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n n n n Broadcast plethora of high-resolution stills of the dogs’ fur and textures using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera. “I asked the trainers to stand the dogs upright so I could get a nice, clean shot of their torsos without them being covered by the rigs,” he adds. Tose stills were then tracked over the rigs, so the rigs could be removed. Helping Hands Yet, this was not simply an easy job of roto’ing and comp’ing. “In a lot of the shots, we com- pletely removed their arms as well and put new arms in, and added all the [serving] trays,” says Davies. For instance, at the beginning of the party sequence, a large dog answers the door while holding a tray of beers. “Tat dog needed a big rig with a three-inch bar, and two trainers to hold it up,” notes Davies. “We found that when the dogs are standing upright on their back legs, they are breathing quite heavily. So you can’t just track a still onto them. You have to animate leaning on something fixed. “Every single dog required a separate take,” says Davies, noting that some of the animals did not work well in the same space as the other talent, whether human or canine. In the end, nearly every scene was made up of more than 10 passes. “Tat was key to the success, having each dog shot as a separate layer. We were able to choose the best of each dog’s takes, and ev- ery dog’s performance could be retimed for the best reaction.” Davies offers the example of the bloodhound at the bar: “We had over 50 sec- onds of the dog looking up and down, which allowed us to slip the timing of this layer inde- pendently of the scene. Tis enabled the dog to look up at the girl and then back down at his beer glass while pouring, in perfect unison with the girl’s actions.” In addition to the rig removal and comp’ing, Te Mill often had to replace and animate limbs for shots in which the dog’s arm was holding onto something—for instance, the the dogs’ arms and upper body, and then sup- plied photoreal animated elements of these difficult tasks. “Te idea we were going for was that if these dogs are clever and well trained, maybe they could pull off these stunts,” Davies explains. “We wanted to leave the question, Could these dogs really do that?” Terefore, the motions were underplayed and restricted. And, whenever possible, real objects on poles and wires were shot for the interaction, as was the case when the dog is drying a glass with a towel. “We got some of the way there,” Davies says. But not all the way: Te team ended up incorporating a CG mug and dog limbs to complete the contact. Te Mill used Autodesk’s Maya for the CG work in that shot, as well as for the dog flip- ping burgers on the grill. “We originally had the dog flipping the burger over, which twist- ed the dog’s wrist around. It just felt like we pushed it into the unbelievable, so we ended up re-animating it at the last minute to sim- plify the movement to something more believ- able,” explains Davies. While some of the dog arms were re-created in CG, the trays and other objects were added in the Flame. “We were able to project the trays and bottle onto cards that were animated in 3D space, allowing proper perspective and parallax,” notes Davies. In all, the production company spent ap- This doggie DJ scene was among those with the highest number of layers. The canine in the fore- ground alone required substantial work: The dog had to stand on its hind legs and bob its head to the music, while its paw (with a digital assist) scrubbed the record back and forth. the expansion and contraction of the actual still you are placing on top to simulate the breath- ing. Ten you have to re-introduce the shadows and seamlessly blend the fur.” As the dogs walked, supported by the rigs, they often looked like they were leaning for- ward in a rigid position, which was corrected in Flame. Nearly all the dogs had to be roto- scoped from the scene anyway, because they had to be placed in front of or behind other objects or dogs in the scenes. “With the use of this roto, we were able to adjust the posture of the dogs by bending them at the waist, mak- ing them appear more upright,” says Davies. Tere were also instances whereby the team added a gentle sway to the dog’s upper body so it wouldn’t looked as though the dog was 24 March 2011 doorknob, the beer tap, or any of the beer trays. However, most of this was achieved by animating still photography. “I think the big- gest success of the spot was that we decided to go with an in-camera approach,” says Da- vies. “In the early stages of the project, there was talk about doing fully CG dogs. But that’s tough and time-consuming; they tend to end up looking like CG dogs. It’s not just the way they look, but more the way they move—they can look like animated cartoons.” Nevertheless, there were some instances when CG was unavoidable. For one, in which the dog is washing dishes, Davies says the crew was unable to pull off the shot in 2D because the motion and perspective needed was very complex, so the CG team created models of proximately three days on the shoot—and Davies notes that they were extremely patient since nearly every plate had to be set up for VFX. “We shot trays, we measured the dogs’ height as they walked through the scene, and then built trays to match and wheeled them through the scene for the right focal and light- ing references,” he says. “We had all these ele- ments, and it was plate after plate.” Te sav- ing grace: the decision to go with a locked-off camera, which eliminated the need for motion control and camera tracking. While all the dogs were shot on set, a few of the more scruffy pooches had a greenscreen placed behind them to ease the roto work, made even more complicated by all the hair. In addition to Flame, the team used Auto- desk’s Smoke and Flare for the compositing, Combustion for the roto work, and Maya for the CG. Color grading was also handled by Te Mill using FilmLight’s Baselight. In addition to “Dog Sitter,” Davies worked on two other humorous Bud Light spots for the big game: “Product Placement” and “Sev- erance Package.” But, it was “Dog Sitter” that tied for the top spot in the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter ranking.