The
promo for the latest Chemical Brothers single, 'Believe',
which premiered on MTV on 18th March 2005, offers
an unnerving and blackly humorous glimpse of a mind
at the end of its tether. Directed by Dom &
Nic, and produced by John Madsen for Factory Films,
'Believe' features some spectacular 3D work and
artful compositing from the Framestore CFC Commercials
team.
'Believe' shows us scenes from the life of a young
man whose job at a car factory becomes increasingly
untenable as he starts to catch glimpses of a mechanical
creature that seems to be following him. The creature
- an unholy amalgam of parts drawn from the car
assembly line robots - becomes increasingly threatening
in its pursuit of our hero, and the video moves
towards a surprising and ambiguous conclusion.
Shoot and Run
Directors Dom & Nic had recently worked with
Framestore CFC on the acclaimed 'Hector's Life'
spot for Renault. During that shoot, the Framestore
CFC team had done some tests using a Mini DV camera,
and Dom & Nic were keen to explore this medium
further. "We loved the look of it - it felt more
'real', with the camera being hand held and everything,"
says Dom Hawley, "A narrative based promo like 'Believe'
can be very expensive, with all the time required
for 35mm shooting, and it struck us that by integrating
CG into DV footage, we could dramatically cut the
costs, while still delivering an exciting and intriguing
story." They discussed the logistics with VFX Supervisor
Ben Cronin, who realised that, with no blue-screen
material planned, a straightforward insertion of
the 3D elements was quite manageable. "They had
their own Panasonic DV camera with a Leica lens,
and that was it – we were good to go."
So, with a crew that consisted of Dom, Nic, Producer
John Madsen, a camera assistant, Cronin and actor
Luke Jardine, the 'Believe' shoot took place over
6 days in February 2005. Cronin was impressed at
the speed of the process. "It was a great shoot
to be on – no setting up, just shoot and hop
on a bus to the next location," he recalls, "It
got a little frantic at times. For the sequence
on the bus we needed some reflection elements from
the bus window. So the producer (John), the AD and
I waited at a bus stop holding a black card. The
bus approached, with Dom and Nic on it filming Luke
and talking to us on the phone. When the bus pulled
up, John got on and distracted the driver, while
I ran round the back with the card and they filmed
it."
Another key location on the shoot was the MG Rover
car plant at Longbridge. "We tried about twenty
different car factories, before Rover said they
were up for it, "says Hawley, "So we were very relieved.
We gave Howard Sly (Framestore CFC Senior Modeller)
some ideas for the design, and Animator Alex Doyle
came along to Longbridge and took further reference
images. The look of the robot was a deliberate pick
'n' mix of elements from the factory machinery –
a sort of self-assembled, automated Frankenstein's
monster. It lurches along with an ungainly, very
mechanical gait." As Alex Doyle recalls, "I
used the reference images to Model the robot. These
photos proved to be an invaluable source, enabling
the robot to be built in proportion and move correctly
when animated. They were also a great reference
when applying the fine details to the model, which
helped create a stronger sense of realism."
Mental Arithmetic
For the Framestore CFC animation team, the stilted,
robotic movement – so unlike the organic,
creaturely motion they're usually called upon to
mimic - was just one of the things that made this
project a little different. In order to meet the
deadlines – and because he likes a gamble
- Andy Boyd, Head of 3D, decided that 'Believe'
would be a good opportunity to use Image Based Lighting
with Mental Ray to light and render the creature
work, marking a change from the team's previous
working practice of using Maya's own renderer.
"With over 30 shots to do in a very short time,"
says Boyd, "The IBL/Mental Ray set-up meant that
everything would be basically in one beauty pass.
Taking the lighting information we'd gathered on
the shoot, we would do a lighting set up and create
a master shader, which Senior Technical Directors
Jamie Isles and Chris Syborn and I could artistically
test for each shot. So all we had to do was replace
the environment image, and we could race through
it. So we ended up giving Ben (Cronin) a total of
three passes to comp – the beauty, the special
multi-light pass that gave him some grading control,
and a shadow pass – and that was it. On some
jobs we've handed him 6 to14 passes, which would
have given him very little time."
Senior TD Chris Syborn created a set up to control
the robot's cabling and wires via Maya's dynamic
hair tools. Given that the schedule was so tight,
there wasn't time to go in and hand animate secondary
cable animation for over 30 shots, so by treating
each cable as an individual (albeit gigantic) hair,
real dynamics could be applied to its movement.
So a sudden stop by the robot would cause the cables
to continue to move in a realistic way, softening
the motion and making it very natural. The results
were a triumph.
Finally, the look of the robot had to be quite grubby,
given its origins in the car plant. So, while Jamie
Isles hand painted and textured the dirt for the
'hero' pieces of the robot's body, for much of the
smaller parts, Boyd created a procedural shader
that actually put a lot of little bits of dirt in,
avoiding the time-consuming process of hand texturing
everything.
Eye Robot
It took Cronin and Inferno Artist Chris Redding
two intensive weeks to comp 'Believe'. 2D concerns
they addressed included a careful grading of the
robot, because taking an 'indoors' object outside,
where you wouldn't normally see it, can lead to
subtle colour saturation issues. For an interaction
shot, where the robot clambers over a BMW, Cronin
used a shiny new hire car, which he shot being bounced
up and down and then vandalised further in Inferno.
Additionally, the robot's 'tail' – a huge
piece of multi-core cable – was given sparks
as it bounced of some of the road surfaces.
Dom Hawley is unstinting in his praise of the results.
"It was a fantastic working experience," he says,
"There's a very direct relationship between us and
the Framestore CFC team, which is refreshing, and
they are just so committed – giving it so
many late nights."
If you want a measure of how good a job the Framestore
CFC team have done, watch the video a second time,
and see if the real factory robots don't look as
if they must be CG…
Chemical
Brothers 'Believe'
Directors
Dom & Nic
Producer John Madsen
Production Company Factory Films
For Framestore CFC
VFX Supervisor Ben Cronin
CGI Supervisor/TD Andy Boyd
3D Animators/TDs Jamie Isles, Chris
Syborn, Nicklas Andersson, Alex Doyle, Howard Sly,
Anders Thonell, Don Mahmood, Dean Robinson, Kate
Hood, Jake Mengers, Rob Holder
Senior Inferno Artist Ben Cronin
Inferno Artist Chris Redding
Post Producer Rebecca Barbour
Line Producer Linda Francini
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