So, for a recent spot to support department store Dayton's 13-Hour Sale, which would run several times during the year, Minneapolis agency Design Guys and Hollywood graphic design and effects shop, Fugitive created a multilayered yet subtle visual curiosity that bears - even demands - repeat inspection. The challenge in delivering the revolving spot was a budget, which, at US$400,000, was healthy but very tight relative to the amount of effects work necessary. In other words, it would have been impossible to complete the spot on budget using the Inferno or Henry configuration that would typically be employed on a job like this.

The idea behind the spot was to convey the sale message and keep it fresh. "It needed legs to survive multiple viewings," says Design Guys creative director Steve Sikora. "We wanted a look that wasn't too special effects, but that when you looked at it, you knew something wasn't quite right. That makes you want to look at it over and over again."

The spot features what appear to be a few moments out of a busy day on a busy city street. But as the cars go by and people go about their business, it becomes apparent that there are numerous violations of the laws of physics; people and things are moving at different rates and directions and appearing more than once in the same scene. There are also extras, like jungle cats lurking in the background. The sale message permeates the spot, which pays off with the message: "Shopping at the speed of life - your life."

Fugitive creative director Jay Torres acted as the director on the live-action shoot, which was produced through OneSuch Films in Los Angeles and for post work he used Fugitive's in-house effects configuration, based on Adobe After Effects and Commotion from Puffin Design running on G3s.

Torres executed the idea for the spot using a motion control unit operated like a steadicam to create the look of a continuous take. Torres and crew used a Milo motion control arm, from Camera Control in Santa Monica and did a number of passes to create different movements, running the camera and unit at a combination of high, normal and slow speeds and ran film backwards in telecine to create different version of time warping.

The live-action was shot in one day on location at Pershing Square in L.A., which represented another huge cost saving. "Normally when doing multiple pass motion control effects you use green screen," says Torres. "That would have probably taken several days but we only had one day to shoot."

Gabriel Beristain (cinematographer on the feature Dolores Claiborne) was DP on the spot. Torres worked with Camera Control ahead of time, preprogramming moves to ensure a smooth shoot day with only tweaking to the system. According to Torres, the production made the most of the capabilities of the motion control unit, which was required to run at several times typical speeds to achieve some of the shots. Production also involved a pre-visualization, using a modified version of 3-D Studio Max from L.A.'s Dynamic Design to establish positions for every performer. On shoot day, actors were only required to walk in pre-set formations from one point to another, regardless of how they would be ultimately shown to be moving.

All of the elements were then married at Fugitive, after a rough offline was done at the shop. Torres' team, including designer/effects artist Shimooi, effects artist Scott Stewart and rotoscope artists Pedro Castillo and Chad Royer, used Commotion for rotoscoping and effects like blending of edges and After Effects for compositing. Torres says those packages were instrumental in allowing the shop to deliver the look of the spot for the available resources. The job involved a monumental amount of rotoscoping, more than Torres had originally anticipated. Fugitive's gear configuration facilitated creativity, he says, allowing experimentation and painstaking attention to detail. "It takes longer to do things in this way than in Inferno or Henry, but doing it that way would have been cost prohibitive," says Torres. One long shoot day meant a wide variety of light conditions and shadows and Commotion allowed the large amount of blending, color correction and light warping needed to seamlessly match shots. The final spot represented about 50 or 60 layers of space/time continuum fun.

WEB.FILES
Fugitive: www.thefugitives.com