Press Release from Light of Day:

Since its launch one year ago, NYC VFX studio Light of Day has completed several high-profile projects, ringing sophisticated visual effects to feature films, music videos, web projects and ad campaigns. Recent projects include “The Official Someday by Justin Bieber” for Give Back Brands, John Varvatos “Star USA,” and Hugo Boss “Something Different.”

Justin Bieber

Light of Day (lightofday.tv) collaborated with H O W L group and director Diane Martel to produce a 30-second spot for Give Back Brands’ latest celebrity fragrance.  Give Back Brands, a new world beauty and fragrance company that partners up with celebrities to donate profits to charity, teamed up with teen pop-singer sensation Justin Bieber to create the fragrance “Someday” due out this summer.

The concept for the spot begins with a teenage girl putting on the perfume in her bedroom; Justin Bieber appears, and the two of them are transported into a surreal dream sequence in the heavens. The spot, titled “Someday,” was filmed in two different locations; the actual flight was shot in Las Vegas, and more interior filming was completed in Los Angeles. “The coolest part of the gig was the actual filming of it,” says Light of Day Creative Director Colin Stackpole, who supported the Las Vegas shoot alongside Light of Day managing directors Charles Nordeen and Amy Taylor. “The dream sequence was shot in a Zero Gravity airplane, the same plane that astronauts use to train in. They scheduled twelve parabolas for Justin to fly up and down in, and captured it all with the visual effects supervisors.”

Light of Day’s visual effects challenge was to create a look that fit the dream-like feel of the spot through compositing, coloring, and graphics. Commenting on the technical process, Colin says, “To create a surreal effect, we went through several color palettes. We went from blues to oranges, but the creators from Give Back Brands were very specific about what they wanted, and we did a full circle ending up right where they started in experimenting with the background tone. We ended up color correcting the entire spot in that palette and giving a soft, amber-golden color to everything.” Other Light of Day effects included cleaning people out of the spot and creating matte paintings for the sky backgrounds. Since the zero gravity sequences were difficult to light in the plane due to FAA regulations, the Light of Day team also re-lit scenes in post to capture the dreamy, surreal atmosphere.

John Varvatos