Following up on the success of spots for Heineken and Tiger Beer, Australian-based Fuel continues its creative partnership with Leo Burnett Sydney with this intriguing spot for Johnnie Walker Red Label scotch.
Fuel vfx supervisor Simon Maddison, led a team of 35 artists and technicians to bring the commercial INVISIBLE MAN to life. "We needed to create 89 invisible people for the spot. In addition to the invisible characters, entire environments had to be built in CG as well as many different items of CG clothing, all of which required a great deal of co-operation from artists working round the clock," Maddison explained.
The director, Curious Film's Spencer Susser, was looking for an authentic location, one that felt exciting and edgy and settled on Sydney's infamous red light district: Kings Cross. Fuel was on location for the three-night shoot, which called for a lot of very creative and spontaneous solutions. Maddison added, "We didn't want to burden the director with an enormous amount of technical detail or camera restrictions so we prepared to do a lot of background clean-up and repair work at Fuel rather than compromise anything on set." Then the challenge for Fuel was to complete the visual effects for the :60 and 2 x :30 spots in less than five weeks.
The end result is a walk on the wild side, a fantastical journey to a place where Johnnie Walker is recognized as the original "Invisible Man."
Fuel Team:* VFX supervisor: Simon Maddison* VFX producer: Dave Kelly* Lead flame artist: Karen Fabling* Flame artist: Edwin So, Chris Scott* 3D lead: Mike Bain* 3D team: Romain Buignet, Nick Cross, Eleni Diakomichalis, Kane Elferink, Lianne Forbes, Chris French, Matt Hermans, Joseph Kim, Paul Lada, Michael Orbing, Tim Sotiri, Francois Sugny, Gary Sullivan, Anders Thonell, Gerard Van Ommen Kloeke, Andreas Wanda, Grant Warwick* Shake lead: Chris Daves* Shake team: Tate Arbon, Jason Billington, Sam Cole, Dexter Davey, Danielle Hession, Craig Rowe, Murray Smallwood, Matthew Wynne, Koji Yamaguchi* Matte painter: David Woodland* Designer: Eddy Herringson
For more info, go to www.fuel-depot.com.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
