A52 served as the director for a recent HD spot titled Keyhole, as part of advertising agency RPAs massive year-long multiplatform marketing campaign for the all-new 2006 Honda Civic.
A52s collective features the talents of CG/vfx supervisor Andrew Hall and co-vfx supervisor Pat Murphy, and also relies upon the creative involvement of Rock Paper Scissors editor Angus Wall.
For this project, explained A52s md/exec producer Mark Tobin, the agencys creatives essentially came to us and asked us how we would treat their theme; there was no script or storyboards. It was a true collaboration between Angus, our team and the agency creatives, which allowed us to take a very creative concept and run with it.
Camille Sze, RPAs copywriter for the Civic campaign, added, Honda treated the model's eighth cycle redesign as an opportunity for major revision, and we wanted to show the Civic's exciting new design and features. Obviously a tall order, with a big premise. Which is why we looked to A52's animation and creative forces."
Hall explained that his CGI team began by working closely with Wall, using Maya to previs the entire treatment, thereby creating the spots template and identifying what could be done in CG (more than 80% of the spots content) and what needed to be shot in live-action. Hall and Wall then worked with director of photography Tobias Schliessler to get the footage of the new Civic they would need to complete the spot.
Since everything you see in the finished spot besides the car is CGI, and considering that we finished the project in 1080p HD, our main challenges were creating and rendering the large volume of original animation, Hall explained. Since Ive come onboard with A52, we have embraced Maya for CG creation and mental ray for rendering, and these changes have given us the abilities to work new levels of quality and speed, even when were finishing in HD.
Using Discreet Inferno, Pat Murphy then worked with 2K transfers of the live-action footage, cleaned-up the live-action elements, composited them within the CG footage and performed a final overall color-grade, before outputting the final content in 1080p HD format.
Tobin further explained that his team looks forward to continuing its long-standing relationships with all directors, while also clarifying the new approach. What can be done through CG is changing every day, and thats making huge impacts in the world of commercials, he said. Our expertise relies upon turning those changes into benefits, and this is our way of offering better access to the professionals we serve.
A52s team also included producer Ron Cosentino, Flame artists Tim Bird and Justin Blaustein and CG artists Dan Gutierrez, Craig X-Ray Halperin, Helen Maier, Maxx Okazaki, Brandon Perlow, Casey Schatz, Max Ulichney and Vania Alban-Zapata.
The spot also features The Postal Services song, We Will Become Silhouettes.
West Hollywood visual effects and design company A52 (www.A52.com) creates award-winning imagery for some of the most visually ambitious commercial and television projects. The companys work has been earned AICP Show recognition for six consecutive years along with recent Outstanding Commercial Emmy, Andy, BDA, Belding, Clio, British Design and Art Direction, International Monitor, International Automotive Advertising, London International Advertising, One Show and PROMAX awards.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
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