"Each creative guy has his own feeling," Barba explains. "Most of them, because they've been in the business for a while and have been shooting cars for a while, prefer to shoot cars with a camera and lens, the old-fashioned way. They feel they get what they want. The digital thing is kind of new to a lot of them, and they don't really warm up to it until you show them repeatedly that you can make a digital car look every bit as photo-real as you can with a real car. And then after a while, they warm up to it, especially when you compare the expense involved in shooting a car on a motion-controlled stage with multiple passes versus doing it digitally."

"X-ray" reveals explosive colors under metal surfaces. © General Motors. Images courtesy of Digital Domain (Pontiac).

Good point! How much did DMB&B save altogether on the three spots? A bundle. D2 used a total of ten artists and two compositors on the "Metal City" and "Steel Desert" spots and only two artists and one compositor on the "X-ray" segment. Compare this to renting a stage with a turntable, hauling a couple of Grand Ams in and out, hiring a DP, a gaffer, a legion of grips, prop people, carpenters, painters and the like. Not just once but three times. And afterward, they would still have to go in and edit all the footage.

This is another instance where digital production pays off big time. It gives one more flexibility and freedom in the editing room, where one can quickly alter a scene or add nearly anything that is wished. How about a new set of wheel covers? Or a sports rally package? No problem.

"One of the endings we did with these new spots for "X-ray," we changed the wheels and added a sunroof to the vehicle. So, we could render it with two different wheel packages," Barba states. "Well, once you've shot with live-action, you're kind of stuck with it. You can't change it unless you go back and reshoot. However, we have taken live-action vehicles and added CG components to them. We did that for a Blazer spot, where it was originally shot in live-action, and the next year they wanted to come back and have us replace the headlights and bumper parts with CG ones, so they could continue to use the commercial."

On the negative side, DMB&B had the expense of keeping their creative team in Los Angeles for nearly four months while the first two Grand AM spots were being produced. This may change, however, as agencies grow more comfortable with fully digital productions.

Should Have Gone Digital
Ironically, the most complicated vehicle spot that D2 has done used a photo-real vehicle instead of a digital one. It was their "Off Road" spot for Dodge Trucks. Nick Piper of Plum was picked by BBD&O to direct the spot. The idea was to see an entire forest actually spring up around a Dodge Truck. So, Piper and the production company decided to shoot a live truck on a turntable. They propped it with a small stream and a smattering of plant life in the foreground. From that point, D2 took over and grew an entire alpine environment around the truck. In the spot, we see trees, ferns and plant life, a mountain and a sky growing from scratch.

"Up until that point, it was something we hadn’t done in CG -- actually grow a forest," Barba states. "We had done plenty of CG plants and CG trees and a CG sky, but to grow one was a whole new ballgame."

Although the truck, itself, was originally photo-real, D2 made so many changes to it that it was virtually digital. In order to get the effect they wanted, they had to layer the truck with over forty composites. "We did all the work and could have replaced it if we wanted to," Barba admits, "because, to match all the reflections and get it set up properly, we had to create an essentially full CG vehicle and then only render the parts and then composite the parts we needed. So, we did all the work but we didn’t really get to use it to its fullest. In fact, it would have saved us a lot of compositing time had we done it that way." Aside from getting another great looking spot to add to their reel, all that work on "Off Road" enabled D2 to come up with some valuable proprietary software that they are using in-house right now.