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| Friday, November 21, 2008 |
RSS | 33 |
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| VISA and Lara Croft: 'All It Takes' to combat a 'Monster Chase' |
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Commercial Facts
Title: Visa ‘Monster Chase’
Versions: 120, 60, 30, 20 and 15 sec
Client: Visa International
Agency: Clemenger BBDO, Asia Pacific
Creative Director: Danny Searle
Agency Producer: Paul Johnston
Copywriter: Jeremy Southern
Art Director: Rohan Young
Prod Co: @radical media
Director: Bruce Hunt
Producer: Julianne Sheldon
Music/Sound Design: Simon Lister; Human
Sound Mix/FX: Simon Kane; Song Zu
Cast overview
Lara Croft: Sofia Vergara
Animal Logic team
Exec Producer: Jacqui Newman
Line Producer: Sarah Hiddlestone
VFX Supervisor: Simon Whiteley
Designer: Simon Whiteley (in collaboration with Bruce Hunt)
Lead Compositor: Hugh Seville
Senior Compositor: Stefan Coory
Senior Compositor: Leoni Willis
Compositor: Pheng Sisopha
Compositor: Adam Watson
3D Team Leader: Luke Hetherington
CG team: Michael Mellor, Daniel Marum, Clinton Downs, Cameron Scott, Will Reichelt, Nathan Stone, Scott Hunter, Andrew Ritchie, Paul Braddock, Al Ferguson
Release from: Animal Logic
Visa 'Monster Chase' wins Clio Bronze
May 24th, 2004 - The 2004 Clio Jury has awarded a Clio Bronze to Visa ‘Monster Chase’ in the Television/Cinema — Animation category at the annual awards ceremony in Miami, Florida. Animal Logic collaborated with @radical media director Bruce Hunt to create the feature-scale visual effects and help realise Hunt’s vision for the ambitious commercial. There have already been several accolades awarded to ‘Monster Chase’. In February at the New York Festival Awards, the spot earned two Gold Medals, one for ‘Best Special Effects’ and Hunt was awarded the prestigious ‘Best Director’ gong for his work on the commercial.
The campaign, comprising of 15-second, 20-second, 30-second, and 60-second spots, plus a 2-minute version for cinema boasts a total of 123 scenes, with all but 15 of those scenes feature stunning visual effects created by Animal Logic. Live action blends expertly with 3D animated characters to help blend fantasy with reality.
The story begins with ‘real life’ Lara Croft (played by supermodel Sofia Vergera) as she plays with her animated counterpart in Tomb Raider. The game quickly becomes very real as the live action Lara becomes entwined with the game and the sassy adventuress comes eyeball-to-eyeball with an animated monster of gargantuan proportion.
“With the latitude to create something like an Indiana Jones or a James Bond film action sequence, we had particular fun devising a game sequence within the spot,” says Hunt. “It works as its own little movie.”
‘Monster Chase’ is the sixth Lara Croft spot for which Animal Logic has crafted visual effects bringing the heroine and her adventures to a new level of sophistication. The armour-plated fiend, complete with dripping saliva appears half organic and half mechanical and was pieced together under the direction of Animal Logic Art Director/VFX Supervisor Simon Whiteley. To achieve the look, Whiteley worked from extensive reference material supplied by Hunt.
The live action sequence for ‘Monster Chase’ was filmed in Prague over four-days, in the grand interior of the Strahov Library, built between 1782-1784. Months before the shoot, a team of 11 animators worked on creating a seamless blend between real life and the computer-generated imagery. “All the past Lara Croft spots have just involved Lara in a game but none of the elements have ever come into a real world situation; whereas in this, we have both,” said Animal Logic’s 3D team leader Luke Hetherington.
Hugh Seville (Lead Compositor) went to Prague to supervise the visual effects scenes of the shoot, recording information about the library dimensions, lighting set-ups, camera lens settings and textures so that the 3D animators could animate and light the monster accurately in the live action library sequence, giving him a real and terrifying presence.
Hunt aimed to create feeling of suspense as the glassy eyed creature is awoken. His raw intelligence makes him a powerful hybrid of human and robot. “He really had to match what Lara is doing, respond when she makes a move. 3D is fantastic for telling stories; it has a real impact,” said Hunt. “The idea is to hit the cinema audience between the eyes. It’s all about getting an audience reaction, we had to be entertaining, - it’s show biz.”
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