Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/8034
Broadcast n n n n co-shoot supervisor with Yann Mabille, started pre-produc- tion on the spot in November, creating previs for the proj- ect using Autodesk’s Softimage. “In making a bridge out of people, we wanted to know what the bridge looks like and how it’s structured,” says Sarokin. “We went through many designs to come up with something that fell together but had a coherent shape.” Santa Paula, California, a picturesque little town near Los Angeles, became Any Town for the shoot, while the bridge sequence was filmed on a farm a few miles away. According to Sarokin, he and the crew arrived at the shoot site a few days early and sat down with the agency and director to map out what they wanted to capture on film. Te bridge would con- sist of the rails (people standing on the side), the road (people laying down horizontally), and the five main For this Budweiser Super Bowl spot, The Mill NY constructed a human bridge using live-action components and 200 digital people. The CG bridge was built in Softimage. pillars supporting the bridge. “Shot by shot, we looked at which elements we could use for mul- tiple shots, and which elements we needed to get Te goal was to shoot as many practical elements as pos- sible to lend to reality, says Sarokin. “We were trying to get a rough idea for shot-blocking for the storyboards, but because we didn’t know the terrain yet, we kept previs as generalized as possible to get a basic idea of the size of the bridge and how they wanted it to move,” he explains. “We went over all the animation possibilities.” practically,” he says. Post-shoot, Sarokin and Mabille found they didn’t quite have everything they needed. “Every time you go out on set, you never really know what you’re going to get until you sit with an edit and see the footage come together,” says Sarokin. “On site, you do the best you can to match camera angles, March 2010 23