Smoke and Mirrors New York (SMNY) that just completed a commercial for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science advertising their new dinosaur exhibits, and discusses the entire spot in a great interview with Ian Failes of FXGuide.
The background elements had to look like it was the Denver Museum. We weren’t that close to Denver, obviously, so we took an HD camera and shot all the elements in Central Park. Then we had the agency commission a photographer to take stills of the area in Denver from specific camera heights, and we comped those into the background. It was real ground from Central Park but the skyline and buildings are taken from stills of the Denver area.
Those shots were tracked in 3D. The ice was completely bleached out white. As soon as you put shadows on something like that, you should be able to see details. So we had to re-create the ice field so we could re-light it for the detail. We sculpted the dinosaur from scratch
via fxguide – visual effects school – Smoke and Mirrors for a Denver Museum.
