Daewoo Chevrolet 'Matiz Sheet'

DRAWING THE DIGITAL DUSTSHEET

Agency DFGW have come up with a beautiful visual metaphor for the unveiling of Daewoo's change of brand name to Chevrolet, and they chose Framestore to realise it. 'Sheet', the first of three 30-second spots - this one featuring the Matiz. The spot opens with several establishing shots of the 'old' car, simply presented in a studio. As the camera moves around the Matiz, a wire can be seen attached to the centre of the roof. As the camera pans up the side of the car, we see that the wire is being drawn upwards, and with it the ‘sheet’ covering the car. This satiny outer covering is pulled up, revealing the re-branded Chevrolet beneath. The 'cloth', needless to say, is a CG construct, woven on Framestore's digital loom.

Prepping for Success
The spot was directed by Paul Street for Street Light Productions, and was shot over a week at a Sydney studio. Framestore VFX Supervisor Jake Mengers took an unusual but highly effective approach to preparation for the shoot. “It made all sorts of sense to work out everything ahead of time,” he says, “It would save money, plus we were working in a relatively confined studio space. So I spent an afternoon doing pre-viz for the entire spot with the director, working out the precise choreography of the Milo motion-control camera.”

This hi-tech approach informed the entire process. “It was the most interactive shoot I've ever been on,” Mengers recalls, “I was on set with my computer, using Maya to feed moves to the camera, and we also had the editor on set using Final Cut on his laptop, getting feed off the camera, so we basically achieved an approved cut on set – the agency and director okayed it and – bar a few minor changes – that was it.”

Excelling in Execution
A team of 3D Animators were responsible for creating the cloth. Animator Oskar Wahlberg takes up the story. “There was no real cloth in camera – just clean background plates with two cars filmed – one silver (before) and one black (after). The CG work is in the cloth, its shadow and its reflections.”

Using Head of 3D Andy Boyd's preliminary work, Wahlberg and team mates John Roberts-Cox and Chris Syborn took a little under four weeks to create their virtual sheet. They worked using chiefly Maya's toolbox, with a few proprietary tools helping them along. The car pattern on the cloth was created by Rob Holder, using Photoshop.

Avtar Bains spent over a week in Inferno, first on rig removal and cleaning up the plates, which then went to Steffan Perry for careful grading in Telecine. The work returned to Bains for his final, painstaking assemblage using the cloth elements.

The result is quite lovely, the impossible cloth rippling with an entirely organic feel, hugging the car and shining with a slightly uncanny metallic gleam.