Summary
Vertex Brings Hep C to the Surface
An estimated 180 million people worldwide are infected with
Hepatitis C, a disease that attacks the liver and can lead to
serious illness if left untreated. In an attempt to increase public
awareness of the often undetectable disease and encourage people to
get tested, Arnold Boston and Director DJ Caruso bring this problem
to the surface-literally. In Vertex 'Underground,' a giant yellow
'C' surfaces from underneath the cracking pavement in the middle of
a bustling New York City street to draw attention to HepC.
To bolster the new TV campaign, projected animated images were
displayed on office buildings throughout Boston. According to The
Mill NY Design Director Jeff Stevens, "The idea of 'breaking out
from within' was conveyed through typography. The messages
were delivered as though they were being slammed onto the concrete
surfaces of the buildings, with CG concrete crumbling to reveal the
hero 'C.'"
"The creative challenges of this project were to make the 'C'
feel monumental and immense, and to make the cracks in the pavement
look realistic," explains The Mill's Lead 3D Artist Myung Lee. "We
worked closely with the director, agency creatives and the client
to develop the look and texture of the 'C' as well as the
composition of the cracks and rubble for each shot."
Stevens recalls the challenges the team faced creating the
projections: "We didn't know on which buildings or surfaces these
projections would live, so we had to approach the technique
blindly. We ultimately made decisions that would guide the client
to select the most appropriate surfaces for the end creative
product."
Similar to the projections, Lee and her team had to deal with
building the right kind of crack for each surface when working on
the TV spot. She explains, "We took a lot of reference photos of
what realistic cracks looked like on various surfaces. Some of the
cracks close to the camera had to be modeled and textured in hi-res
detail in Mudbox, which were then further enhanced in Flame. We
hand-modeled and composed the set to address specific creative
directions for the cracking of the ground and the rubble."
In addition to perfecting the cracks and rubble, 190 extras and
a Massive crowd simulation had to be composited into the pull-out
camera move, which was done in CG. The team used a combination of
2D and 3D tools such as Maya, Fracture, Mudbox, Mental Ray, Nuke
and Flame to create the animation and effects.
The most useful piece of equipment for the projections, however,
was the projector, says Stevens. It never left his team's side and
enabled them to test the work in progress on a variety of
surfaces.
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