Check out Framestore’s inspiration on this Daewoo spot. Clip courtesy of Framestore.

It may just be a digital illusion, but there’s a lot of professional and physical pain, heightened and abated by technical wizardry, that goes into advertising spots. Still considered the R&D hotbed of the industry, techniques and tricks are born here and migrate to motion pictures and TV series. Yet many clients and ad agencies see something that wows them in a movie, and expect the same sort of work will help them sell their product, not realizing the costs and timeframe aren’t always so applicable to the commercial world. AWN rounded up facts, thoughts and examples of issues and trends driving producers of CGI commercials today.

Our survey includes viewpoints from:
Denis Gauthier, CGI supervisor/3D artist and Westley Sarokin, digital effects artist, A52
Howard Sly, animator, Framestore
Saam Gabbay, creative director, Humunculus
David Gioiella, editor/co-founder, Northern Lights Post
Aladino Debert, head of CG, Radium
John Myers, exec producer, Ring of Fire
Jonathan Privett, head of 3D, Rushes Post Production
Craig Tozzi, creative director, Twothousandstrong
Michael Capton, head of CG/commercials, Zoic Studios

1. Who raises the bar for you?

DG/A52: We constantly raise the bar for ourselves. We try to do something new, something a little bit better, on every single job. We nitpick and criticize each other’s work in an effort to make it better, long before any client sees it.

Westley Sarokin, digital effects artist, A52. Photo courtesy of A52.

WS/A52: Observing everyday reality almost always raises the bar for me. In merely keeping one’s eyes open for interesting details and moments that the bar is raised. However, more than anything, I try and constantly raise the bar for myself.

Framestore: We in the commercials department raise the bar from demands put upon us by directors, our competition, our reputation and our dedication and commitment to a high quality product and service.

Humunculus: People at our company are constantly trading spots and commercials with each other. It prompted us to devote space on our server just for inspiring design and commercial spots and trailers. It forces us to raise the bar internally, as a group. As far as who raises the bar externally, that depends on the day. Sometimes it's a peer company like Psyop, sometimes it’s a musician/group like Telefon Telaviv, sometimes a reel from overseas like The Mill, etc.

Radium: Clients and other companies’ work, but mostly, myself.

Ring of Fire: Anyone who collaborates openly and has a clear vision. This could be a director, a creative director at an ad agency, an effects supervisor, a producer or someone within your team. The person or process that raises the bar can come from anywhere, anyone, anytime. That’s one of the great things about doing what we do. Inspiration strikes without warning from the oddest places.

Rushes: Generally, work done on features with big budget effects has a knock-on effect in raising the stakes of quality and creativity in commercials. Having said that, we always strive to push what is possible in terms of CG on all our work, to offer our clients something a bit special. Many independent/art house filmmakers also produce work of incredible quality and ingenuity.

Twothousandstrong: It’s a given that as soon as a piece of groundbreaking animation hits the airwaves, a lot of people want to recreate it for half the cost, in half the time and with just as high expectations. I feel the CG industry is overselling itself in a lot of cases – promising more that sometimes is possible to deliver, at budget points that don’t seem sustainable (this seems to be happening more at the smaller shops level). Good work takes man-hours and time. The Radiohead video took 14-15 animators and eight flame artists to complete!