VFX for spots: whereever you want to go, today's effects artists can take you there

Post, Jan, 2004 by Ann Fisher

What makes those spot effects so special? Much of the credit goes to agency creatives and their clever boards. The rest can be attributed to the creative input and techniques of the visual effects artists and editors whose fertile imaginations explore options unforeseen.

Charlex in New York (www.charlex.com) created the effects work on the Looney Toons/Kids AOL commercial starring Brendan Fraser. In the :30 spot, Fraser and a young boy watch his new movie on a computer screen, talk about how cartoon characters can't hurt you and then, of course, that CG anvil comes crashing from the sky, knocking Fraser through the floor. But watch through the end for another cute animated bit: the little AOL running man also dodges a falling anvil. Charlex created that in a test that won them the job.

"That test really blew everybody away. A lot of times there's a standard ending where the AOL running man stands there, holds up a card that says something, then he flings the card and you see the AOL logo," says senior producer Steve Chiarello. "In this case, they were allowed to try something else, so we did a test where running man is standing there, you hear the sound of the anvil coming, he steps aside, the anvil crashes down next to him, and he holds up a sign that says, 'Life needs kids' stuff,' then he flips the sign around and it says AOL. Then we added a little Looney Toons ending with circles."

Charlex had worked with BBDO, the agency client, before, even on AOL spots, but this project involved new producers and the different Kids AOL account. These new guys requested a 3D reel, which Charlex tailored with its AOL work, creating a pretty good "in" but the animated tag test clinched the deal. Adds John Zawisha, Charlex senior effects editor, "We have a good working relationship with agencies. They give us room to explore. We provide them with choices and we help them develop their ideas."

The Looney Toons effects work was two fold: computer screenshots and the 3D/live-action creation and integration. The screenshots involved re-creating actual Kids AOL screens that were large and simple enough to read in :01-:02. Discreet Flame was used for the compositing and animation by Marc Goldfine. Zawisha edited on Smoke. For the 3D anvil and other cartoon elements, Tony Tabtong and Alex Cheparev used Alias Maya for all animation and modeling. Rendering was done in Mental Images Mental Ray. Toon Shading gave it the special 2D Warner Bros. cartoon look. Charlex created an outline shader for the cartoons and combined it with a flat shader for the color fill.

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"We actually did write some scripts to ease the transition because the Mental Ray program doesn't work that well with Maya right now so we used MEL scripting to go through the routine task of assigning these shaders, which often is a lengthy process to do by hand," says Charlex CG supervisor Bryan Godwin. "We'll [write script] on a per-job-basis or, for something like Toon shading, which we'll do on several jobs, we have these master scripts that ease the set-ups from job to job."

BELIEF'S ONE FINE DAY

Belief (www.belief.com) in Los Angeles created a :30 for Mervyn's department store that is reminiscent of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine cartoon style. The client, Ron Foth Advertising, Columbus, OH, kept referencing that movie for the playful spot that was set to a remake of the 1950s song "One Fine Day." Rough boards were handed to the Belief animator/designers who took it from there. The spot aired this past fall.

Belief employed After Effects running on a Mac G5 for this Mervyn's spot.

Trying to create a narrative from footage that was shot before a linear storyline existed was the big challenge. Motion control was not used during the shoot so it was a little tricky to track shots of people leapfrogging over flowers and then composite them into the graphic background.

"Clients want things shot simply but when the idea grows in complexity, the post house has to solve those problems," says Belief executive creative director/founder Mike Goedecke. "In this case, we needed to make it seamless with what looked like continuous shots. I was brought in to supervise the shoot from a technical standpoint and that helped because I was able to get additional shots that gave us more options in post."

Belief has worked on Mervyn projects with this agency before. They have developed a relationship where the agency's own director, Ron Foth, Jr., who does a lot of greenscreen spots, now prefers that Belief supervise the shoots so they can push it creatively in post.

Jake Portman and Rick Gledhill, both animator/designers, used Maxon's Cinema 4D to create the animation and After Effects for compositing. The software runs on Mac G5s.

A52'S MISSION: ROCKET TO MARS

LA's A52 (www.A52com) continues to work with director Jake Scott and agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, on the Hewlett Packard campaign, which teams the technology partner with various companies, in this case Disney on a :30 called Rocket Delivery. The director sought to harness the ideas of Simon Brewster, A52's visual effects supervisor and lead Inferno artist.