The Big Reveal 2005 - Part Two
Our second session of the day involves the category Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial. A bit shorter than our motion picture category, this as well had three nominees. British Telecom: Network, Citroën: Alive with Technology, and Johnny Walker: Tree.
Citroën: Alive with Technology
nominees: Trevor Cawood, Neill Blomkamp, Simon Van de Lagemaat, Winston Helgason
A 30 second spot created for Citroën, this commercial featured the latest C4 from Citroën dancing on a rooftop parking lot in Vancouver. It took a total of five weeks to complete, with 19 animatics to get the right spot. The Embassy shot HDR images in London of the cars, and brought them back to their studio in Vancouver. The entire set was constructed inside the computer, as their director, Neill, felt that it was too limiting to match a live action camera. It's an amazing spot, and it's an amazing model! Click here to see it in a Quicktime.
British Telecom: Network
nominees: David Lombardi, Richard Mann, Eric Durst, Kevin Prendiville
This minute long commercial was created by The Syndicate over a span of five months, with about six weeks of that dedicated to previs. There was a thirteen day shoot which was totally done on greenscreen, save for two shots at the beginning. Their team consisted of approximately twenty total artists; eight for city modelling, five for character modelling, four compositors, and couple for extra overhead. The total budget fell into the area of 1.2 million for post, and approximately 3-4 total. Click here to see the Quicktime, and here to see a small breakdown of one section. As well, check out Icom's article about the spot.
Johnny Walker: Tree
nominees: William Bartlett, Murray Butler, Jake Mengers, Andy Boyd
Every tree in this commercial was computer generated, right down to the roots! They were thinking about using a fullsize model tree root for close-ups, but the CG was so good looking that they decided to have most of the close-ups done in the machine. Average rendering was about one to two hours per PAL frame, and everything was rendered in Maya. I would like to thank Axel for providing a great link to this commercial! I've copied the Quicktime locally, and it can be accessed here. You can also read how Framestore created this commercial.
Leave a comment