"I
know that William Bartlett and Framestore CFC will
rise to any challenge I throw at them. With noitulovE
they have - once again - surpassed themselves."
Daniel Kleinman, Director, noitulovE
The current debate about evolution that is raging
in some quarters may finally be laid to rest by
noitulovE, the new Guinness spot. Put simply,
the Guinness theory is that man's ascent from the
slime has been leading him inevitably towards the
enjoyment of a pint of their estimable product.
Created by AMV BBDO, directed by Daniel Kleinman
and realised by Framestore CFC, noitulovE
makes its debut on UK terrestrial TV on 3rd October
2005, and will be screened on TV and in cinemas
over coming months.
Framestore CFC has, of course, a bit of 'previous'
when it comes to Guinness, having created VFX that
helped make 1999's 'Surfer' spot one of the best
loved commercials in UK television history. So when
AMV BBDO returned to the company for a condensed
history of Evolution (that's noitulovE
backwards), there was quite a legacy to live up
to.
Fast Backward
noitulovE starts at the end, as
it were, with three men in a bar raising their pints
and enjoying their first sip of Guinness. As an
orchestral introduction finishes and the song 'Rhythm
of Life' (from 'Sweet Charity') kicks in, the men
move in backwards-motion out of the bar and into
the street. We follow them a few paces, noticing
that their clothing has already become Edwardian,
and that the buildings around them appear to be
deconstructing themselves. Cutting to a wide shot
of a city (London, in fact) shot from above, we
see the city itself rapidly disassembling, diminishing
to a Saxon settlement in a couple of seconds. Cutting
back to our heroes, we find them still walking backwards,
clad in Bronze Age garb through a devolving rural
landscape. They are swiftly surrounded by a fast-paced
glacier, and there is a slight pause as an Ice Age
flashes by.
As they emerge from the big freeze, our heroes,
now moving with a distinctly simian gait, find their
clothes whisked off them, leaving animal skin loincloths.
A quick glimpse of a Grand Canyon like scene forming
itself, and we are back with the guys who have taken
to the trees in the form of three chimps. Continuing
down the evolutionary chain, the three chimps become,
in quick succession, flying squirrels, furry mammals,
aquatic mammals, fishes, prehistoric flightless
bird creatures, tiny dinosaurs, and – finally
– mudskippers. Grouped around a puddle in
a primeval mud hole, the three companions take a
sip from the puddle – starting back at the
taste of it. We conclude with a close-up of one
of the mudskippers, registering his feelings about
the taste of the available brew with a "Pweugh!"
of disgust.
"The funny thing about the mudskippers is that they're
mostly real," says VFX Supervisor William Bartlett,
"We gave them CG back-fins and added the animated
mouth and tongue, but the creatures themselves were
shot in a tank in a studio. We thought they'd be
good for reference, but they exceeded our expectations
– they even obliged us by drinking from the
puddle. Given how many of 'noitulovE creatures were
created in CG, it's ironic that the one most distant
from man was one we were able to shoot for real."
Bartlett was responsible for leading Framestore
CFC's team through noitulovE's demanding
3 ½ month schedule, from planning, through
the shoots in Iceland and in a London studio, to
assemblage and creation of a multitude of elements
in the Inferno. He even managed to bake some bread
on the way…
What's Cooking?
"This spot was exceptional – and challenging
- in many ways," admits Bartlett, "Not least because
so little of it existed when we were planning it.
It is very much a product of the post production
process." Real elements that were filmable included
the bar sequence at the beginning when we meet our
heroes, green screen footage of the men with various
costumes and layers of ape-man make-up on, some
spectacular scenery from Iceland and the aforementioned
mudskippers.
The rest of noitulovE is an extraordinary
digital collage, made up from stock footage, custom
built CG creatures, CG plant life and rocks, digital
stills and VFX from the Inferno's library of tricks.
All of these were complemented by some personal
touches introduced by Bartlett himself. The aerial
view of London, for instance, was discovered by
Bartlett during a chance visit Vertigo, the bar
on top of the old Nat West Building in the City
of London.
A great VFX Supervisor is equal parts artist, technician
and accountant, and it was the number cruncher in
Bartlett that led him to create some of the elements
for noitulovE in his own oven. "From the
start I'd been very aware that the CG list was already
colossal - 15 new creatures, for a start. For several
of the shots we needed 'geological' distortion of
background rock formations," he recalls, "And I
was struck by the way heat affects dough. I made
some up at home, experimenting with various materials
to get the right sort of looks and textures, and
shooting it with time lapse every 10 seconds. For
some of the looks I found that a dough/Grape Nuts/Special
K combo worked best!"
Bartlett discovered that the look of the spot required
constant movement everywhere in the frame. "To get
that time-lapse feel, you need a sense that everything
is changing all the time," he says, "So all the
elements had to be tweaked continuously. Even the
grassland the men walk backwards across looked dead
if we left it untouched." This fanatical attention
to detail led Bartlett to make some changes that
will scarcely register with most viewers. "The streetlights
outside the bar actually become gas lamps," he notes,
"It's a tiny thing, but change has to be going on
and it should have internal consistency."
Manipulating the Menagerie
Without Framestore CFC's years of experience in
creature work - the thousands of man-hours of R&D
into fur shaders, rigging etc. to draw on - the
sheer volume of animals that the 3D team had to
assemble would have been overwhelming.
Andy Boyd headed the 3D team tasked with creating
not only creatures, but also trees, grasslands,
rivers, waterfalls, a meteorite and millions of
year's worth of geological transition. "There was
such a huge amount of work to do," he says, "We
started by divided the 3D team into two groups –
one to handle creatures, the other for all the rest."
For the VFX elements – plant life and geology
– a key to the success of producing so many
3D effects in such a little time was to have a system
that allowed to create many variants of the effects
procedurally. For this reason Boyd chose to use
Houdini 3D software, which is ideal for this sort
of approach. "We created a base system in Houdini,"
he says, "And once the system was finished we were
able to easily adjust it to created many versions.
For example, once the life cycle of the oak was
created, the same set-up in Houdini was used to
create many different versions of any given tree
– maple, oak, fern, monkey puzzle, among others."
The same principle was applied to bushes, rocks
and water – an initial build which could be
easily and swiftly transformed.
The creatures that Boyd's team came up with were
also in a constant state of flux – flying
squirrels becoming regular squirrels, fins withering
away, necks growing. "It was a lot of fun, actually,"
he confesses, "As we had a bit of freedom to experiment
with the design of the prehistoric creatures." Again,
the 3D team drew upon their massive library of skills
and tools. "We've done creatures so many times now,"
he says, "That we just get faster and more refined
with each project – which is just as well
when something like noitulovE comes along!"
Even with so much of the spot created inside various
computers, there was still a need for a small amount
of TK work. The 35mm was transferred at HD by Colourist
Matthew Turner, who also worked with Kleinman on
the mastergrading of the material.
So how does it feel to have squeezed an aeon into
an ad break? "Fantastic," laughs Bartlett, "All
I need now is a new Le Creuset pan to replace the
one I shattered while boiling sugar for some eroding
rocks…"
Guinness noitulovE
Client Guinness
Agency AMV BBDO
Agency Producer Yvonne Chalkley
Creatives Ian Heartfield, Matt
Doman
Production Company Kleinman Productions
Director Daniel Kleinman
Production Company Producer Johnnie
Frankel
Editor Steve Gandolfi
For Framestore CFC
VFX Supervisor / Lead Inferno Artist William
Bartlett
Inferno Artist Alex Thomas
Additional Inferno Artists Murray
Butler, Jonathan Hairman
Jnr Inferno Artist Chris Redding
Roto Artists Nicha Kumkeaw, Daria
Ashley
CGI Supervisor Andy Boyd
Snr CGI Artist Dan Seddon
CGI Artists Jamie Isles, David
Mellor, James Healy, Laura Dias, Chris Syborn, Alex
Doyle, Michele Fabbro, Joe Thornley
Lead Animator Quentin Miles
Animators Nicklas Andersson, Craig
Penn, Don Mahmood
Jnr CGI Artist Rob Richardson
CGI Tracking Joe Leavson
Telecine Colourist Matthew Turner
Producer Scott Griffin
Production Assistant Sarah Goodwin
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