CGSociety CGFilm
The Syndicate teams up with the Great Guns to create an alien Energizer adventure.
29 September 2006,
There's nothing worse than having a break down in the middle-of-nowhere, the last glimmer of civilization three exits back, and you're light years from home, in the case of the new spot for Energizer, from TBWAChiatDay, with VFX from The Syndicate.
The spot, called "Aliens" (:30), features two otherworldly creatures stranded on the side of the road, unsuccessfully attempting to flag down big rigs as they speed by. Thankfully, a familiar face wheels into view in the form of the Energizer bunny. The aliens lead the bunny to their immobilized vehicle, an intergalactic craft, where they proceed to attach jumper cables to the bunny's ears. The more than ample power in the bunny's Energizer batteries delivers the needed jolt to relaunch, but not without taking the bunny along in case of future mishaps.
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"This was one of those rare occasions where it was only a 30 second spot, yet it had everything," said The Syndicate VFX supervisor Ben Grossmann. "Miniatures, animatronics, character animation, digital environments, green screen, the works. In fact, the only things shot practically were the bunny, a truck, and some dirt."
Grosmann traveled to the set, "a rattlesnake-infested shooting range in the California desert," to supervise. "(Director) Phil Boston had never worked with effects before, let alone, such an effects heavy spot. So, I was there to keep an eye on the comings and goings of the animatronic bunny, and how it related to the visual effects," said Grossmann.
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The bunny itself, iconic as it is, isn't much of a performer, and repairing that was one of The Syndicate's first tasks. "During the course of the spot, the bunny moves quicker and differently than the animatronics allowed. What you're looking at in the finished piece is sort of a Frankenstein bunny, picked apart, then put back together in Flame by artists Les Umberger and Christine Goldby so it could perform the different actions at alternating speeds. In a few shots, we took the performance of the ears from one take, the feet from a completely different take, the arms from another."
The other stars of the spot, the stranded aliens, were created by The Syndicate creature designer Aaron Sims. "Aaron has actually done a great deal of alien work over the years, from AI to Men in Black. We simply gave him one word to work with -'sympathetic.' That's all it took for him to nail it," said Grossmann.
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Having the aliens designed, The Syndicate went to work to bring them to life. "This area was spilt into two teams, Kris Costa did modeling and rigging with some additional weight mapping by Tracy Irwin. The keyframe animation was created by Bill Wright in Maya. By the end, some shots had over 200 animation variations, with every possible subtlety represented, so that the client could get exactly the performance they wanted."
To give the aliens an "otherworldly" look, Luke McDonald came up with a combination of shaders and textures that reacted well to Minory Sasaki's lighting. The end result is a feeling that gives the aliens an almost "wet" look with an organic sense of depth and detail.
More design was needed for the errant spaceship. "Eddie Robison and Gabriel Koerner, vets of Star Trek, handled spaceship design, which went through extensive detailed modeling and surfacing because it is shown in extreme close-up. Lights and structure went through many different combinations before we got the one the client preferred."
Finally, The Syndicate addressed beautifications. "As a rough estimate, I would say 120% of the location was rebuilt in CG," said Grossmann. "We did matte paintings for the skies, we shot a tabletop miniature set, made from baking soda, for a lot of the impact crater around the ship, and touched-up virtually everything else in the environment. We have a lot of work crammed into that 30 seconds, but we view it as 30 seconds to really strut our stuff."
The Syndicate colorist and partner, Beau Leon, lent his talents to the final color correction.
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Production: |
Energizer |
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Title: |
Aliens |
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Production Company: |
Great Guns |
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Director: |
Phil Boston |
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EP: |
Tom Korsan |
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Producer: |
Alexis Seely |
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DOP: |
Christian Sebaldt |
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Effects & On-Line Facility: |
The Syndicate |
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VFX Supervisor: |
Ben Grossman |
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CG Artists |
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Executive Producer: |
Kenny Solomon, Eddie Robinson |
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Producer: |
Kim Evans, Brian Fisher |
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Flame/Effects Artist: |
Les Umberger, Danny Braet |
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Film To Tape Transfer: |
Beau Leon, Luke McDonald |
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Colorist: |
Beau Leon, Minory |
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Character Design: |
Aaron Sims |
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Alien Model Facial Rigging: |
Kris Costa |
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Character Animations & Setup: |
Bill Wright |
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Editorial Services Co. |
Venice Beach Editorial |
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Executive Producer: |
Hunter Conner |
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Editor: |
Dan Bootzin |
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Ad Agency: |
TbwaChiatDay |
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Producer: |
Kara Harris |
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Dir. Broadcast Production: |
Richard O'neil |
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Acct. Supervisor: |
Melissa Krimm |
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Creative Director: |
Jerry Gentile/Ben Nott |
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Agency Client Co. |
Energizer |
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V.P. Marketing N. Amer: |
Jeff Ziminski |
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Music: |
Machine Head |
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Sound Designer: |
Stephen Dewey |
Related links:
The Syndicate
Great Guns |
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