LONDON — Gramercy Park Studios (www.gramercyparkstudios.com) recently partnered with broadcaster Channel 5 to create a series of VFX-driven promos hyping the imminent return of Big Brother. Featuring the show’s presenters, Emma Willis and Rylan Clark-Neal, almost every element of the campaign was created in post production by GPS.
In the :20 and :30 promos, Rylan Clark-Neal is seen smashing a sledgehammer against an enormous mirror, shattering it into the form of the new Big Brother logo. The shards of glass then fly past the presenters and towards the screen, creating an unsettling but visually stunning 3D experience.
“It was a pleasure to work with Channel 5 and the team on this project,” says Richard Ireland, managing director of GPS. “The promo really shows off the talent and facilities we have at Gramercy Park Studios. And being able to provide offline - including on-set editing - VFX, CGI and color grading all under one roof really showcased the benefits of our end-to-end offering in keeping the creative as the most important thing.”
Prior to the shoot Mark Beardall, head of 2D at GPS, created a previs in Autodesk Flame that proved invaluable in tackling Channel 5’s intricate creative brief. “Our initial contact with the Channel 5 team revealed ambitious plans, highlighting what a technical challenge it was going to be to achieve the color-reverse mirror effect for the opening shot,” Beardall explains. “With the help of the technical pre-visualization, we came up with a plan to get exactly what we needed from the greenscreen shoot.”
On-set, Rylan and Willis weren’t available at the same time, so GPS editor Vee Pinot attended the shoot to edit and test footage, ensuring it would work in post. GPS’s 2D and 3D departments worked in close partnership, turning to a combination of Flame and CG for the shattering glass effect.
“The mirror aspect of the build was built in Flame, then transitions to the CG version as the hammer impacts,” says Beardall. “The environment frames were exported from Flame to our 3D department so that they could then reflect the environment correctly in the breaking glass.”
“When it comes to moving thousands of pieces of CG geometry in any kind of realistic way, simulation is the way to go,” adds Matt Lowery, head of 3D. “We used a combination of Realfow, Maya and Bullet dynamics to achieve the final shattering simulation of over 4,500 separate pieces of geometry. The shattering of the logo was created using the same techniques, taking into account the look of the newly designed Big Brother eye, and blended into our final glass world. Once we had the glass and mirror shards moving how we wanted them, we added in some hand animated hero shards, some finer glass particles, and started the lighting and rendering process.”
The 3D team at GPS then created the transition glass shards that fly directly towards the viewers’ eyes, further intensifying the 3D feel of the entire spot while also presenting Channel 5’s sleek new branding.
GPS’s head of color Ben Rogers handled the grade. “Initially I had graded the selected greenscreen shots and plates, rendering two passes - a beauty pass for skin and style, followed by a good technical pass for Flame. After the compositing had been completed, I did a final pass, or DCP, to balance and enhance the commercial, taking full advantage of what our 2D and 3D departments had provided.”