Film Craft > Film Craft
DARE, London / PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND / 2014
Overview
Credits
BriefExplanation
This is the second in the ‘Health Harm’ series, after the hard-hitting 'Mutations' ad campaign last year. These ads aim to evoke a visceral response to remind smokers of the harm that cigarettes cause inside the body, and help trigger a quit attempt in January.
This new campaign brings to life the toxic cycle of dirty blood caused when inhaling the dangerous chemicals in cigarettes.
The damage that smoking has on the heart and lungs is relatively well documented, but the potential damage to the brain through increased risk of a stroke or cognitive decline is something smokers are less aware of.
In the TV ad, a man stands outside his workplace while on a break. As he lights up and takes his first inhale of the cigarette, blackness descends and we then follow a journey of the tobacco smoke around his body, infecting the blood and major organs as it goes. The toxic blood reaches the brain and infects the vessels around it, before we fade back out to see the man exhaling. We hear a voice say: “If you could see the damage, you’d stop.”
Execution
Our biggest challenge was figuring out how to seamlessly transition from the live action outside world of our smoker, to the internal world of his body.
The whole sequence was first fully previsualised in CG. This was invaluable in producing the best option in telling the story. Camera direction, the framing of the organs, and timings through the journey were important aspects of this process.
To ensure our scale was correct, we used digital scans of the model makers’ practical organs. During this time we also carried out look development on the clean and toxic blood flow, using fluid dynamics techniques in Houdini.
The pre-vis animation was then imported into a Motion Control rig for filming.
Each organ was filmed separately using multiple repeatable lighting passes.
We took texture and lighting reference from each setup. Alongside this, practical toxic blood elements were also filmed.
Once edited and in Post-production, we worked on the toxic blood flow, smoke, and dynamic change on the blood and organs. We created a structure of blood vessels, and integrated this into the edit containing the lungs, heart, and brain.
We had to ensure that our Postproduction work and the practically shot elements co-existed naturally, and belonged to the same world.
Look and lighting were particularly important here - both clear geography and dramatic imagery were needed for the film to succeed.
The Post creative team consisted of CG, working in Maya and Houdini, and 2D, working in AfterEffects, Nuke and Flame.
More Entries from Visual Effects in Film Craft
24 items
More Entries from DARE
24 items