Press Release from Light of Day:
Since its launch one year ago, NYC VFX studio Light of Day [1] 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
Light of Day teamed up with John Varvatos to create a commercial featuring a six-fingered hand to promote their new fragrance, John Varvatos Star USA. The commercial idea stemmed from the fragrance's tagline, "The New Fragrance for Your Sixth Sense."
The TV spot features a shot of fingers on a man's hand counting along with rock music in the background. The hand proceeds to put up a peace sign and the new fragrance's packaging is shown. As realistic as the hand appears it has one more finger than usual, allowing it to count up to six. The hand and its movements are so realistic that one may not immediately notice anything out of the ordinary the first time watching it. Originally inspired by a poster display of the hand, Light of Day visual effects team turned the 2D idea into a realistic and natural looking moving hand.
"A dexterous six-fingered hand doesn't really exist in nature, so the challenge was creating a six-fingered hand that seamlessly looked real and moved in a believable way," said Dino Tsaousis, a flame artist for Light of Day who did the compositing and finishing work for the Varvatos commercial. "We had to play around with the palm and fingers to make it look anatomically correct as far as how the muscles moved.” From a technical standpoint, Autodesk Lustre was used for the coloring and Flame was used for the compositing and finishing.
Hugo Boss
Light of Day were approached by video artist Marco Brambilla to create an edgy interactive campaign for designer, Hugo Boss. Light of Day director, Charles Nordeen worked closely with filmmaker, Marco Brambilla (director of Kayne West’s acclaimed video, “Power”.) and interactive company, Stink Digital on the collaboration. The project leverages different techniques such as motion control and digital layering to a greater extent than anyone has done before; utilizing over 300 innovative techniques in total.
Light of Day did the visual effects for the advertisement, which strives to refresh the brand’s classic image with an avant-garde twist. The online experience begins with a diorama where users can set their head motion controls to help them command the story. The narrative then follows a slick male lead as he travels through a surreal, urbane world carrying a red suitcase and of course, sporting a Hugo Boss suit.
About Light of Day
Founded in 2011, Light of Day is based in Manhattan, New York. A visual effects and animation studio serving the advertising, broadcast, music video and feature film industries, Light of Day specifically focuses on the advertising business. Light of Day creates a seamless work-flow between high-end compositing and 3D, and generates photo-real and stylized looks for films, online media and TV commercials. More information may be found at www.lightofday.tv [1]
Links:
[1] http://www.lightofday.tv/