The Studio at Smoke + Mirrors London recently collaborated with Discovery on a promo for the launch of 5th Gear on Discovery Networks.
Director Ceri Payne worked closely with The Studio team on the idea which essentially was to have the 5th Gear team do a surreal car jump in an Audi R8 in a Hyper-real HDR contemporary warehouse setting. The car would then travel towards a huge concrete discovery D which would be suspended within this space.
The team initially pre-vised the jump to get the idea of camera heights and angles. Due to time constraints with delivery and shooting schedules the decision was made to shoot the 5th Gear team in an Audi R8 on a green screen stage as reference and for the interior shots of the car, everything else would have to be created in CG.
This method worked out well due to the highly stylised clean look the director wanted to create for the piece, which was pushed more in the grade with the HDR feel. The piece was created and finished entirely in The Studio using C4D and Nuke. The promo began airing in August on The Discovery Channel.
Source: Smoke + Mirrors