Digital Recce for Shell vPower shoot | 01 Sep
Our latest venture here at Taylor James has involved the beautiful creation of the Shell V-power performance fuels advert. Our CGI and post-production input is definitely something for us to shout about! Find out more here…
Landscapes with a twist strike a cord with drivers in this far-reaching press and poster campaign. JWT’s concept required real and imagined worlds to unite.
We worked up a 3D model to prove the concept at pre-production stage, and then Andy Glass went to shoot at Atlantic Road, Norway, and in the Docklands, London, whilst we developed the CGI. This seamless integration of disciplines, and a little retouching magic, shows how an intelligent approach from the start can bring a concept alive.
We were approached by one of our long-term partner photographers, Andy Glass, armed with a project from JWT for their client Shell, and were instantly attracted to the strong visual concept for this press and poster campaign. There was no doubt that a strong partnership between photography and CGI was needed to achieve this creative imagery.
The brief was to produce 2 still shots, one on the Atlantic Road in Norway and the other in the Docklands, London, each requiring a photographic backplate with a CGI hero element to be built and superimposed by our retouch team. We created a test using location photographs and a simple 3D model to prove that we could achieve such seamless integration of looping CGI roads into photography; thus awarding us the project!
Remote-desktop viewing allowed us to communicate with Andy real-time so that he could direct our CGI artist back in the studio to see how different angles would look with different lenses.
Entering the parameters of Andy’s Phase One IQ180 camera, we could place the camera anywhere without having to move an entire crew around, find the best lens avoiding any perspective distortion and use our GPS calibrated sun system to show what time of day would capture the best light.
As everything had been well thought out and planned, the retouching of these shots was straightforward. The backplates were comped and a large Yacht that had moored up in our spiral shot was removed. Andy captured the vehicles retrospectively, once the CG scene setups were approved, so the cars sat perfectly within each scene.
The result is two stunning images that are a perfect example of CGI and photography working hand in hand. Andy Glass worked closely with our retouch team to direct the shots and supply pre-comps and comments at each round of feedback. The whole process was very smooth and with everything captured in correct perspective, the elements naturally sat together, adding the extra 10% of realism which is essential to make these composites of images look real.
The campaign is running globally in press and poster including 48sheet billboards.