Beautiful Progress
Method Studios Tracks the Changing Style of Home, Garden, and Car for “Living Room” New Spot for Audi A4 - Venables Bell & Partners
LOS ANGELES, CA – September XX, 2008 – Method Studios (www.methodstudios.com) recently completed work on a time lapse style spot for ad agency Venables Bell & Partners (www.venablesbell.com) and elegant automaker Audi (www.audi.com) that rapidly tracks the stylistic and functional changes over many years of a home, a garden, and an automobile.
This project seamlessly blends 3D and live action in a unique and interesting way,” says Andy Boyd, lead 3D artist at Method. “Audi’s core message is about elevation, refinement, and style; about working towards a higher, more elegant goal. For this spot, we had to present an environment that is rapidly constructing and deconstructing with the passage of time, but present it in a pristine, stylish fashion. To achieve that, we tied beautiful footage together with some imaginative, photorealistic 3D animations.”
Directed by Jason Smith, “Living Room” unfolds much like it sounds. Backed by an distinctly aspirational soundtrack, a smoothly tracking camera floats into an ornate Victorian living room, replete with carved wood, leather chairs, hanging chandelier, and a carefully coiffed Afghan dog. As the camera continues to orbit the room, however, the room itself changes with the shifting daylight. Floor-to-ceiling windows replace brick walls, revealing a Zen-like garden; simple, more modern furnishings supplant their flamboyant predecessors; natural light displaces light bulbs; and a more rough-and-tumble dog succeeds the Afghan. The piece-de-resistance arrives as the spot closes, when the Mercedes-Benz in the driveway is replaced by the Audi A4 and the tagline: “Progress is Beautiful.”
“We were fortunate to be involved from the very beginning of this project,” says Jake Montgomery, Lead 2D Effects Artist at Method. “We spent a good deal of time providing input right upfront and determining how the deconstruction of the room should unfold. We were intimately involved in the previsualization process with Gregg Lukomski and the team from Halon, and we investigated just about every possibility before opting for this elegant, stop-motion style look. Once that was decided, we only had a couple of days on a stage to shoot our footage. That was a bit of a challenge, but we got it done.”
“There were three different motion control setups, in two different rooms, with motion control lights moving around the room to reflect the time of day,” explains Boyd. “The three motion control setups needed to be tied together into one seamless shot. To achieve that linear feel, we used 3D to fill in what was impossible to shoot or things we didn’t have time to shoot on stage. It was a huge challenge, but my happiest moment on the job was when Jake showed me how he had managed to stitch the plates together, with the motion control lighting moving smoothly through the scene. I knew then that this was going to be a very cool spot.”
Faced with a tight timeline and a challenging vision, the Method Studios team of over 20 artists banded together to create a polished, pristine spot that conveys the essence of luxurious style.
“More than anything else, this spot highlights how well we work together as a team,” says Montgomery. “We accomplished roughly five weeks of post production work in a little over two weeks, and that’s mainly because we have such a talented, tight-knit unit. Creative ingenuity was spontaneous, and we really had to be on our toes, because we knew we were only going to get one shot at this. Working with Jason Smith is always very nice and collaborative, and it was great to be involved right from the beginning.”