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Tuesday, 8 January 2008 | Levent OZLER
Brickyard VFX Pours on the Speed for Pontiac
 Pontiac.mov ( 10MB ) - Viewed 287 times
Artist owned-and-operated effects boutique Brickyard VFX completed work on a spot for Pontiac via ad agency Leo Burnett Detroit. The commercial, "Car in Motion," directed by Filip Engstrom, features voice-over work from Matt Dillon, and broke nationally on December 30, 2007.
In addition to completing extensive 3D animation for the spot, the Brickyard CG department collaborated on look development, provided pre-visualization and on-set supervision for the commercial.
Examining the American love affair with the automobile, the :60 spot provides a sequence of images highlighting our varied emotions regarding cars. Vignettes feature a mini-van turning into a flat, two-dimensional image and falling over, an old "starter car" swooping between the legs of a child, a drive-in movie and slot car racing with toy sports cars looping around a track. For the final sequence, a red G6 GXP Coupe drives between two mirrors toward the camera, reflections spilling out on either side.
The camera pans back and forth, from the Solstice, to the Coupe, to the new G8 GT, ending with the Pontiac tag and logo.
CG Supervisor and Lead CG artist Robert Sethi worked closely with director Filip Engstrom to establish looks for the ad based on the agency's original treatment and script. "Filip and I worked side-by-side for several days, collaborating on ideas, going through the shots, and coming up with transitions and framing," Sethi commented. "It was great to be involved in the project from such an early stage. Working together from pre-viz, we were able to completely map out each detail, and when it came time for the shoot everything went very, very smoothly."
Brickyard created several CG elements for the spot, including the creation of a slot car racing track with stylized toy model cars, as well as floor replacement, lighting and compositing. "In one sequence, a car drives between two mirrors," Sethi continued. "Working with pre-viz, we were able to plot out the precise angles of the images reflected within the mirrors.
It took a while to work out the mathematics, but that allowed us to simulate the entire shot. During shooting, all we had to do was follow that as a guideline and it came out exactly the way we wanted."
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