zoic-consol

A new animated short from Zoic and Consol show oil derricks as a dying dinosour as we finally conquer Oil dependence.  It’s a commercial intended to advertise Consol Energy’s alternatives to oil, such as coal and natural gas.  The spot was created with some interesting motion capture work and CG graphics.  See the full press release after the break.

ZOIC STUDIOS SEES “THE END” OF BIG OIL DEPENDENCE WITH CONSOL

Oil derricks as groaning, drying dinosaurs are the chilling image at center stage with the new animated spot from Consol Energy. Oil dependence is an issue facing the US, and this commercial shows “The End” of diminished resources as imminent and potentially disastrous if we do not turn to more viable alternatives including Consol Energy’s coal and natural gas resources.

To view:
http://zoicstudios.wiredrive.com/l/p/?presentation=eec7c9776204d94981991aa740cc56c6

“The biggest challenge was creating a sense of character and emotion in non-living objects, in our case oil pumpjacks,” says Director Loni Peristere. “We also had to make sure the effects-heavy scenes had a strong footing in realism. To accomplish this we used live action elements to support the CG, like grass and weeds to layer into the shots giving a sense of real depth.”

“We needed to create a realistic environment that felt dry, dusty and barren for the pumpjacks to founder in,” agrees VFX Supervisor Les Ekker. “As characters, they had to feel alive, clumsy and their animation must not generate sympathy in the viewer.”

Zoic, under the direction of Peristere and Ekker, shot Miners live on a greenscreen stage with a live dolly/zoom move and tracked it into a CG environment.  Additional background miners were added as live action projected onto CG cards, tracked into the CG background environments. These were comped in the Flame. The environment was generated from three distinct types of technologies: The team went on a photo safari to El Mirage dry lake at sundown and shot environmental lighting photos for the CG terrain. They also simultaneously shot high-res photos that were later seamed together to create very large very high-res sky and background panoramics.  These served to provide all of the skies and horizon details and also the mid-ground terrain for the end shots. The dry, cracked mud surface was created in CG from stills of a lakebed and made more convincing through displacement, bump maps and six layers of fractal mattes for color correction. These mattes allowed for the subtle changes and shadings of the surface for all shots where it is seen.  Everything was then combined to create convincing large-scale controllable environments. Zoic added CG dust and rust layers and rust particles to the breaking and bending joints of the animated rigs, as well as to the environment. This provided an artistic grittiness to the movement and better integration into the scenes.

Client: Consol Energy
Title: “The End” 03/20/09 :30

Advertising Agency: Brunner/Pittsburgh, PA
VP/ECD:  Jay Giesen
VP/Group Creative Director: Dave Kwasnick
Management Sup: Lynn Plakidas Klim
Assistant Account Executive: David Waeltz
AD: Derek Julin
Project Manager: Dave Coyle
Broadcast Production Manager: Karen Smith
Producer: Janet Mason

Production Company: Gargantuan Films/Malibu CA
Director: Loni Peristere
Executive Producer: Ivan Stoilkovich
Executive Producer: Zak Thornborough
Information Officer: Armando Preciado

Visual Effects: Zoic Studios/Culver City, CA
Creative Director: Chris Jones
Executive Producer: Steve Schofield
Flame Artists: Chris DeCristo, Chris Stevens
VFX Supervisor: Leslie Ekker
Producer: Maya Sanchez
Coordinator: Adam Reeb

Editorial Company: Zoic Studios/Culver City. CA
Editor: Dmitri Gueer