“I love the problem solving and seeing this project come together. The look was really the key thing to get right, and everybody played a part in creating the solution – from modelling through to animation and comp, everyone had to really be in sync and it was great to be a part of.”
MIKE LOMAS
Director
HARNESSING THE
POWER OF THE SUN
We created 2 spots in an illustrative 3D style, full of colour and shading to bring a unique look and feel to the piece. The opening is a dramatic and energetic close up of the sun, showcasing its size and power. We then bring it into our world by reaching up and grabbing it in the palm of our hand. The sun provides the light in the scene, bouncing off the hands creating interesting shadows and volumes of light at key moments.
Our 30 second spot is very performance based, focused on the visual metaphors of harnessing the sun, where our 15 second spot leads up to introducing the app. The whole thing was bundled up in all the wide and social formats, with some 6 second cutdowns and a few print stills thrown in too.
ENERGETIC 3D
ILLUSTRATIVE STYLE
The concept art was very illustrative and working in 3D things become very precise and lose the hand drawn aesthetic. It was important to find a style that worked for the spot as there wasn’t the timeframe to cel animate it, and we wanted it to look more like stylized 3D as opposed to fake 2D. This was the most important and challenging thing because you need to find the sweet spot for the director’s vision and what it’s possible to create with the
restrictions you have.
In lighting we generated a lot of different shading passes that we could combine, and applied a few compositing tricks to give the piece its own style. Many of the shaded elements are a combination of different subsurface passes with gradient maps applied in comp, topped with multiple specular passes for highlights and brighter areas of grain
We also played close attention to the posing and how each hand shape appeared on screen, and moved between each key moment.
and the most decent human beings you’ll probably ever meet…