Carbon collaborated with integrated agency Golin to create a fully-animated, movie trailer "Out of Focus" as part of a larger Myopia Matters awareness campaign for Essilor of America, the leading manufacturer of optical lenses in the U.S.
The Carbon trailer follows the emotional journey of a young girl "Mia" struggling with Myopia and the way a simple pair of glasses transforms her life. With nearly half of all Americans now suffering from Myopia, it's a fast-growing problem that impacts the ability to see well today and can increases the risk for optical disease later in life. The Carbon spot is designed to have the stopping power for parents to recognize the signs of Myopia and act — by taking their child to an eye doctor for a comprehensive eye exam to diagnose the condition.
Golin approached creative studio Carbon and invited them to pitch their character design and animation style on a simple brief; create and animate a heartfelt story in sixty seconds. Carbon seized the rare opportunity to focus on a character-driven piece that leads with emotion and shares an important message with parents to help them recognize the signs of myopia and how it impacts a child's life. Golin provided Carbon with the freedom to explore character and environment designs, which they would then translate into a CG world. According to Carbon Creative Director Liam Chapple, “This is exactly the kind of creative brief we hope to receive because we love to be involved from the inception of the story and early storyboarding, all the way through to the final image.”
Despite the huge scale of the project and the limited schedule, Carbon made the creative decision to aim for the initial visual references of the movies Up and Despicable Me. This involved several complex technical procedures utilizing the Ornatirix plugin along with Vray for Maya to style and simulate realistic hairstyles for the entire cast of over ten characters. While time-consuming, dynamic hair systems helped to achieve a richness in character nuance that allowed for a connection with the characters that was vital to the tone of the piece. A large group of artists across Carbon’s Chicago and New York studios worked within Carbon’s proprietary pipeline to achieve everything from clothing modeling to complex season-driven dynamics in-house. “We created five environments for the story to take place in which changed with the seasons,” adds Chapple. “We set-dressed each of the CG sets with the sort of minute detail that you don’t see on the first watch, but which give scale to the world we created. The trees were designed and animated using speed tree, we then added falling leaves using Maya’s nCloth, which we combined with the character animation for the interactions between feet and leaves in the playground shots.”
For the final look, colorist Julien Biard lent his eye to the film enhancing the hyperreal look and richness to the compositing touches added by the nuke team. “From the day we first talked to Carbon, their entire team embraced our vision and worked tirelessly not only to bring this film to life, but to make it so much more than even we expected,” says Golin Creative Director Zach Schmitz. “Start to finish, the characters and animation simply got better and more beautiful by the day. What they ultimately delivered is a powerful 60 seconds that will hopefully help make a difference.”
