By Iain Stasukevich, July 27, 2009
You may have seen the :30 commercials for the third generation Prius from Toyota: they're the ones that put the car into strange, expressionistic landscapes where the grass, water, clouds and sun are all made out of people. The first spot, “Harmony,” depicts a lifeless, monochromatic landscape brought to life by the car's passage.
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Developed by agency Saatchi & Saatchi L.A. and produced by The Sweet Shop in Auckland, New Zealand, the concept is meant to illustrate the idea behind the Prius' design: the “harmony between man, machine and nature.”
Videography recently had the opportunity to speak with the director, Japan's Hideaki Hosono (known as Mr. Hide), and the cinematographer, New Zealand's Jon Toon, about the making of “Harmony.”
Mr. Hide's inspiration, he explains, came during a trip to Italy. "Seeing Michelangelo’s paintings in the Sistine Chapel inspired me to create a world made out of people. What’s amazing about Michelangelo's work is that he depicted every aspect of the world—the heavens, earth, people—all together."
Trouble seeing the video above? Click here.
“Harmony” was photographed over nine days on a blue- and greenscreen-equipped soundstage in Auckland. John Toon used three RED cameras equipped with Zeiss Ultra Primes to capture the 4K imagery. Data was recorded to a hard disk at 30fps. “Shooting digital meant we could import into Flame instantly on set and be compositing as we shot,” Toon notes.
Toon, who has shot many natural landscapes in his career, was drawn to this project's unique approach. "I haven't seen an idea like this before. The script set the look, which was essentially, 'Prius brings on the dawning of a new day.' The idea would be that the sun is being towed behind the car. While I enjoy trying to make big interiors look natural, it's truly difficult. There are no lights big enough to make the sun.
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"We had about 130 space lights, and the keys were made up of 20Ks and Maxi-Brutes run through a computerized desk," Toon continues. "As the car drove through the set, lighting preset in the studio roof followed the car. There was a lot of planning and pre-rigging."
Mr. Hide composed detailed storyboards before turning to visual effects director Jon Baxter to develop the animatics. “Once we had established the 'what' as best we could, I worked closely with Jon and John Toon during preproduction to figure out the 'how,'” Mr. Hide remarks.
"Pretty much all of the shots were set up in pre-vis, with the lens and angle preselected and the duration preset," Toon describes. "The only issue we had was with the lens width vis-à-vis the studio size. The pre-vis assumed a road out there in the world, but our studio was 40x50 meters, so we had to shoot on wider lenses than planned. Also, we had planned to shoot a lot of motion control, but in the end it was mostly shot locked off or handheld."
Trouble seeing the video above? Click here.
After nine 12-hour days of production and a month and a half of postproduction, more than 1,000,000 landscape elements were created from 200 extras. Two additional spots, “MPG” and “Solar,” were produced by the same team of American, Kiwi and Japanese artists. In the meantime, “Harmony” has gone on to top Nielsen's 10 Most Liked Ads for May 2009.
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| COMMENTS (1) | | 12/28/2009 | | Absolutely Incredible. All of you did a incredible job that will be talked about for years to come. Thank you |
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