Tiny crew, big target
“Although the time constraints were daunting, the team jumped at the chance to create a group of characters that seem to have a life of their own and a world of style and personality,” adds Danny Zobrist, the project’s CG/Animation Supervisor and Character Lead. “There was a lot of love put into each of these characters and that’s what makes the spot shine.”
“From a technical standpoint, we used Cinema 4D and Maya for pre-vis and camera blocking, Maya for all base modeling and animation, ZBrush for final modeling touches, VRay to shade and render, Nuke to sweeten and composite, and good old fashioned paper and pencil to design – with a little help from Photoshop,” continued the Director. “To keep with the warmth and spirit found in the creative direction we started with an illustration-heavy approach to make sure the relatable humanity and warmth would come through. Almost every aspect of this job started with a drawing. These ranged in complexity from doodles on a napkin to labour intensive turntables of how our characters should look from any angle.”
The production approach was incredibly streamlined. “In order to make this doable, we employed a blitzkrieg-like strategy of parallel processes and a teamwide can-do attitude of work smarter, not harder,” Reihl revealed. “We had multiple teams of artists working simultaneously on related but vastly different aspects of the job. For the most part, we had already designed and developed the characters, the vehicles, and set pieces during the pitch process. When the job kicked into full production, we simply took the front loaded designs and began building them out as usable 3D assets. During this modeling process, intensive camera blocking and character pre-vis was done completed simultaneously so that we would know which items needed what level of detail and technical ability to be animated.”
Despite the punishing production schedule, it seems that Motion Theory had a pretty smooth ride on the spot- and not just because of tight planning. “We were fortunate enough to have a client that was so trusting and supportive of our process and ideas, that ultimately we were unhindered by any potential creative roadblocks,” said Riehl. “That, coupled with a strong technical team and world class output capabilities, meant the project was one of the most fun and rewarding experiences I have had the pleasure of being a part of.”
See more by Motion Theory on Fired By Design
CREDITS
Title: Target “A Better Bullseye”
Client: Target
POST PRODUCTION
Production/VFX Company: Motion Theory
Director: Chris Riehl
Creative Director: Kaan Atilla
Art Director: Chris Riehl
Executive Producer: Javier Jimenez
Managing Producer: Patrick Nugent
Producer: Peter Nelson
CG Supervisors: Charles Paek, Danny Zobrist
Animation Supervisor/Character Lead: Danny Zobrist
Pre-Visualization: Simon Dunsdon, Trevor Tuttle
Designers: Leanne Dare, Paul B. Kim, Ken Gunn Lee, James Levy, Satomi Nagata
Character Designers: Brendan Wiuff, Nate Wragg
Character Animators: Daniel Edwards, Thom Judd, James Parris, Harry Porudominsky, Lauren Wells
Character Riggers: Brian Escribano, Andrea Gausmann, Amy Gohal
Vehicle Rigging/Animation: Scott Cullen
3D Generalist: Ian Mankowski
Lead Character Modeler: Emmanuel Fragelus
Character Modelers/Texture Artists: Bryan Repka, Jean Choi, Sean Kim
Vehicle/Props Modelers: Nick Loizides, Marc Steinberg, Chad Roen
Hair: John Felipe, Martin Furness, Chad Roen
FX Artists: John Cherniack, Matt Johnson
Lighting Supervisor: Charles Paek
V-Ray TD: Justin Lloyd
Lighters: Matt Bell, David Chan, Justin Lloyd
Lead Compositor: Rachel Dunn, Ryan Trippensee
Compositors: Krista Benson, Michael Dobbs, Aaron Frebowitz, Rachel Keyte, Daniel Raschko
Finishing: Matt Motal
Production Manager/HR Director: Tina Van Delden
Production Coordinator: Paul Pianezza
Production Assistant: Sarah Smith
Concept/Writer: David Fowler
Storyboard Artist: Yori Mochizuki
EDITORIAL
Editorial Company: String
Editor: Doron Dor
Assistant Editors: Jeff Aquino, Jeff Johnston