While the clash between the Old Economy and
the New Economy continues on Wall Street, in corporate circles the
contrast between old styles and new has reached even greater proportions.
With dot-coms springing up faster than you can download the latest
browser and brick and mortar retailers quickly trying to learn the
clicks of the e-trade, Madison Avenue finds itself embroiled in an
old versus new controversy of its own, namely live-action or digital
animation. This, too, is an outgrowth of another battle that has been
going on for years: film versus videotape. Though animation of one kind or another has been a mainstay of television
commercials since the early days, it had always played second fiddle
to live-action. Since a photo-real box of cereal or can of cleanser
could hardly dance across a counter, sing a jingle or smile with delight,
production houses integrated live-action with animation more out of
necessity than choice. But even Tony the Tiger and the Pillsbury Doughboy
would be the first to tell you that live-action was where the prestige
and big bucks were to be found. A few years ago, I represented a Denver production company that worked
with several live-action directors. One of these was a superstar of
soda and beer commercials. After seeing his reel, a prestigious East
Coast agency asked for a bid on a dog food commercial. When I called
for his availability, he told me quite bluntly, "I don't do dog food."
Sorry, Rover. How about washing down those beef chunks with a six
pack of Bud?
The Best is Required Automobile commercials were a perfect case in point. Until recently,
one might have expected electric cars to replace gas-guzzlers before
any of the Big Three national ad campaigns ever replaced a real car
filmed live with a digital one created on tape. It just wasn't done.
Car spots had always featured slick, live shots, fast cutting, awesome
backgrounds whether on a butte overlooking the Grand Canyon or on
a winding mountainous road bordered by tall pines. Then along came
BBD&O in Detroit. They came up with a Plymouth campaign that called
for a Neon on a trampoline. Not the easiest location to place a car
-- even a subcompact. Enter Digital Domain (D2) of Venice, California.
They showed how the spot could be done with a one hundred percent
digital Neon.
Advertising agencies have always craved live-action film directors
who could give their products that winning edge -- even if it is dog
food. So, when it comes to products that are bought especially for
their style and looks, it is no wonder creative executives have fawned
over hot niche directors for years. They want the real product, and
they want it shot on film with subtle lighting and a riveting style
that lends itself to trendy, fast-paced editing usually around a catchy
jingle or slogan. There may be an animated logo or a CG starburst,
but the product itself has to be one hundred percent photo-real and
filmed at its creative best.
Although it became a groundbreaking commercial, "Trampoline" was
originally conceived and bid as a live-action spot and Terry Windell,
a noted car director at A Band Apart, was selected to shoot it. But
after exhausting all the possibilities, the creative team could not
come up with a relatively uncomplicated, inexpensive way to rig the
car to make it bounce up and down on a trampoline. "It was going to be a long, expensive shoot," states Eric Barba,
a visual effects supervisor at Digital Domain. "So, one our other effects
supervisors pitched Terry to do it as a CG car. We did some tests
to show him we could do it. Then we moved ahead and did the spot." But ad agencies were still not thinking digital cars. "This was an
example of a live-action director having the confidence of the agency
already," Barba points out. "The spot was already in his hands." Proving Digital Might "That was really the break-through usage of digital cars in advertising,"
Barba emphasizes. "That got them [ad agencies] to buy that we could
do fully photo-real digital cars, and from then on we've been pitching
the idea."
Right after "Trampoline," BBD&O produced a live-action spot
entitled "Time" to show off the new line of Dodge vehicles including
the Viper GTS, a sleek, high-powered sports car. All the vehicles
were the same color -- red -- so one could dissolve into the other
as it passed through a glass wall. But the red Viper also had two
white racing stripes. When Dodge decided not to produce Vipers with
stripes, the agency had to find a way to remove them. But it was impossible
to paint the stripes out. Pleased with the results of "Trampoline,"
they once again called on Digital Domain, which in turn did away with
the original Viper completely and replaced it with a digital one.
BBD&O loved it. When they decided to do "Time 2," adding the Durango
and the Intrepid to the original spot, they had Digital Domain do
the honors rather than incur the expense of shooting the new models.
Next came the two impressive Pontiac Grand Am spots, "Metal City"
and "Steel Desert," produced by D'Arcy, Massius, Benton and Bowles,
which have a Grand Am maneuvering deftly through a virtual all-metal
environment. The idea was to show that the Grand Am was built stronger
and tougher and had more maneuverability than ever before.
"Last year's Grand Am was a brand new vehicle," explains Mark Zapico,
group creative director at DMB&B. "It was really new from the
ground up. It had a space frame design made out of hydroformed steel.
It was built to be a lot more rigid and a lot stronger [than previous
models]. So the idea of the steel world manifested itself out of the
brand and the product, itself. We wanted a way to truly bring the
steel landscapes to life." Working with D2 "It was not an easy decision," Zapico admits on both counts. As to
the first question, the agency had seen a lot of digital cars, but
they were static. They had not seen a digital car move along the road
like a photo-real one. What changed their minds? Again, the answer
was the brand, itself, the Grand Am. According to Zapico, "Since the
technology for Grand Am was to build a car that was cutting edge it
was worth a try to see if we could make digital cars work." As to the second question, the agency team had to educate themselves
about the world of digital production. They looked at the work of
several digital houses including Digital Domain. "After talking
with them [Digital Domain] a number of times, we felt confident that
the full brunt of their artists, animators and designers could bring
it to life, and we had the backing of our clients. Digital Domain
had done work before for General Motors...So, we felt it was a risk
worth taking," continues Zapico.
Why did the agency decide to go all digital and why did they choose
Digital Domain?
DMB&B sent an agency team to Los Angeles to work closely with
Digital Domain and their in-house director, Ray Giarratana. And the
results were very encouraging. "We put every one of our best people
on it," Giarratana states, "...and when it was all said and done,
the clients got something that really showed off their product well
and in a very interesting manner that was different in many ways." From the very start, Giarratana felt to achieve the creativity demanded
in the clients' storyboard the spots would have to be produced digitally.
But while creativity may be enhanced using digital effects, what about
quality? Besides putting their top people on the spot, to insure a
quality equal to live-action, they hired Bill Bennett, a top live-action
director of photography for auto commercials, to consult with Ray
and Eric and their team. They wanted to be able to match the angles
that have proven over the years to show an automobile at its finest.
"I knew this was going to look different from the viewer's perspective
because you don't see a desert...or a city completely made out of
metal ever," Giarratana explains. "So, one of the things I really
set out [to do] from the beginning was to make sure that we photographed
the automobile using somewhat established photography. There are angles
that look good on a car and have been used before. Lots of very talented
[live-action] directors have shot cars before and have come up with
a visual language that is beautiful on an automobile. Just because
we could move our camera anywhere and in any way without the limitations
of a live-action production didn't mean we should." Being Sensible While the spots would have been impossible to produce in live-action,
they were by no means an easy order even digitally. "In the city spot
one of the challenges was the sheer magnitude of information," Giarratana
admits. "Just to present a city with that much detail was certainly
a challenge. The desert spot, that wasn't quite that big of a deal
because it was a lot more sparse and, therefore, not as populated.
But they both presented very tough lighting challenges because it's
metal on metal on metal, and it needed to look really beautiful and
yet realistic as well." Both spots have been heavily rotated and have received remarkable
acclaim. So much so, that when Pontiac wanted to emphasize their solid
frame design in this year's ad campaign, DMB&B did not hesitate
to go back to Digital Domain. The idea was to keep the original spots
running but to pass the Grand Am through an x-ray showing its chassis
and edit that in. D2 responded quickly and economically. A Trend? "We just finished another spot in the same campaign...and we shot
real cars in a CGI environment," states DMB&B's Zapico. "And,
the feeling that we're getting is it's even a better looking marriage
between a real-looking car and this [digital] environment. So, we'll
probably go in that direction next."
Though early on his clients may have thought that with animation
you can move the camera anywhere you wanted and go zipping through
everything, Giarratana felt otherwise. "It still needs to be beautiful,
and there needs to be reasons to motivate moves...I was very much
of the opinion that, wherever possible, to try and use the camera
in a way that we could almost do [the shot] in live-action. I wanted
to stay within some realm of believability from a photography point
of view."
Does this mean we can expect to see a lot more digital cars replacing
real ones in the future? It depends on the creative team at the agency
and the director they select.
"Each creative guy has his own feeling," Barba explains. "Most
of them, because they've been in the business for a while and have
been shooting cars for a while, prefer to shoot cars with a camera
and lens, the old-fashioned way. They feel they get what they want.
The digital thing is kind of new to a lot of them, and they don't
really warm up to it until you show them repeatedly that you can make
a digital car look every bit as photo-real as you can with a real
car. And then after a while, they warm up to it, especially when you
compare the expense involved in shooting a car on a motion-controlled
stage with multiple passes versus doing it digitally."
Good point! How much did DMB&B save altogether on the three spots?
A bundle. D2 used a total of ten artists and two compositors on the
"Metal City" and "Steel Desert" spots and
only two artists and one compositor on the "X-ray" segment.
Compare this to renting a stage with a turntable, hauling a couple
of Grand Ams in and out, hiring a DP, a gaffer, a legion of grips,
prop people, carpenters, painters and the like. Not just once but
three times. And afterward, they would still have to go in and edit
all the footage. This is another instance where digital production pays off big time.
It gives one more flexibility and freedom in the editing room, where
one can quickly alter a scene or add nearly anything that is wished.
How about a new set of wheel covers? Or a sports rally package? No
problem. "One of the endings we did with these new spots for "X-ray,"
we changed the wheels and added a sunroof to the vehicle. So, we could
render it with two different wheel packages," Barba states. "Well,
once you've shot with live-action, you're kind of stuck with it. You
can't change it unless you go back and reshoot. However, we have taken
live-action vehicles and added CG components to them. We did that
for a Blazer spot, where it was originally shot in live-action, and
the next year they wanted to come back and have us replace the headlights
and bumper parts with CG ones, so they could continue to use the commercial." On the negative side, DMB&B had the expense of keeping their
creative team in Los Angeles for nearly four months while the first
two Grand AM spots were being produced. This may change, however,
as agencies grow more comfortable with fully digital productions. Should Have Gone Digital "Up until that point, it was something we hadnt done in
CG -- actually grow a forest," Barba states. "We
had done plenty of CG plants and CG trees and a CG sky, but to grow
one was a whole new ballgame." Although the truck, itself, was originally photo-real, D2 made so
many changes to it that it was virtually digital. In order to get
the effect they wanted, they had to layer the truck with over forty
composites. "We did all the work and could have replaced it if
we wanted to," Barba admits, "because, to match all the
reflections and get it set up properly, we had to create an essentially
full CG vehicle and then only render the parts and then composite
the parts we needed. So, we did all the work but we didnt really
get to use it to its fullest. In fact, it would have saved us a lot
of compositing time had we done it that way." Aside from getting
another great looking spot to add to their reel, all that work on
"Off Road" enabled D2 to come up with some valuable proprietary
software that they are using in-house right now.
Ironically, the most complicated vehicle spot that D2 has done
used a photo-real vehicle instead of a digital one. It was their "Off
Road" spot for Dodge Trucks. Nick Piper of Plum was picked by
BBD&O to direct the spot. The idea was to see an entire forest
actually spring up around a Dodge Truck. So, Piper and the production
company decided to shoot a live truck on a turntable. They propped
it with a small stream and a smattering of plant life in the foreground.
From that point, D2 took over and grew an entire alpine environment
around the truck. In the spot, we see trees, ferns and plant life,
a mountain and a sky growing from scratch.
But what about D2s future? Does Barba think that there will
be more national auto campaigns coming their way? "Ultimately
its up to the director. Most live-action directors would rather
shoot (a photo-real car) because thats what theyre familiar
with. But, if they get something from an agency thats real expensive
to shoot or they wont get the flexibility they need or they
cant quite figure out how to shoot it, then we offer them the
flexibility of being able to get the quality they want and still get
the creativity the agency wants." In the battle between quality and creativity, when it comes to national
advertising, quality wins out time and again. It has been this very
lack of quality in some digital cars that has caused Madison Avenue
to throw out a caution flag. But at Digital Domain, where they have
stressed quality along with creativity, their photo-real digital cars
are at present lapping the competition and look primed to get the
checkered flag. Remember to search the Animation
World Magazine Archives [6] to find more articles on commercials,
digital production and related topics. J. Paul Peszko is a freelance writer and screenwriter living in
Los Angeles. He writes feature articles, interviews and reviews for
regional publications. He currently has two scripts under option and
is working on a feature comedy, in addition to just completing his
first novel. When he isn't writing, he teaches communications courses.
Links:
[1] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/1248
[2] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/1249
[3] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/1250
[4] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/1251
[5] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/1252
[6] http://www2.awn.com/archives