Cover Girl Umbrella

KromA
"This spot for Cover Girl is based on Rihanna's Umbrella music video and uses water effects that are similar to those we created for the video. Liquid crisscrosses the frame, responding to her hand gestures and other movements. Water elements were shot practically with an HD camera, but were heavily manipulated digitally to make it appear to flick off her arms and conform to the shape of her head. We painted the footage frame by frame, in essence, choreographing the movement of the liquid through the frame while retaining its organic quality and feel." -- Bert Yukich, visual effects supervisor.

Credits for Cover Girl Umbrella
KromA, Los Angeles
VFX supervisor: Bert Yukich
Exec producer: Amy Yukich
Reactor Films
Director: Chris Applebaum
Producer: John Hardin
Director of photography: Pierre Rouger

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Olive Oyl

Renegade Animation
"Renegade has had a lot of experience in recreating classic cartoon characters for commercials (Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, SpongeBob SquarePants, and many others) and it's a job we take very seriously. Our animators are cartoon fanatics and treat these characters with reverential care. They also do their research to make sure that they get the nuances of the character exactly right. For the Prego spot, we modeled our Olive Oyl after the character in the Fleischer cartoons. In the commercial, Olive calls the product "Poifect, just like me." Our team went to great lengths to make sure that was true." -- Darrell Van Citters, director.

Credits for Prego Olive Oyl
Animation director: Darrell Van Citters
Producer: Peggy Regan
Animator: Scott O'Brien
Assistant animators: Cathlin Hidalgo Polvani & Randy Sanchez
Effects animation: Joey Mildenberger & Mike Jones
Technical direction: Andy Jolliff
Ink & Paint: Tony Salama, Dillon Markey, Liz Richards
Editorial: Michael D'Ambrosio
Voice of Olive Oyl: Diane Michelle

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Presidentti Fantasia

Stardust Studios
"Finishing the entire spot in full HD was a huge endeavor, as was working with a remote client. In the end, it's a beautiful piece, which grew and changed over the length of the project while staying true to the initial vision. Every one of our designers and animators put a huge amount of effort, time and artistry into it under intense pressure, and we feel the results speak for themselves." -- Alan Bibby, Stardust's project creative director

This project's workflow involved providing a written treatment, then styleframes, then fleshing that out to a detailed storyboard. The frames were then put into a boardomatic to pitch music ideas and get a sense of the timing. At that stage, Stardust's team started planning what parts of the project would be 3D, 2D or cel animation and starting to work out what sort of camera moves and transitions the spot would have, mapping out the journey through our fantasy world with a single 3D camera and simple 3D objects which acted as place holders for the creatures and environment.

Once they were comfortable with composition and movement, they broke up the whole piece into sections so that individual artists could focus on their designated areas independently. 3D artists went to work fleshing out the "world" as other 2D and 3D animators and modelers went to work developing the techniques to be used for the visual effects. Each member of the team working on this spot wore a lot of hats throughout the project; no one had one single job to do. They had 3D artists and animators, compositors and designers all working together. Production from animatic to final delivery spanned about three months.

Autodesk Maya is the preferred tool for 3D at Stardust. They used Autodesk 3ds Max for rendering certain scenes as a test for its V-ray renderer. Adobe After Effects was the choice for compositing, 2D animation and effects, allowing them to use the same 3D camera from their Maya scenes exported to After Effects to composite 2D objects and effects in a 3D space. Next Limit's RealFlow liquid simulation program was used to create some liquid effects. Credits for Presidentti Fantasia
Stardust Studios
Senior producer: Michael Neithardt
Line producer: Mark Mutschler
Exec creative director: Jake Banks
Creative director: Alan Bibby
Lead designer: Jon Saunders
Designers: Kim Dulaney, Chi Chi Bello
CG director: Carl Mok
3D artists: Carl Mok, Cary Janks, Cavin Thuring, Emil Kahr Nilsson, Elliot Blanchard, Tom Cushwa
2D animators: Carl Mok, Cary Janks, Doug Purver, Emil Kahr Nilsson, Elliot Blanchard, Michele Higa, Chris Smith, Jesse Casey
Compositors: Carl Mok, Cary Janks, Emil Kahr Nilsson
SEK & GREY Oy, Helsinki, Finland
Creative director: Mikko Petäjä
Copywriter: Jusa Valtonen
Exec producer: Olli Korpiala (Front Desk, Helsinki)
Music/sound design composer: Tuomas Kantelinen, Helsinki, Finland
Final Mix: Mikko Oinonen, Soundtrack Studios, Helsinki, Finland

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