Brief
Create a future version of London for the launch of Three’s 5G Network.
Approach
Our VFX and Design teams concepted the visual language and employed bespoke VFX techniques for each vignette of this futuristic mini-film with complex camera stitching, to full head replacements, environment creation and character animation.
Impact
A mind-bending spot for Three with over 100 VFX shots and multiple edits.
The Mill’s VFX Supervisor Adam Droy adds: "Reading the initial script we knew it was going to be a huge project. Working on so many scenes but ensuring a consistent style was one of the challenges we had to work with. How are adverts presented in the future in the same way music players, dating apps and tv screens are interacted with? We needed to make sure the visual language stayed cohesive throughout the spot despite each scene depicting something very different about the enhanced future.
Working with Director Ian Pons Jewell is a very collaborative process, so we would often be talking together with everyone involved from the shoot, all the way through to final post. Open communication with Robin the Art Director, who curated so much of the commercials style, for example, as well as with Mauro the DOP, really pulled on everyone's craft to produce the best possible picture.
Being heavily involved from day one, it was liberating to be part of the creative process and working closely with Ian and W&K to come up with refreshing story ideas was something the team fully embraced. For example, standing in a sandy bunker brainstorming how a gamer cat girl should fall from the sky, or how a privacy cocoon moves - not your average commercial discussions but ones as filmmakers we love to have. If it was a cool idea it usually made it into the commercial. We always tried to push the ideas as far as we could, even up to delivery day we’d be changing things to make them better!"