Brief
It can be difficult to gain confidence in oneself and even more so in one’s colleagues. As the subject of confidence is broached, the protagonist takes off into an enchanted cubic world and manages to find enough strength to throw herself into the void. Directed by Seb Edwards, produced by Academy Films and Wanda thru agency Publicis Conseil, the spot features UK dancer/actor Chiara Corbetta underscored by Lee Hazlewood’s 1966 ballad “Your Sweet Love”.
Approach
Our Parisian Team carried out a great deal of graphic research to come up with a style that suited the director and all the parties involved. This project perfectly illustrates the talent of our team in translating the client’s needs into images, despite the complexity of creating a cubic yet photo-realistic environment.
Impact
This ad has received several awards for the quality of its VFX, including a Gold at the Berlin Commercial Award, a Silver at the Kinsale Shark Award, and it continues to earn shortlist nominations, including one for the Ciclope Awards.
Behind the Scenes
"This project was a great opportunity to work with talented people and explore ways to translate a concept into powerful imagery. This cubic world is Seb Edwards (Wanda), the creative team Kevin & Nicolas (Publicis), the client and our interpretation of the new Web3 metaverse and it’s been really fun to build it.
First with a shooting in Italy and Slovenia, mixing live backgrounds, green screens and a lot of rigs ! Then after many concepts by Nathan in post the most challenging part was to find the perfect balance between what’s real and what’s not and we quickly decided to keep the great landscapes offered by the location as much as possible and enhance them enough for everyone to understand the concept to keep a realistic and natural feel. It involved a lot of back and forth with all the team to achieve the clean work, thanks to our Bangalore studio, matte painting and full CG assets and environments. After blending in a Cg building, CG mountains and a CG quarry, the last fall in the sky is the heaviest sequence with a full CG sky environment. Since all of this is about trust, I want to thank Seb, Kevin & Nicolas and our great team in Paris for this intense but so creative and interesting collaboration." - Alexis Baillia, VFX Supervisor
"We set out to create 3 distinct environments: the meadow, the natural quarry and the skies. The director had a very clear vision, a digital environment that was both realistic and cubic. As the environment is purely imaginary we had no existing references for their look.
They were all created entirely using concepts, matte painting and research into looks directly in 3D. After validating the references, the cubic clouds were made on Houdini.
For the quarry we also used Houdini procedurally to quickly create an extended environment, then detailed everything on Maya and finalised with matte painting. I'm pleased with the result, especially as at the start of the project I had difficulty visualising what the final film would look like. It's quite rare in advertising to have the opportunity to work on films that mix so many VFX techniques. It was a pleasure to be able to work with the internal and external teams throughout the project and to be able to make suggestions." - Guillaume Dadaglio, CG Supervisor
"It was a very stimulating project because it involved a lot of effects that required the support of all the studio's trades. What's more, it was a real pleasure to work with Seb Edwards and his production team, as well as the whole Publicis Conseil team. We succeeded in establishing good communication, listening to their needs and putting all our expertise at the service of the film.We shared the same ambition: a film that was both creative and technically advanced." - Stéphanie Mollet, VFX Producer