(Santa Monica, CA--April 14, 2010) Artist owned-and-operated bi-coastal effects boutique Brickyard VFX recently created CG frogs that appear alongside live counterparts in a new fairytale-inspired commercial for Mitsubishi. Entitled "No Fairytale," the spot debuted on Canadian TV on April 6, 2010. The project was directed by Albert Kodagolian of Steam Films, a long-time collaborator of Brickyard VFX partner and lead 2D artist, Patrick Poulatian.
The ad puts a new spin on the classic "Princess and the Frog" tale while highlighting the sleek and sporty design of the new 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer. The clever :30 TV spot follows the Lancer as it winds down a beautiful mountain road. The ad illustrates some of the Lancer's safety features as it swerves and stops short to let an unexpected throng of frogs cross the road. Impressive CG work and editing follow, as the viewer sees the woman behind the wheel emerge and walk through the group of frogs. The hero frog begs the woman behind the wheel for a kiss. She obliges, turning it into a prince - but much to her dismay, the prince falls in love with the Mitsubishi and takes off.
An alternate internet-only spot was also created to accompany the TV campaign. In this version, rather than transforming into Prince Charming, the frog turns into Prince the pop musician, who gets left in the dust by the woman and her Lancer.
Brickyard provided a variety of effects to this spot, most notably extensive CG work in creating the plethora of frogs. "Frog handlers brought in twenty frogs, but most were too small for the spot, so we ended up shooting just two real 'hero' frogs. The rest are a combination of CG and composites," explained Brickyard lead 2D artist Patrick Poulatian. The majority of the frogs are CG, although for one close-up the Brickyard team carefully layered shots of the real frogs to create the illusion of hundreds of frogs in the road. The hero frog in the spot is a combination of live action and CG; a CG mouth and eyes gave Brickyard artists the freedom to animate his speaking lines and manipulate his eyes and brow to sell the realism of a talking frog. Versions of the spot were created in both French and English, with frogs talking in both languages and 2D animated supers for each.
Unpredictable weather conditions presented another challenge for the Brickyard crew. On location in the hills of Vancouver, the weather fluctuated between bright and sunny and overcast and rainy. "We ended up balancing shots by adding matte paintings of mountains and skies to mesh environments for better continuity," said Poulatian.
The greatest challenge, however, was the tight turnaround - just one week from beginning to end. All CG modeling and animation was completed in Autodesk Maya, with compositing done on Autodesk Flame and additional rotoscoping for the spot done on Autodesk Flare.
About Brickyard VFX
Located in Boston and Santa Monica, Brickyard VFX is an independent visual effects boutique specializing in top quality visual effects from 3D characters through to compositing. Artist owned and operated, the company was founded in 1999 to bring clients a level of customer service, craftsmanship and focus difficult to find at facilities today. Brickyard's creative expertise on set and in the studio has been applied to model, animate, light, texture, track, color correct and render seamless digital effects for Pontiac, Bud Light, T-Mobile, NBA, Visa, Sprint and many other accounts. For more information, please call Brickyard VFX Pacific at (310) 453-5722, Brickyard VFX Atlantic at (617) 262-3220, or visit
http://www.brickyardvfx.com
# # #
