Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/22819
Method provided effects for this Halo Reachspot that promotes the popular videogame. Feature-film-like effects find their way to the small screen. By Randi Altman With DVRs now commonplace, commercials have to grab viewers’ attention, and quickly, in order to get them to take their finger off the fast forward button. One trend that has been helping is the type of visual effects now offered on the small screen.The quality and scope now rival feature film effects, with many adopting more film-like post workflows as well. METHOD/HALO REACH So Method’s (www.methodstudios.com) hiring of senior creative director/VFX supervisor Dan Glass in March of 2010 makes perfect sense. Glass started his ca- reer in London,working on spots and films, but he spent the last 10 years lending his talents to visual effects for movies. “We as a company have been very interested in furthering our work in the feature film realm, which is my background personally and a large portion of why I have been involved with Method,” explains Glass, adding that increasingly, commercial directors are being called on to helm feature films. “There has al- ways been a strong drive for commercials to look like features and vice versa, and to play off those two.” The recent CG-heavy Halo Reach spot for Microsoft Xbox is a perfect example 28 Post • January 2011 www.postmagazine.com of this trend.“When agency TwoFifteen and director Noam Murro of Biscuit Films came to us, they had in mind a small short film that would look cinematic and feel like a movie, and less traditionally like a commercial,” says Glass.“We treated it very much like a mini-feature in the whole way it was devised and conceived.” Glass recommended Steve Skroce to Biscuit Films, who he had worked with before, and who has drawn boards for the likes of the Wachowskis (The Matrix), and also called on Halon Entertainment, who provide previz for motion pictures. “We mapped out and planned with Noam what we were anticipating shooting and what we would need in the virtual CG realm. All of that planning and early prep stage is much more akin to how a feature is approached.” The spot’s post process also closely resembled a film’s.“We scanned the mate- rial through sister company, Co3, at full 2K resolution and ran it through a process that mirrors how we do feature film projects,” explains Glass.“This included keep- ing it at 2K, keeping the color resolution at full range and applying final color timing at Co3 right at the end. Again, more akin to how a feature is approached, where your DI is a finishing process.” While creating visual effects that rival film effects is fantastic creatively, budget- wise it could be challenging, and Glass acknowledges this Halo spot was certainly