Kawasaki ER-6n Trailer – The Making Of

For the world premier of its newest generation ER-6n naked bike at the INTERMOT in Cologne, Germany, Kawasaki had a one-minute trailer produced in full HD.

The tight deadline and the fact that no 3D data was available for the ER-6n (this information was still strictly confidential) resulted in a balancing act between what could be visualized and what needed to be visualized. Director Tom Moran, together with the specialists at Scanwork – who are known for their outstanding work in film scanning and color grading – set up a team of technical and creative freelancers to tackle the job.

The trailer’s concept was based on having live footage of the motorcycle composited into a 3D environment. All camera movements had to be tracked and the real-world motorcycle had to be masked into the scene.

It was quickly decided which tools would be perfect for the job: CINEMA 4D’s blazingly fast render engine combined with its outstanding connectivity to After Effects offered a very flexible, efficient and effective workflow.

Post-Production

After the animation elements had been approved by the client, work began on the preparation of the 3D city scenes – even before the live footage of the motorcycle had been shot. The 3D city, which consisted of elements made up only of cubes, was then given its own stylish look using a combination of elements taken from 3D model libraries and newly-created 3D models.

A preset effect setup in After Effects was created and used for the sketched look of the figures. This preset was then used for subsequent scenes, helping speed up workflow.

Next, the 3D shots that were to be combined with live footage had to be tracked so the real-world camera movement could be applied in CINEMA 4D. After the tracking data had been imported the 3D camera movement was matched to the real-world camera movement. This was done with the help of a hierarchical object setup with XPresso Expressions in combination with CINEMA 4D Motion Layers. The live shots were masked as work was being done on the 3D scenes.

After the rendering had been finished using a small render farm, After Effects was used to combine the 3D animations with the live footage. At the same time, various 2D graphics were created for the walls and floor of the scene, which were subsequently animated in After Effects and rendered in QuickTime format with alpha. In final compositing the animated graphics, the stylized characters and the 3D renderings were combined with the real-world footage.

Since the camera movement generated in CINEMA 4D was imported into After Effects, CINEMA 4D Null Objects helped in positioning 2D planes in 3D space in After Effects. After all shots had been edited the entire uncompressed clip was sent to Scanwork GmbH where Peter Deinas ran it through color correction and grading.

You can read a more detailed making-of in the 1-2009 issue of Digital Production.

Credits



Production:
Tom Moran (Pool Productions Media), Scanwerk GmbH

Art Director:
Akira Endo , Robert Hranitzky

Camera:
Christoph Dammast

Editing:
Christian Lang

3D Animation & Compositing:
Akira Endo, Robert Hranitzky, Daniel Hennies, Max Iglesias

Online:
Akira Endo

Color Grading:
Peter Deinas (Scanwerk)

Music:
Frank Brunier