Pre-Visualization Bears Fruit in New Bulmers Cider Ad

Painting Practice helps pre-visualize St. Luke's latest TV commercial for Bulmers cider, by award-winning director Mark Denton

MAXON's 3D animation software CINEMA 4D was used by London-based concept/pre-viz studio Painting Practice to help pre-visualize the new TV advert for Heineken-owned cider, Bulmers. Award-winning director Mark Denton, whose credits include ads for Heinz, Kellogg's and KP Snacks, worked closely with Painting Practice from the start, enabling several cool ideas to be tested at the pre-visualization stage.

Once Painting Practice had prepared the digital assets, Mark visited the studio. By the end of the first day of shot blocking and editing the commercial was practically ready in editorial terms, leaving plenty of time for tweaks and changes.

"Using 3D software to pre-visualize an ad was a relatively new experience for Mark," said Justin Atkinson, Pre-Viz Supervisor at Painting Practice. "Mark took to it like a duck to water and really enjoyed the full control and flexibility that 3D software offered him to plan the ad."

It was decided very early on that 3D was the way to go rather than the more traditional 2D approach. This was a decision made easier by Painting Practice's success with advertising agency St. Luke's on a previous commercial for the diamond and watch specialist Ernest Jones.

Painting Practice immediately began turning Mark's designs for the Bulmers spot into full 3D assets using CINEMA 4D, while the rest of the team focused on conjuring up the world in which these characters would exist.

As with most pre-viz projects, everything had to be low-poly and simple but by using good texturing and lighting the team was soon able to achieve great results.

With the final sound mix added, the result was something a little more than your average animatic. And with an extra touch of grading and motion blur the results were even more satisfying.

Pre-Visualization:



Using a combination of CINEMA 4D, After Effects and Final Cut Pro, Painting Practice completed the Bulmers pre-viz in two-and-a-half weeks. As can been seen by the close match between the animatic and the final ad, the pre-viz paid off once again.

Final Ad:

About Painting Practice
Painting Practice is a leading concept / pre-viz studio. Using the conventional talents of storyboarding through to complex 3D pre-viz and motion capture technique, Painting Practice has the team and experience to assist in any project in both film and advertising. Painting Practice's skills have also been used within product design, architectural conceptualization and many other commercial design disciplines.

For more information, please visit www.paintingpractice.com.

Images courtesy Painting Practice.