Bakers 'Italian Job'

Framestore has helped RSA’s Trevor Melvin give a K9 twist to The Italian Job for DDB and Bakers dog food. Framestore was charged with creating a convincing doggy remake from tilting gimble footage, greenscreen dogs and Croatian countryside plates in a very short space of time. Despite the immense challenges involved, Framestore managed to deliver VFX that everyone was extremely happy with; even Melvin himself said it was the most enjoyable job he’d ever worked on.

The spot sees a pack of cunning dogs hijack a Bakers Meaty Meals delivery van. But their speedy getaway is hampered by a swerve that leaves the van hanging precariously over the edge of a cliff, with the dogs’ precious bounty about to slide out of the titling van. One plucky hound, however, rescues their loot with a rope.

Tim Osbourne supervised the shoot in Croatia where all live action plates were filmed. To address animal welfare issues, filming of the dogs was restricted to a studio. So life-sized cardboard cut-outs were used for line up reference, with a big cuddly dog standing in as fur lighting reference. Using two identical vans – one driven by a stunt driver, the other rigged for the 'on the cliff edge' shot – several plates were shot, noting all measurements, camera and lighting data.

The plates were then brought back to London where Peepshow editor, Lizzy Graham, provided an edit with line-up and lighting ref. This information, along with camera data from the Croatia shoot, were taken into a studio for a two-day greenscreen shoot of all the dogs and product shots.

One of the studio shoot’s main challenges was to make the dogs look like they were reacting to a tilting vehicle, rather than just sliding without any shift in bodyweight. To achieve this, the van interior was recreated on a tilting gimble so that the dogs and handlers could be safely tipped in any direction. This created both dog reactions and lighting changes.

Each of the five dogs was individually shot on the gimble, with empty plates and 'travelling' light plates being captured afterwards. The final rope shots were trickiest as it was hard to get the dogs to perform correctly. So the team ended up suspending rope from the ceiling with wire at the same height as the dogs’ mouths, meaning jaws could be added in post.

To aid with the production’s tight turnaround, a DIT (video playback) operator worked closely with the editor and the VFX team to combine and test every dog and plate as the shoot progressed. This was no easy task as some shots required seven layers. “This was a great way to work,” comments Osbourne, “as we could see the edit building as we went, and Trevor could check his action sequences in the context of the cut.” After two days in the studio, the VFX team walked away with an invaluable rough assembly of a 60 and 30 sec cut.

The VFX process started with a new pipeline from Stefan Perry in telecine. He graded each of the shots’ many elements – exterior Croatian mountains, greenscreen empty plates, dogs of various fur lengths and colours – so that they all looked like they were in the same place at the same time. The data was then exported into Flame where the 2D team could work on RAW files but with Perry’s grade applied. The shots were QC’ed in telecine on an ongoing basis throughout the compositing process.

Tim Osbourne attended both shoots and spent the first week of the project setting up all shots in Flame before handing over to Savneet Nagi who stepped in to lead the project. Sav delegated certain shots to various Flame, paint and roto artists as well as working on his own shots and collaborating with Trevor and the agency. In addition to compositing the dogs, the VFX team enhanced and lengthened the rope in the back of the van, recreated the pet shop interior, removed rigs on the teetering van, and raised its floor to the pivot point. They even added extra ‘wag’ to the dogs’ tails and shortened the driver dog’s tongue. Once the VFX were completed, everything was handed back to Perry in telecine to polish it off with a final look and grade.