DDB Canada’s beautifully stylized spot embodies the idiom “It’s no use crying over spilt milk.”
Starting from the distinct matriarch of the family, the film takes viewers on exploration through a nearly frozen moment in time. Working closely with OPC director Matt Devine, theVanity joined this dinner-party from the get-go. Detailed planning and precise moments bring this vision to life. TheVanity’s artists spent a good amount of time exploring the concept in pre-vis prior to production. The exercise helped us to understand the visual language of the film and was used as the basis on which to program the Technodolly on set.
Rather than shooting with high speed cameras and moving rapidly through the scene, the decision was made early to place the burden of creating the frozen slice of time on the shoulders of the actors. Knowing this wouldn’t return perfect results, theVanity’s artists took on the task of rounding out the edges in some valiant efforts to hold a pose.
In early look development it became clear that the first step in the post-process needed to be a stunning colour grade by theVanity’s Andrew Exworth. By approaching the project with the grade first, it allowed the agency the flexibility to craft the tones of the spot without being shackled by the need to make the tears stand out. Instead the look of the film drove the look of the tears.
With this project came a series of challenges that saw theVanity’s 2D and 3D visual effects artists working closely together to bring the spot to life. Simulating tears or any other liquid can be incredibly time-consuming to generate even with the most advanced computing power available. theVanity needed to create a pipeline that would allow artists and art directors the freedom to play with tear size, speed, and density with immediate results. In parallel, a separate process and method needed to be developed to create shoelace-like drool on the family dog.
After editorial, it was determined that additional dairy products would need to be added in to the scene. theVanity used a combination of traditional cg and photogrammetry to create stunning photo-real cheese trays that could be composited in to the twists and turns of the live-action camera.
Check out our Methodology for Dairy Farmers of Canada.
