emma wright

For two of the panels, rough 3D layouts were created in Maya to easier play with composition and focal length of the camera.

After capturing Giorgio at work in his home, we worked to then bring those designs leaping off the page into 3D. To do so we rebuilt the watches from CAD data and re-sketched and animated the designs to create a pencil drawing look and feel.

     Video production took place before the real watch began manufacturing, so we were tasked with producing a realistic final render that also showed off the internal mechanism to encourage early adopters of the brand.

    We also produced several different duration edits for use across linear TV, digital and social media. Off the back of the success of this initial commercial, we produced a wide range of additional renders and designs for print and in support of a subsequent kick-starter campaign.

Pre-production

Complimented with a bit of location scouting across London, we set a shoot date where we saw a brief window of good weather on the horizon and caught the first tube into central London for a full day of shooting.

Production

As this is a 3D animation heavy short with 21 of the 28 shots requiring BB-8 to be added digitally we had to be very conscious of how we would integrate the droid when shooting. This meant making camera moves imagining BB8s height, action and timing while essentially shooting an empty scene.

In addition shooting the on location footage and audio, we also captured 360 HDRI spheres for the 3D rendering. At each location we shot 4 angles to cover 360 degrees at 7 different exposures, ultimately creating 15 separate HDRI’s.

Post production

While developing the screenplay and storyboard we were also working on the 3D model at the same time. Using a huge bank of reference taken from the variety of Star Wars trailers and real life appearances of the droid we tried to get a glimpse of every angle of the real BB-8 to rebuild it in 3D accurately. Modelling in Maya and texturing in Photoshop we also created highly detailed textures for bump and reflection mapping to add the panelling and minute surface details. To actually animate BB-8 required some simple rigging to add controls that allow BB-8’s body and head to roll around independently of each other. Check out the video below to see the process of creating one shot from start to finish.

The film gained a lot of attention, making it into the print edition of TimeOut London!