- Assisted Production & Helped Direct Talent
- Motion Graphics & Compositing (After Effects)
- Final Slate Design (Photoshop)
A Fun TV Spot Full of After Effects Hijinks
iChill Relaxation Shots needed a television spot, and we obliged by designing this effects-laden concept they picked out of about 5 we worked up. This was actually the simplest set-up we came up with, which is probably why they picked it.
We shot the base video on the W Hotel pool deck, in lovely Dallas, Texas, with a big jib and a Panasonic HVX200 at 1080p, then cropped it down to 720p to give us more flexibility with the effects, camera moves, motion tracking, and cropping... since it was delivered in SD anyway, we had plenty o' pixels to work with.
After we had the base video, I layered many, many effects on that sucker with After Effects... I added the rain and lightening, helicoptor, voice over, lens flares, and motion tracking at the end to get that little bottle to come out in the right place. You can see it blurring toward the end, even though it's not moving... the magic of special effects!
I really made this whole project up as I went along, basically not knowing if I could actually achieve each effect until I actually had. I think the lightning shaking the camera was pretty effective, and the helicopter came out better than it had any right to... the rotor is actually spinning, but it's the spotlight that sells it, methinks. Thanks, Trapcode shine!
Why yes, that IS me doing the "radio guy" voiceover in there (an early ProTools foray)... and Tommy Habeeb comes in to finish it off.
The lens flares I also like, as I had been watching the latest Star Trek movie around then, so it damn well was gonna have some lens flares. I also thought the iChill logo-shaped lens flare that pops up in there was pretty clever too, as those things go.
Be sure to check out the side-by-side comparison video below, to get an idea of what we started with, and how it changed under all those manipulations.
I put together this side-by-side comparison, because it's just cool to see how different this thing became over the course of its life. I also love the very picturesque view into the mid-cities at the opening there... what an incredible tableau. The... flat boringness... is truly epic.
The young lady we used as talent here looked great and was in fantastic shape... I do not remember her name, but she is free to contact me with a reminder. We also used her sister as a card dealer when we shot The Luck Show pilot, who was also lovely.