programs and student projects–will be announced and honored during a gala ceremony on Feb. 21 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.
SHOOT touched base with several of the artists behind VES-recognized advertising fare this year, posing the following query:
What was the biggest creative and/or technical challenge of your VES Award-nominated spot?
Here’s a sampling of the feedback we received:
Barnsley, senior Flame operator, The Mill, London (Drench’s “Brains Dance”)
Pre-production on ‘Brains’ led us to think the spot should include two-thirds real puppeteering and one-half CG. We planned to join various sections of the live action together where it wasn’t possible to perform a traditional move but due to how the puppet was strung/re-strung and not realizing how difficult and time consuming this process was followed by the speed and complexity of the dance sequences, we realized this wouldn’t be the case.
We gathered motion-capture data for the whole dance sequence, which made it possible to animate ‘Brains’ performing the exact dance moves quickly and effectively. The main issue was the puppet looked life-like and did not move like a puppet, so the animation team re-designed every slight move and nuance to create the exact balance between realism and puppetry.
Like the creative challenges, technically the nature of the piece meant we spent long periods focused on the character and as a result we spent many hours analyzing every detail of ‘Brains’ and how he integrated into the environment. Modeling, texture, cloth simulation, hair, strings and shadows had to be a near A-1 match with the real puppet, which was shot for lighting reference at each position.
I would say that in total two-thirds of the project was built in CG and combined into the set and we are very pleased with the results.
Ludo Fealy, Dean Robinson, VFX supervisors, MPC, London (Wrigley 5’s “Fruit Shredder)
The majority of the ad–with the exception of the actor, the floor and the control panel–was created by MPC’s 3D and 2D teams. This represented an enormous challenge, as the whole photo-realistic environment had to be created from scratch. Based on the concept drawing, we started building the 3D structure, layer by layer, to achieve a believable look.
Concepts were conceived in the art department with Adam Leary designing the opening shot, which consequently dictated the look of the job. This was a vital part of the commercial, because we had to build a realistic environment from a rough idea sent to us by the director. The juice guns were modeled, animated and textured in Maya as was the outer dome. MPC’s 2D team and digital matte painters were also involved, sourcing the trees, tracking and compositing them. In some shots there are hundreds of guns firing at once, so we had to write a system that would allow us to aim the guns and fire thousands of fruits, without the need to hand animate each gun and each fruit. The look of the CG elements then needed to be made to match the rest of the elements. Extensive particle animation created the ‘sensation moment’ where the fruit mist and spray fills the dome. All these elements were combined with some live footage of trees, exploding fruit and a life-size gun model built by Asylum FX.
Ian Hunter, New Deal Studios, Los Angeles. VFX supervisor (New Balance’s “Anthem”)
For the New Balance commercial “Anthem,” we were tasked with building a stylized set of city building miniatures that at first looked like normal buildings up close. But as you backed away, you would realize that the buildings together spelled out the words: “LOVE” and “HATE.”
The challenges: The building art designs mixed architectural styles within each building. Given a tight production schedule, we cast resin building “textures” from some of our previous projects grafted onto new building facades. [We were] giving the building a high level of detail while still fitting into the style of the spot. We took the drawings and redrew them in CAD in our digital art department and had the building walls laser cut. The resulting building facades were assembled by a team lead by miniature crew chief Jon Warren and all those cast resin brick and stone textures were added on top of the laser cut facades. Painting could then begin.
The other physical challenge we had on the spot was the director’s desire to place all the buildings in specific “ominous” angles in order for the building to brood over our main character, the runner. This meant that each building had a frame made from standard chesbros clamps added to the back to allow us to vary the shoot angle on set. Since the spot transitions from early morning to sunrise, we also built internal lighting into each building. They were shot with and without the lights on as separate passes to allow the windows to be selectively “turned on” within each shot.
Nikos Kalaitzidis, VFX supervisor, Digital Domain, Venice, Calif. (Bacardi’s “Sundance)
The creative direction was actually the source of our biggest technical challenge. Director Joseph Kahn had a vision of a :60 commercial with a single, seamless camera move that started off slow and continuously spun around a group of animated liquid dancers while they multiplied from one character to four, ending in an exploding finale of liquid that forms a cocktail. Originally we had planned to use high-speed photography, but that approach wouldn’t give us the look he wanted within the five-week schedule. Instead we came up with the idea of using motion capture and character animation to drive fluid simulation interactions. We’re pretty sure this technique has never been used before in a commercial on such a grand scale.
We were able to take FSIM, our Academy Award-winning fluid simulation system developed for large-scale feature films, and adapt it for this project. We used the dancers as source volumes for the fluid simulations, where liquid is generated from them on a per-frame basis. Art directing the fluid simulations was challenging–to transition between liquid and dancing forms within fluid simulations. We created new tools and an efficient character-to-fluid-simulation pipeline to give animators better control of the liquids.
The effect is that the dancers’ moves blend seamlessly as they dance, multiply and separate; movement never stops, with a single camera move from start to finish.
Jake Montgomery, lead 2D effects artist, Method, Santa Monica (Audi’s “Living Room”)
For this project our objective was to create a time lapse style spot that rapidly tracks the stylistic and functional changes over many years of a home, a garden, and an automobile. We spent a good deal of time providing input right up front and determining how the deconstruction of the room should unfold. 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. 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 we started to see the transitions working with the plates stitched together, with the motion control lighting moving smoothly through the scene. I knew then that this was going to be a very cool spot.
More than anything else, this spot highlights how well we work together as a team. 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.”
Ben Smith, co-head of 3D, The Mill, New York (Coca-Cola’s “It’s Mine”)
The biggest creative challenge on Coke was creating authentic and believable balloons.
The team studied footage from the Macy’s Day Parade in order to authentically design and animate the balloons. The animators emulated how the balloons would deform, bend, squash and stretch. An ingenious method of classical animation blended with cutting edge dynamics simulation was used, allowing for a flexible approach on a shot-by-shot basis. Once the final animation of the characters was approved, handling ropes were added to the balloons, these were then dynamically simulated to create realistic motion.
One of the first steps for The Mill’s artists was to experiment with different edit combinations to set the spot’s pace. Timing was essential to make the characters’ movements and the shape of their bodies realistic. One of the initial considerations was defining how fast the characters would move–too slow, the edit would become dull and labored, too fast and the characters would seem light and unbelievable. A major challenge was to maintain the storyline and edit without over animating the characters. They needed to convey the action of the shot, but still move in a totally realistic way.
Another key component was texture and lighting, crucial in creating Stewie and Underdogs’ scowling and determined faces. All creases and textures were hand painted by The Mill artists, further enhancing the outstanding authenticity of each balloon. Lighting was also necessary to create a believable interaction between the balloons and their environment. The way tree shadows fall and the light interacts with the translucent balloons all had to be considered and executed.
