|
MU110
HUBERT
SEGA, OBSIDIAN 'Egg' commercial. Rocky Morton, director.
This
project went far beyond the usual challenges. The concept
was for a standing man to come down to the ground slowly,
shattering as each level hit the ground, like buildings do
when their foundations are blown away. The difficulty here
was in making something as big as a person fragile enough
to come apart this way, yet stand on only two feet until ready,
and- not have its lightweight, fragile pieces blown all around
by the shattering element. We ran all sorts of test shatters:
resin, sugar glass, urathenes, short drops, hitting mechanisms,
wire pulls and pyrotechnics. Pyro proved to be the best bet.
The
lifecasting, assembly, sculpting and easy release molds went
smoothly and three castings were created (2 orig.). Fragile
as they were, the eggshell thin castings could not be counted
on to crack into enough small pieces, so after painting, each
figure was made even more fragile by cutting thousands of
thin lines in quarter-sized triangle pattterns. The only thing
that holds the figures together at this stage is an eighth
of an inch of material left uncut between all the triangle
corners. In this condition, the otherwise rigid figures actually
flex a little. One wrong move can send them prematurely shatter/collapsing
into impossible 3D puzzles. I describe them as kinetic bombs
when they are in this state, ready to go off at the slightest
touch. Special soft foam, form-fitted cradles were built for
careful transport of each body to set.
Just
getting on set provided even more challenges- not easy fitting
those big kinetic bombs into tiny 4 person elevators and down
mazes of narrow halls overfilled with the usual hollywood
rainforest clusters of light stands amply hung with cables
running everywhere in big clumps all over the floor. In order
to establish the continuity of the actor moving into position
and then shattering, one of our figures was first shot in
position on the set. This allowed the actor something to match
his final position to, through shuttling between the video
of our figure and the live feed of the actor. The actor went
through his moves, then our figures were brought in and matched
to the actor's position in the same way.
On
the first figure, 20 'half-squibs'were evenly distributed,
taped to the off-camera, out-side of the bodies in order to
restrain their effect and create more of an implosion. Film
was shot at high speed to capture every detail of every step
of these split-second performances. For safety, no one was
allowed in the room during the actual shattering. The first
shatter was even, inward and effective, but unfortunately,
that many squibs created too much smoke. For the second take,
the squibs were reduced by half. The second take had much
less smoke and was judged to be a very good, usable take.
The decision was made to do the last take with as few squibs
as possible. One half-squib was placed at each Ankle and that
was it. The third figure was the most fragile of all and a
grip arm was positioned touching the figurešs back for support.
This also prevented the figure from simply falling over once
the ankles were blown out, keeping it hemmed in against the
counter. When the pyro blew, the figure seemed to hang in
the air forever, then finally started to go down with the
slightest twist, hitting the counter and shattering mostly
at the ground as it impacted,exactly as a building demolition
would. Not a pin drop could be heard throughout, until right
after, the agency and client jumped up with a loud, affirmative
cheer. Whew. We always aim to hit a home run and it's nice
when it even sounds like you're at a ballgame, with crowd
cheers confirming your home run. In further [validation] of
success, 4 gold Clios were awarded to the spot that year-
In-Site-Pix, Rocky, the Agency and us.
In-Site-Pix
(insitepix.com) contributed the computer generated effects,
which included the face shatter closeup sequence inserted
at the very beginning of the shatter and also removal of the
grip arm from the footage of our take.
back
| home
©2001
Anatomorphex ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
www.anatomorphex.com
|
