Production company Stardust Studios (www.stardust.tv) is very proud to detail its close collaborations with the creative team from DDB Chicago for Bud Light Lime. For the project, one :30 and two :15 design-intensive broadcast spots entitled “The Summer State of Mind” were created by Stardust under the direction of creative director (CD) Brad Tucker, in association with DDB Chicago’s SVP and group CD Mark Gross, VP CD/art director Chris Roe, VP CD/copywriter Chuck Rachford, and VP executive producer Will St. Clair. Each of the spots debuted on May 10 during high-profile U.S. primetime broadcast coverage, like the 2009 NBA playoffs, and continues to air widely.
With the goal of presenting all the great aspects of Summer in a bottle, the spots feature a seamless, stylized blending of high-speed cinematography of Bud Light Lime pouring into a bottle with many other live-action elements — including shots of young adults dancing, playing volleyball and enjoying a picturesque sunset on a beach — all united by artful editing, compositing and CGI design. From the appearance of the pouring liquid at the beginning through the final presentation of Bud Light Lime bottles, design flourishes and the sunset beach party, Tucker’s unique fusion of talents in filmmaking, design and storytelling shine through.
“The finished spot presents the best of several ideas we presented on how we thought we could make the bottle cool,” Tucker began. “We enjoy working in the type of collaborative environment this project represents, and doing jobs from the initial phases, and feel that the quality of these finished spots is a direct result of our great relationship with DDB’s creative team and their openness to our ideas.”
The project’s production and post workflows were also described in detail by Tucker. Working with St. Clair, Roe, line producer Winston Smith, director of photography Jim Matlosz and other crew-members, Tucker spent two days shooting at LA’s Quixote Studios in Griffith Park. The talent was shot against a green screen at 3k, “We shot at 48fps so we could have a slight slow-motion feeling, the green screen was lit on its own, and the talent was backlit to achieve the sunset feeling,” Tucker explained.
Separately, Tucker and Matlosz used Vision Research’s Phantom HD digital high-speed video camera to photograph the fluid against a medium gray background.
Many special rigs were used to capture the fluid in its one or two seconds of glory,” he continued. “It was shot at 750fps at 2k. We had to rig the bottle so we could capture fluid shooting up the sides and filling the bottle, and many splash elements that could all be composited together.”
Stardust editors Tony Hall and Michael Merkwan used Final Cut Pro to edit the spots together with the low-res reference files, while the company’s VFX artists started compositing the low-res proxies of the Phantom footage. Rubber Monkey Software’s Monkey Extract was used to export TIFF sequences from the final EDL for seamless integration into Adobe After Effects.
Each of the project’s 3D elements was made by Stardust’s artists using Maya, where paint effects were used for making the trees. Compositing was handled in After Effects. “The 3D cameras were transferred from Maya to After Effects to keep all the objects revolving around the bottle,” Tucker confirmed. “We used difference mattes to separate the fluids from the backgrounds, and lighting effects and particles played a big role in blending everything together. In addition to marrying the green screen footage to our background plates of the sunset scenes, we also keyed and composited the green screen footage into the bottle.” All 3 of the “Summer State of Mind” commericals are featured in our Gallery.
About Vision Research
Vision Research® designs and manufactures high-speed digital imaging systems used in applications including defense, automotive, engineering, science, medical research, industrial manufacturing and packaging, sports and entertainment, and digital cinematography for television and movie production.
The Wayne, N.J.-based company prides itself on the sensitivity, high-resolution and image quality produced by its systems, robust software interfaces, and reliability and versatility of its camera family – all which continue to stand as benchmarks for the high speed digital imaging industry.
Vision Research digital high-speed cameras add a new dimension to the sense of sight, allowing the user to see details of an event when it’s too fast to see, and too important not to™. For additional information regarding Vision Research, please visit www.visionresearch.com. Visit our gallery to view these commercials.
Vision Research is a business unit of the Materials Analysis Division of AMETEK® Inc., a leading global manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices.
About Stardust Studios
Stardust is an award-winning, full-service creative production company, specializing in motion design, animation, visual effects and live-action production. Led by founder and creative director Jake Banks, Stardust’s Santa Monica and New York offices continually redefine creativity for commercial, on-air, music video and in-store presentations. Their recent work – including projects for the world’s top ad agencies, brands and recording artists – has earned numerous awards and worldwide editorial exposure. For more information, please visit www.stardust.tv.
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