Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/511209
www.postmagazine.com 13 POST MAY 2015 BITS & PIECES Stormy Weather on Arri S35 – Red 5K – HD StormStock® The world's premier storm footage library. (817) 276-9500 www.stormstock.com CORONA'S CAN MORPH LOS ANGELES — Brand New School (www.brandnewschool.com), in association with agency La Communidad, directed and produced a new spot that introduces Corona Extra cans. The result is a piece of 3D anima- tion that celebrates summer in all its glory. As the star of the spot, the can transforms fluidly from palm trees to flip flops to a beach ball and then to the blue waters of the ocean. The spot was inspired by aluminum can art, a style popular throughout parts of Mexico, and a natural fit for the Corona brand. Creative director Robert Bisi and the Brand New School CG team created CG models in a manner that mirrored how the material would be manipulated in the real world. Maya and V-Ray were used for animation and rendering, while Nuke and After Effects were used for compositing. PROJECT DREAMSPACE SHARES 'VIRTUAL PRODUCTION' RESEARCH STUTTGART, GERMANY — Project Dreamspace (www.dreamspaceproject.eu), a three-year European Commission-funded project tasked with researching and developing tools for creative professionals in visual effects, presented its first year's findings at FMX 2015 (www.fmx.de) earlier this month. The re- search focused on the technical components necessary to enable virtual pro- duction and was put together by a consortium of leading VFX thinkers from the education, research and commercial sectors. Together, they looked at the critical issues around collaborative workflows and combining live perfor- mances, video and computer-generated imagery in realtime. Members from the group include The Foundry, Ncam, Stargate Germany, CreW, Saarland University, iMinds and Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg. Key findings include: Markerless camera tracking with depth keying; om- nidirectional video for virtual sets; interchangeable realtime and high-quality rendering; realtime compositing connected to post; and on-set tools for intui- tive and collaborative set-up and visualization. METHOD COMPLETES AVENGERS- THEMED SAMSUNG SPOT LOS ANGELES — Method Studios (www.methodstudios.com) recently com- pleted work on a theatrical spot for Samsung that ties into the release of the new Marvel Avengers: Age of Ultron film. The :60 cinema spot shows the sim- ilarities between the new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge phones and the Avengers' familiar weapons. Like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and The Hulk, the new Galaxy models are shiny, metallic, sophisticated and even green! The spot is fully CG (aside from some live action footage shown on the phone screens), and was delivered in 4K. 72andSunny conceived the Beauty and Might spot, which was also cut as a :30 version. Method received weapon assets from Marvel and CAD models of the phones from Samsung. The phone models needed to be re-worked for Meth- od's VFX pipeline and to achieve enough detailed to withstand the spot's extreme close ups. The Method team — led by VFX supervisor Olivier Dumont, compositing supervisor Patrick Ferguson, and CG supervisor Erik Gamache — animated several iterations of both weapons and phones in order to find the right an- gles and movements for smooth transitions. Method spent four weeks on the project, focusing heavily on lighting and textures. The studio used Maya for modeling, Mari for textures, Nuke for compositing, V-Ray for rendering, and Flame for finishing. Method also added some atmospheric elements to give the weapons and phones more depth against the black background. In addition to the 4K master, Method delivered the final spot in a wide variety of codecs and formats for audiences worldwide. Alain Gourrier served as editor on the project.