The new Nissan Almera commercial – by production house Egg Films and
advertising agency TBWA Hunt Lascaris – is a spectacular visual exaggeration that
focuses on a typical father-son moment.
The spot, which was shot last December in a container yard in Johannesburg, tells
the story of a son seeking his father’s approval through his choice of car. The father
is initially unconvinced by the car, but after taking it for a Jeremy Clarkson-esque
spin – leaving both his son and the viewer a little shell shocked – he is visibly
impressed.
Director Slim says that the original brief was somewhat different and less
technically involved than the final product but with the same storyline. “After
presenting an initial treatment to the client they wanted to up the stakes on the
concept and push it further into the global Nissan strategy of “Larger Than Life’ –
hence ending up with this more exaggerated reality and surreal, tongue-in-cheek
concept and narrative,’ Slim explains.
The majority of the adrenaline inducing stunts were done using a combination of
live shot elements with additional compositing and 3D. Visual effects supervisor
Christian van der Walt of Sinister Studios was responsible for the digital special
effects, “The conceptual process started with a detailed breakdown of requirements
from Slim – who illustrated the basics he had in mind using a toy car. Then we set
about the technical work,’ says van der Walt.
“We began by building a to-scale 3D replica of the car. This was to be used in the
final commercial as a visual asset and as a scale replica for planning purposes,’ he
continues.
After all other real world elements were established, van der Walt and his team at
Sinister Studios created a scale recreation of Slim’s story using 3D software: “This
allowed us to see the complete scenario play out in real-time, allowing us to judge
both pace and geography.’
“The core animation was then digitally filmed by Slim as one would with real shots
of the action by multiple 3D cameras. The shots were then edited together to create
our core animatic. This became the foundation for the real shoot and also media to
use within the off-line edit as a replacement for shots that would only be created
later.’
Van der Walt explains that on the day of the actual shoot each post shot was broken
down into several stages: “The camera crew shot the background plate for each of
the digital scenes. This would be the foundation for the final shot. We followed this
by reference shots of the vehicle itself and other atmospheric plates…Seeing as we
could not shoot the vehicle doing these shots for real we used reference shots to
ensure that our digital car matched the real one perfectly.’
When the final edit was approved 3D replicas of the environments were created and
tracked to match the previously shot background plates. “Once all these processes
were complete we were able to combine the 3D elements with the shot material…
The compositors merged all elements with the additional atmospherics to create the
final shots,’ he concludes.
The car was modeled and animated in XSI Softimage and all final material was
composited using Adobe After Effects and Nuke.
DOP Willie Nel captured the majority of the spot using the RED, “with a lot of toys,’
says Slim.
– Chanelle Ellaya
