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Busy Summer For Framestore

Framestore has completed three ad spots for three different companies:

NO RESTRICTIONS for Neotel

NO RESTRICTIONS is a beautiful, exuberant new spot created for South African telecommunications company, Neotel. Designed to emphasize the freedom from the old restrictions that the company can offer its clients, the spot takes human (and animal) icons from South African prohibition signs and liberates them via some CG animation.

The spot was created by South African agency TBWAHunt Lascaris and directed by Jeremy Holden for Riverstone Films. Framestore created hundreds of digitally animated figures for NO RESTRICTIONS, as well as the spot's telecine.

In the South African urban environment, the "No" sign is a pretty constant feature, from "No Crossing" to "No Photography," signs telling you what you can't do have always loomed large in the country's consciousness. Neotel is competing with state monopolist Telkom, whose copper wire-based infrastructure is aging rapidly. Neotel wanted a way of illustrating the speed and freedom that their new, fiber optic technology offers, and the idea of the sign figures breaking free was born.

Aware of the company's work in 2005 on HECTOR'S LIFE for Renault Espace, which won numerous international awards, the director producer team at Riverstone Films approached Framestore with their director treatment. But HECTOR'S LIFE involved just one paper figure -- NO RESTRICTIONS had a much more ambitious brief.

Opening with a couple of establishing shots of the city, NO RESTRICTIONS starts off with a single figure peeping around a street corner. As he steps out he throws off the last scrap of the red "No" strip. He passes a cafe window with a "No Dogs" sign, and the dog scurries out (with the aid of the proprietor's broom), bowling into a "No Hawking" sign's figure, who has set up his stall outside the cafe. From there we cut from scene to scene of our "No" people enjoying all of the activities that have hitherto been disallowed them -- ball games, cycling, skateboarding, swimming, and so on. The icons are able to do whatever they want, "We're often told what we can't do," says the voiceover, "Today, we're telling you that you can."

A three day shoot took place in Durban earlier this year to capture the raw plates and essential lighting information, attended for Framestore by VFX Supervisor Simon French and Inferno Artist Jonathan Hairman. Subsequent post production on the spot took about 12 weeks.

"HECTOR notwithstanding, this spot provided plenty of unique challenges," French reflected, "And there was quite a bit of R&D spadework that addressed these. The initial brief was for the figures to be made of a variety of materials, for example, although client choices eventually whittled this down somewhat."

"In addition," French continued, "There were issues around what worked visually - what the eye could accept as a workable view of how these 2D figures would interact with their 3D environment, for example, and how best to represent the side view of a 2D figure walking."

Mike Mellor, lead animator for the spot, added, "There are a couple of shots toward the end of the spot where the screen fills up with our little guys. I think we underestimated just how many of them it would take to make the shots work -- we'd been thinking a few dozen, but they needed a couple of hundred by the end."

Compositing the figures, as well as complementing the environments with touches such as reflections in the window glass and the creation of a warm looking sunset glow at the end, were Inferno Artists Jonathan Hairman and George Roper. The neg was graded by Dave Ludlam, with final DCP duties handled by Steffan Perry.

Credits:

Agency: TBWAHunt LascarisProduction Company: Riverstone FilmsDirector: Jeremy HoldenProducer: Saffron DoranVFX: FramestoreTelecine: Framestore

SPEAKER BIRTH for Sony Ericsson

A young man is swimming through an aural amniotic bath, heading towards a bright light representing both the end of this journey, and the start of another. Emerging from a speaker, he checks his W980 Walkman phone and, as the music builds to a climax, our nascent hero heads onwards, emerging onto a street and mingling with the passersby. The camera pans up towards the sun and a W980 fills the screen.

SPEAKER BIRTH was created by McCann Erickson, and directed by Olivier Gondry for Partizan. VFX were by Framestore, as was the telecine.

Framestore's VFX Supervisor for SPEAKER BIRTH was Jonathan Hairman, who attended the spot's five day shoot in Barcelona. "We shot the actor both in an underwater tank and dangling from a rig in the studio," Hairman said. "Which was tough on him but essential in terms of the visual ingredients we needed."

Particularly in the close-ups, Hairman used a combination of the sub-aqua and studio shots of the actors face, morphing and blending them to create the impression of someone floating in a peculiar element. "The location was deliberately ambiguous," Hairman continued, "We didn't want to define it too rigidly. In the same way, the 3D elements created for this section were designed to give the impression of being light rays. Diarmid Harrison-Murray and his team used a combination of fluid simulations and cloth simulations, with various shaders on them to get the effect of 'fingers of light', reaching out to our hero like fingers or tendrils, organic but not too specific. It's about mood as much as anything."

With mood and design being such key elements in SPEAKER BIRTH, Hairman helped Gondry get a sense of what Framestore could offer by creating a number of on the spot Photoshop sketches, whilst they were on location, taking stills shot by the DP and working them up in a variety of ways to indicate some possible directions. A sympathetic telecine for the spot was created by Senior Colourist Steffan Perry.

Credits:

Agency: McCann EricksonAgency Producer: Jeri LowProduction Company: PartizanDirector: Olivier GondryProducer: Ella SandersonVFX: FramestoreTelecine: Framestore

CONCERT and CINEMA for Vauxhall Corsa

Framestore's digital puppeteers have been hard at work recently, bringing two further adventures of the "C'mon" bunch to the screen. CONCERT and CINEMA were created by DLKW and directed by Dom & Nic for Outsider. Each is designed to draw attention to some of the in-car entertainment options available for the Corsa, and each features the five "C'mon" puppets -- Red, Blue, White, Cherri and Moo -- who first appeared nearly two years ago.

CONCERT sees our gang headed for a gig. Parking outside the arena, they plug in their stereo to the car's inbuilt mp3 set-up and start rocking. They are spotted by the star of the show, who soon joins them as they swoon and groove all over the back seat.

CINEMA again takes the idea of car as entertainment centre and runs with it, as the gang head for a local cinema. But they are only stopping by for supplies of popcorn and soda. Sprinting back into their car, they fire up the DVD player and settle down for the main feature, soon to be joined by a passing usherette.

As Paul Denhard, Senior TD on both spots, points out, "Technically, we've got quite a 'mature' set-up at this point down the line, and we took it to the next level, made it a lot more streamlined and uniform, allowing us to hit the ground running. Which we needed to here, as the deadlines were very tight."

Denhard believes that the sort of material the creatives are coming up with also reflects the ease borne of familiarity with the technical challenges of these ultra-realistic cloth simulation puppets. "There are more characters in the shots, they are seen closer up, the animation is more ambitious, they're interacting a lot more: it all shows how far we've 'come on', I guess," he said.

Telecine for the spot was provided by Framestore Colourist Dave Ludlam.

Credits:

Agency: DLKWProducer: Christian LoboProduction Company: OutsiderDirectors: Dom & NicProducer: John MadsenVFX: FramestoreTelecine: Framestore

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