CINEDRIVE: THE SECRET INGREDIENT
A breakdown by Salman Sajun
For this 30 second TV spot I was brought on board to co direct with the talented Brian Tornay.
The concept: Fun with food and color. The perfect project for non-stop stop motion
I have always loved playing with food in stop motion and this project added a new dimension to the challenge. We had to figure out and portray how eating healthy while on a budget is made possible with Gookers.
Gookers is the Air BnB for food- It allows anyone with a love for food and a passion for cooking to share portions of their meal for a fair price with members of the Gookers community.
Educating an audience on a new concept is always a challenge and it requires finding that perfect balance between creativity and extreme readability.
PHASE 1 – Concept / Story Boards
We wanted to make sure to stick to simple, iconic imagery that popped right off the screen.
Once the initial concept was finalized and the main key frames established in boards, we presented them to the client and they gave us the green light to move forward.
PHASE 2 – Transitions / Animatic
Here is where we really got to have fun. Crafting out the transitions that would take us from scene to scene.
The one thing we were super sure about was making sure everything was shot in camera. We narrowed down our transitions, Brain whipped up an animatic so we knew our timing for each scene and how we were going to plan our shooting schedule and before we knew it we were shooting.
A fun fact about this shoot – When we got the project I was in the process of building my new studio and finishing the build in time for the shoot was an intense mission. In just 3 days I had to put up two walls, build a mezzanine to use as an editing bay and wire the entire structure. But we got it done!
PHASE 3 – The shoot
It was a 4 day shoot with extremely long days. The biggest advantage in meeting the tight deadline was the fact that we had done our homework. Two full days of pre-production with a number of tests meant we really didn’t run into any situations that slowed us down and whenever you have brilliant production designer Langohr on your team you know your set is going to look rad!
The few issues we encountered had to do with the fact that everything was being shot in camera. For example the perspective trick of the roll away of the podium and cooking utensils (toward the end of the third scene) I feel could have been stronger.
This perspective trick is one that I have been wanted to achieve for a while and even though we managed to pull it off here. I feel showing the entire set in this situation would have really helped sell this illusion better- but it’s a great lesson learned.
All the motion control during the spot was done on the CineDrive and since we had some complex keyframes to go through while making sure everything was extremely controlled this beast of a machine was so ready for the task.
From the overhead birds eye view to tacking shot of the pizza to the slow push in on the city scene that needed to match the computer scene, the CineDrive was a work horse! Four extremely long but unbelievably fun days later we had wrapped and Gookers was now in post production
PHASE 4 – Post Production
Since we were super diligent during the shooting phase this step did not take all that long. That being said final touches and colour correction always need a magician and we had just the guy! Along with, Mattia my go to sound designer extraordinaire was an integral part in bringing our colourful images to life!
