A Merry Noël from Akama Studios

Kerrie Hughes | Commercial | Showcase | 31/12/2011 11:56am

Akama Studios presents Christmas like it’s never been seen before in this festive spot for Orange

French post-production facility Akama Studios has just released this latest festive commercial for telecommunication provider Orange. Akama was chosen to work on the project by digital production company Wanda and The Glue Society director Gary Freedman.

A combination of live-action and CGI, the film shoot took place in Belgium under the direction of Freedman, with Frederick Elmes as director of photography. The CG elements and integration into the live-action plates were handled entirely by Akama Studios.

Festive fun

Over a period of approximately two months, thirteen CG artists used the combined powers of 3ds Max, ZBrush, V-Ray, After Effects and Photoshop to fully achieve the intricate effects. The team began by creating the 3D models of the different characters as well as shooting spatters of chocolate and a candle’s flame to better integrate them into each scenes.

Although all vital to achieving the final product, it was ZBrush that proved to be particularly useful on this project. VFX supervisor Vang Cki explains, “We did not have designs for the characters. We used pictures of real toys as references and, thanks to Zbrush’s modeling tools, we were able to quickly have various proposals for each character and respond promptly to requests of the director.”

The Akama team also found integrating the characters into the live-action footage to be more of a pleasure than a pain. “The project was not very complicated – we had fun recreating the lighting environment of the real set in 3D,” says Cki. “We took pictures with our HDRI ball, generated HDR images in Photoshop and set-up V-Ray in order to have exactly the same light sources and reflections as the live-action shoot.”

Check the Akama Studios website for more work

Posted on Saturday, December 31st, 2011 at 11:56 am under Commercial, Showcase. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.