Currys / PC World Advert


This was a job completed at Tandem Films

Work required
I did some rotoscoping on this job, the 3d glasses, and the shots after 21 seconds (LCD TV, and remote control).  The on screen interface was also created by myself and animated to look like it was being controlled.  The depth of field effect in this shot was added in post.  There was a fix on the live action where the TV is mounted on the wall.  Originally the wall it was mounted onto wobbled slightly so I stabilized the TV and mount to make it look like it was mounted onto a solid brick wall.
Tandem did 8 adverts in total, each requiring rotoscoping, I helped out on the last two.  The other advert I worked on had a laptop, which required me to create a PC desktop that looked generic and animated.

Comet – Sponsers Christmas Entertainment “Laptop”


This was a job completed at Airside

Work required
I worked on this Advert with Charles Beglan who was involved in creating the 3d sets.  We knew we would need a 3d track of the live action, therefore during the filming we were on set to supervise the vfx preparation.  This involved taking measurements and layouts of important parts of the set, recording camera and lens data, and making sure we had trackers in view and enough parallax to assist the 3d tracking.
I prepared the footage, and did the matchmove using syntheyes 2011.  For these I supplied Charles a 3d camera, and stand in objects of the sofa and foot stool in a Maya scene.  With regards to rotoscoping I had two assistants that I was able to delegate work to.  I used the matchmove to assist with the rotoscoping by importing the data into After Effects and placing solids in 3d space near the areas I needed to cut out.  Most of the rotoscoping was broken down and roughly keyed before being handed out to the assistants.
I worked the treatment of the man sat down to match the clients vision.  This was all comped together to produce the final piece.  The post production company Nice Biscuits were involved in making the different versions and created the Laptop content.

Westfields Christmas 2011 TV Advert – Breakdown

The video is a presentation of how two shots were cleaned up and some of the processes I used to speed up my work.


Each toy was brought to life by three puppeteers that required removing in post production. This did involve selectively keeping parts of the background in place or patching in areas that were always covered by the puppeteers as the set was being moved about slightly during each take. Most objects were tracked very roughly to give me the basic motion, this motion was then attached to my mask. this workflow meant I only had to concentrate on how the objects changed shape whilst in motion and not be concerned with the movement.
The shot of the teddy bear that runs towards camera was stabilized first. I tracked the teddy’s movement using Mocha by drawing a shape around his larger areas that had the bulk of the main movement (his head & body). This was imported into after effects and was used to stabilize the plate. I then created my roto’s on a layer above, as the teddy was stabilized I did not need to concern myself with scaling and movement of the mask as much as if it was the original shot. The masked layer then had the inverse stabilization applied (via some scripts) and used as a mask to cut the original footage out. If there had been stronger motion blur on the footage I might not of done it this way, because the footage is stabilized the masks are not moving as much as they really would have so the built in after effects motion blur will not be as strong. I did however apply a gentle reelsmart motion blur to the final matte to help compensate for this.

Raid – The Way Bugs See It


This was a job completed at Uli Meyer

Work required
I worked on the first seven shots compositing the characters into the background plate.  A shallow depth of field was created on the 2d drawings by painting our own depth mattes, this involved some amount of rotoscoping and specific paint and trace instructions, the same was done with the background so we could shift the focus through out the shot.
The product shots had the spray on barrier produced in 3d using Maya, we worked closely with the 3d artist to produce matte runs and passes required to create the look the client was after.
The explosions were added after by Dave Walker who also completed the last shots and over saw the project.

Honey Cheerio’s – Never Give Up

This was a job completed at Uli Meyer

Work required

I was working on the post production of this advert along side David Walker.  We were compositing multi pass renders and integrating the character into the live action backgrounds, most of my completed shots are after 8 seconds.
Extra 2d displacements were added to show the feeling of displaced air.  The product pieces were 3d and had a lot of attention to get them just how the client wanted.  We worked along side the client for two days making final color tweaks and adjusting details.

 

Kelloggs – Mr Kelloggs, Vitamins And Iron

This was a job completed at Beglan Brothers

Work required
I completed some of the post production on this advert.  We were shooting 4K stop motion stills and grading with the raw camera files.  Some flicker had to be removed from the shots, and also the occasional “clean up” that is required in stop motion ie rigging removed or taking away accidental blemishes.  There was also a lot of rotoscoping required, and keying to introduce the shots outside of the windows.  The shots were lit to feel like a sunny morning in post.  There is also some invisible work in the live action shots.  The kitchen did not have tiles to the very bottom so these were placed in after, as well as the daughter behind the packs being removed and the re positioning of the chalk board to be more title safe.
I also worked on one of the press stills, this involved similar compositing to the advert but more precision and more clean up of the model and his enviroment, as everything was staying at a higher pixel dimension.

Beglan Brothers website, www.beglanbros.com

Boyles Sports – Sponsorship

This was a job completed for Mark Holland

Work required
Mark already had an idea visually as to how this was going to work, and with some stock footage edited the shots together.  I was to take his edit and mood image and produce the final piece, with Mark making final Director decisions.
The footage I was given was not shot for keying, so some rotoscoping was required and some clever keying in sections of the shots.  The original ball was removed and the red one placed in with betting odds.  Extra overlapping details were masked in to help integrate the ball better with the footballer.  This was a quick turnaround initially 2 days, there were some extra comments and changes made and all up we were done with masters in under a working week.

BBC Comedy – News At Bedtime (short clip)

This was a job completed for Kate Sullivan

Work required
Kate Sullivan designed, directed and animated a sketch to accompany Nick Newman and Ian Hislop’s Radio Four series “The News at Bedtime”. You can watch the full version here http://tinyurl.com/newsatbedtime.  The sketches are produced by Simon Nicholls. They star Jack Dee, Peter Capaldi and Vicki Pepperdine.
Martin Davey painted the backgrounds and I did the compositing and some 3d work using Maya.
The 3d that was involved was mostly projection mapping.  I would project Martins drawn artwork onto 3d geometry.  This was used to good effect in the opening scene into the news room.

Kates website, www.katesullivan.co.uk
Martins website, www.martindaveyillustration.co.uk

Chocapic – Free Falling

This was a job completed at Beanimation

Work required
3D Backgrounds where by Arkvfx.  I was involved in the compositing of the characters and color grading.  We supplied a cutdown and various other countries versions of the advert.

Sky One – Domino’s Pizza Sponsors the Simpsons

Here is a compilation of the Domino’s Pizza adverts. I was involved in various parts of this production. The live action was shot with a motion controlled camera and gives a real crisp feel to the backgrounds. The backgrounds were tracked in 3d as we had trouble getting the motion control data into our 3d application. I built and animated the 3d box and made sure it tracked nicely to integrate into the scenes. During linetest stage with the animation we were preparing all the matte runs and roughly tracking the characters into the scenes. I shared the compositing with another compositor for the final touches after linetest stage. These were played during the popular series The Simpsons on Sky One.