Here’s another behind the scenes of how we created the global commercial for Standard Bank.

Initially, we teamed up with TBWA/Hunt Lascaris (The same team that won the Cannes Lions Grand Prix award for their Zimbabwean campaign) here in Johannesburg, to pitch a  treatment for the bank’s new corporate direction called “Moving Forward”. This was based on kinetic typography, with the use of photo’s, illustration and typography.

After the pitch was accepted, we were re-briefed to take the flat 2D interpretation and see how far we could take it for the global TVC. The rest of the campaign rested on the following three pillars: Paper – acting as vehicle and backdrop, Typography – carrying the narrative, and Iconography – the combination of recognizable elements that form an idea.

We decided to take a 3D journey through a paper world. The paper would be alive and shape itself into whatever the scene required. On top of that we shot real people, which we added into the mix of relevant elements to create an icon of each idea.

We had 8 weeks to pull it off.

So, we started on storyboarding the full commercial. This gave us a good sense of what elements would need to be created, while starting to paint the picture (or whatever was in our heads) for client. Once the client had approved the boards, we put them together in a timeline with a rough voice over. Here is the animatic:

While this is being worked on, the animators started to model some of the 3D elements we would need. Most of our 3D is done in Softimage XSI. Others started doing tests on animation and the designers doing some “more finished” boards to placate the client after seeing some crappy looking wireframe renders. Here’s some work in progress elements:

Then we began planning the shoot. After doing a very rough (I mean, “you’ll never get to see it” kind of rough) 3D animatic, we knew exactly what to shoot and how to shoot it. We solved a lot of camera angle issues and addressed a lot of the more complicated  problems we’d eventually face in 3D. While the whole studio was busy laying the foundation for all things CGI, we started doing pre-production. We had a two day shoot as we had to shoot for an additional South African version. We shot on the awesome Red One Camera. Check some pics.

So now we had the footage. A couple of hard drives full. Shots then got selected by looking at a whole range of criteria. How’s the performance? Is the lighting correct and is the subject in focus? How smooth is the shot, do we have to spend hours stabilizing? All these questions needed to be answered for every shot before we could continue.

The selected shots then had to be tracked if we needed the information for our 3D camera. This gives the virtual camera the exact same attributes as the real camera, movements and it’s position relative to the subjects it’s filming. Here’s a shot for the transition from the ATM to the farmer. See if you can spot where we stabilized the motion of the real camera.

Then we keyed out the green stuff (with Keylight in After Effects Cs3) and after some sweat and a lot of tears, the subjects ended up in our scene where we composited all the various elements together. Here is some of the illustrations and designs used in the final commercial.

And then, and only then… just when everyone is ready to quit their jobs and go on sabbaticals, everything comes together. Life is good again and there is hope… And a 45 sec TV commercial that will flight for 3 months… and then be forgotten…
At least there’s a version on the web and you’re looking at it. We hope you like it.

So, the credits.

Luma
Gerhard Painter – Director and Compositing
Chris Wieffering – Compositing and Design
Johan Scheepers – Illustration and Design
Werner Ziemerink – 3D Animation
Erik Kruger – 3D Animation
Karen Botha – 3D Animation
Sean Viljoen – 3D Animation
Jason Cullen – 3D Animation
Paul Meyer – 3D Animation
Athanase Georgellis – 3D Modelling
Ruaan Grobler – 3D Animation
Helena Batty – Producer

TBWA/Hunt Lascaris
Damon Stapleton – Creative Director
Nadja Lossgott – Art Director
Nicholas Hulley – Copy Writer
Sandra Gomes – Producer

Capture
Veronica Gerfen – Production

Red One
Russell Cambell – DIT
Tai Krige – DOP

Also, big respek to Guy van der Walt aka Plasticboy that dropped in to give a helping hand as 3D Lead.