SFX for spots: studios working on commercials are bringing big-screen effects to living rooms nationwide

Post, Jan, 2005 by Ann Fisher

do movie special effects trickle down to commercials? In reality, there is rarely enough time or money for that to happen. Creatively, though, clients often show up at post houses with clips of impressive effects that they want incorporated some way. Broad trends actually show that computer-generated elements incorporated in live action are more often carrying the storyline and that photorealism continues to be in demand.

SUSPECT

"I don't think there's been any 'super wow' factor in any of the movies this past summer, but one trend that has filtered down from the movies is this: more heavily relying on CG elements, not only to just be in the scene and for real, but actually to interact more with the live action stuff and not just interact in one or two scenes but to carry the story," says Tim Crean, creative director/visual effects designer for Suspect (www.suspect.tv) in NYC, a visual effects company that provides design, compositing and shoot supervision for agencies and film editors. "An example may be Lord of the Rings with Gollum or I Robot. It wasn't just one blockbuster effect, it was this thing that carries throughout the body of the work and the story relies heavily on it. We've been seeing it increase.

"A :30 spot we've worked on that's a good segue for that microtrend is Footlocker/Reebok, where some kids had to be chasing fireflies outdoors. We put all fireflies in all the scenes," he continues. "We had props they were chasing after that we had to remove later in post. The whole story revolved around these fireflies being attracted to their shoes that light up. The fireflies actually become romantically linked, thinking that the shoes are other fireflies and they go off and get all their buddies to come back. They wind up chasing the kids out of the spot. We had to breathe life into these little guys and their actions, and create this continuous thread to tie this idea together. Without these kids reacting to these props, which we had positioned and manipulated on set and later removed, it would've fallen flat on its face."

Firefly aired in late summer and early fall. AKA Advertising (NYC) was the client, Suspect did much pre-viz and pre-pro work on the 35mm day-for-night shoot. Color correction set it in the "golden hour" timeslot. Crean then took those plates and embellished them in Discreet Flame. Side Effects Houdini was used to create the CG fireflies, from wide shots of blinking insects to close-up, articulated action. Discreet Combustion and Adobe After Effects were used for a bit of matte cutting, but final compositing and visual sweetening was done in Flame.

THE MILL

At The Mill's NYC office (www.mill.co.uk), executive producer Alistair Thompson says that their house has translated movie effects into commercial projects, most notably using the Maxis artificial intelligence program on both the feature film Lord of the Rings and then on the Sony PlayStation spot Mountain. Both featured thousands of CG human interactions, made possible by the software. Thompson also sees effects created in shortform projects, especially music videos, trickling up.

He adds, "More and more, people are coming to us to work on CG. Jobs will be coming into the building sometimes driven by the CG aspect. Almost all jobs these days--I think because people are much more savvy with what can be done in the world of post production, even the smaller jobs--tend to need some kind of post work. Whereas a few years ago, only a very large project specifically designed for special effects would require CG work, nowadays people realize that even the smaller projects can involve CG. What we've always tended towards is CG that's seamless. It's photorealistic. You shouldn't necessarily know that it was even in there."

Thompson uses this winter's new :60 Hummer Toboggan spot as a "good example of not over pushing effects." Almost every shot involved post work. A family toboggans down a mountain that never ends. Tracking back, the camera follows the sled tracks to the top showing that they got up there very easily in a Hummer SUV. Most shots needed cleanup, sky replacements, and enhancements to bring the visuals out. The end has the trademark Hummer pullout showing the Earth. The Mill has worked on numerous Hummer spots to date.

Modernista/Boston was the client. The director was Catharine Bigelow. Mel Whit-comb was the producer. Discreet Flame and Flint on Linux were used to pull off the project and Softimage|XSI, running on various custom boxes and platforms, was used for the 3D planet.

GLASSWORKS

Ludo Fealy, the head of 2D at Glassworks (www.glassworks.co.uk), a London post production house that specializes in 2D Flame work and 3D animation, doesn't think that his clients want to reproduce movie effects unless its with maybe a twist of Brit humor.

"To be honest, they tend to really want new stuff; some reference to films but they're nearly all done as pastiche or a fun version of a film effect. They would not come in and say, 'Here's The Matrix, do this for our commercial,' but a lot of them were done slightly tongue-in-cheek."