Ikea "T-shirts"

Client: IKEA Agency: MOTHER Director: DOUGAL WILSON Production: BLINK PRODUCTIONS VFX: MOVING PICTURE COMPANY http://www.moving-picture.com MPC VFX supervisor Diarmid Harrison Murray and lead animator Tim Van Hussen in London: "The brief from the client was to make photo real t-shirts that look like they could plausibly fly with the characteristics of migratory birds. "There was a strong emphasis on the characterization of the t-shirts in order to engage the audience and have them relate to their journey. "Our main creative challenge was to get an emotional performance out of realistic t-shirts, which was a difficult task because they are inanimate objects without any consistency in shape or form. Working with director Dougal Wilson, we set out to create a level of performance that would be clear enough to read despite their physical lack of expressiveness. "At the same time we aimed to maintain their realistic qualities, such as the way they fold in on themselves, flutter in the wind and behave/look depending on their direct environment. "T-shirts do not really have any body-parts, so we had to find a versatile way to digitally puppeteer them. We ended up using almost their entire shape for wing surfaces with a fold along the center, as that gave a powerful feel to their flight and added to the visual credibility of the film. When on the ground, this would change - their neck opening would serve as an expressive head, and the sleeves simply hang loose. "On top of the basic animation, we simulated the cloth to get detailed interaction between the t-shirts and their environments – wind, hard and soft surfaces. In many shots they also interact with water – landing on it, floating and drifting, taking off and being rained on – which required a range of CG water and simulation shots. "We also wrote bespoke tools for a faster animation workflow, so we were able to efficiently animate and lay out hundreds of t-shirts in a shot. In the shot where they murmur like starlings, we simulated thousands in numerous flocks, with each t-shirt making its own decisions, like sticking close to the group, or leading a change in direction. Some stray off and join a different flock or start their own." Schedule: Oct 20 – Dec 1: modeling, RnD and lookdev Nov 18 – Nov 27: shoot Dec 1 – Dec 23: animation and lighting, comp Dec 24: delivery For Blink Director: Dougal Wilson Producer: Ewen Brown Editor: Joe Guest @ Final Cut DoP: Lasse Frank For Blinkink Puppeteers: Jonny Sabbagh, Will Harper For MPC EP/VFX producer: Julie Evans VFX supervisor 3D: Diarmid Harrison Murray VFX supervisor 2D/shoot supervisor: Tom Harding Lead animator: Tim Van Hussen Lead lighter: Fabian Frank VFX team: Alessandro Granella, Aton Lerin, David Bryan, Emeric Larochette, Gisli Darri Halldorsson, Jon Park, Kiril Mirkov, Leanne Goymer, Marta Ampudia, Martin Blunden, Pauline Costantini, Simon Taylor, Steve Oakley, ThanosTopouzis, Andrew Roberts, Rod Norman, Alexander Kulikov, Emma White, Fab