Summary
Emerson Employs CG Animals from The Mill NY to Tout Their Capabilities
Impressed by the results of "Coal," "Orange," and "Wood," three
earlier spots created by The Mill NY, DDB Chicago and Emerson knew
that they would come back to The Mill for their next big
campaign.
Bowe King, The Mill's Co-Director on Emerson explains: "The
first time we spoke with DDB about their idea for the spots they
asked us, 'Do you think this is possible and if so, how?'"
As with any great commercial, the first priority was the story.
It was also a great opportunity for The Mill to flex its CG and
compositing muscles. The team had a few ideas about where to go
with DDB's original sketches, but also tried to see how they could
change the story. "We wanted to try different options and see what
would happen. We knew our key players were a Kangaroo and a Wolf,
so we explored how their stories would be told. Especially with the
Wolf--we wanted to see what story made the most sense and what kind
of journey he should go on. Working with storyboard sketches we
began to find images that lent the most drama to the campaign,"
says King.
In tandem with story and storyboard sketches, the design team
came up with stoic and evocative images for each spot. In the
initial style development phase, the idea was to make sure they
respected and incorporated the brand while pushing the brand image
forward and in order to get everyone on board, they knew they had
to make art-worthy images. The Design team and directors made
beautiful style frames that got everyone excited and were
invaluable tools throughout the process and carried over until the
final days of compositing.
The excitement of the group and their desire to see everything
come to life led to the biggest challenge of the job: that the
entire spot would be fully CG. "We couldn't just go
to Australia and shoot back plates to composite our CG
creatures into," notes Rob Petrie, Co-Director. "But it did
give us more flexibility with camera moves. It's also always more
of a challenge creating a whole world digitally."
The end result came through a process of considerable
collaboration and communication among The Mill, the team at DDB
Chicago and the team at Emerson. Together, they were able to create
a truly art-worthy campaign.
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