Santa Monica-based creative studio house R!OT provided digital visual effects and post-production services for a new national advertising spot for Mint Skittles from Mars. Conceived by D’Arcy, St. Louis, the commercial employs a fantasy scenario aimed at promoting the new product to adults. R!OT’s involvement included pre-production visual effects design, on-set visual effects supervision, film transfer, color correction, visual effects production and compositing. "Sirens" opens on a man hiking through a forest. When he pauses to drink from a stream, a shower of blue and green Mint Skittles begins to fall around him as winged spirits appear to give him a kiss. The commercial is a blend of live-action and computer graphics. Director Dario Piana shot images for some of the background environments on location in Italy, but most of the live-action was shot on a stage. "We discussed the possibility of shooting the talent scenes on location, but concluded that it would be very difficult," explained Piana. "We required cranes and other camera gear that would have been hard to use on location. We also needed rigging to make the spirits fly." R!OT's Stefano Trivelli, who served as visual effects supervisor and lead compositor, supervised the shooting of effects elements both on the set and on location. In post-production, R!OT artists composited the stage elements with the background plates. The team also digitally removed rigs, created matte paintings to extend some of the sets and produced lighting effects to seamlessly marry the various elements. The Skittles that rain from the sky and the rainbow that appears in the spot were produced by R!OT’s animation department.