PROJECT TITLE: Heineken Music
CLIENT: Heineken
AGENCY: McCann Erickson, Dublin
PHOTOGRAPHY: L J Hopkinson and Taylor James
CREATIVE DIRECTION: Taylor James
COMPLETE PRODUCTION: Taylor James
Production Breakdown:
- cgi10%
- photo40%
- post50%
TJ has many years of experience photographing and retouching (10 years to be exact), liquids especially, and were therefore the ideal partner to create this seamless and detailed campaign for Heineken’s ‘Music’ campaign, commissioned by McCann Erickson, Dublin. We produced the image completely, incorporating location scouting, sourcing props, selecting the instruments used for the ‘Prog Rock’ image along with final pre-shoot confirmation. Ensuring the client was completely happy with everything, photography for the liquids and instruments took place in our own studio and used our in-house photographer to take the shots, not only reducing costs but saving time. In retouch, the elements were assembled and the required look was defined. Two additional images were created in retouch for the campaign.
BACK'Behind the scenes'
BRIEF
McCann Erickson Dublin came to us with sketches of a great abstract concept highlighting Heineken’s support of music events, with instruments and black liquid exploding out from a central source. It was our job to craft the real thing, and decide how best to execute this challenging brief.
OUR ROLE
Having the best of CGI, Retouch and Photography all under one roof means that we can decide how to best balance a production in terms of what is best creatively and what is most efficient in terms of time and budget. Our Creative’s and Project Managers hand-hold every job through from conception to completion, finding the best solutions for images and making sure they are delivered on time and on budget.
PRODUCTION/SOLUTION
We decided on a path that saw us collaborate with photographer Lindsey Hopkinson who captured the flying black paint and instruments at our own studio, directed by our creative team. Our internal photography team simultaneously shot the background which in the end was built out of five or six different shots. We decided to use CGI to sculpt some specific extra paint elements that would have been more difficult to capture with photography. Our creative’s then used all the elements to comp together rough low-res layouts, which were signed off before we put them through our full retouch process.
Creative retouching is what Taylor James was built on, and this piece is a great example of how high-quality retouching can create something special from disparate elements. The trick here was in creating a photographically believable connection between studio shot music elements, freeze-frame black paint captures, and a naturally lit background. To begin with we created an exploding paint sculpture from tens of shots so that the composition had a unified framework and a physical sense of space and dimension that would then make absolute sense in the environment. We then positioned the instruments and worked on how to build them into the composition for best effect, always angling them to best reinforce the sense of trajectory associated with an explosion. Creating the final colour style was the final step, it gives the dark mood and weight they were after and further gels all the elements together.
RESULT
The final image was a great visually fun piece that was both creatively strong and tightly executed. By being in control of all the services we avoid the miscommunication that can occur between agencies that use separate cgi, retouch and photography houses, and clients save by combining usage and production costs all into a single pot. Our in-house project creative’s mean that you can rest assured that your project is being nursed through all the decision-making phases by a cross-platform expert who is looking out for all the foreseeable problems, is finding solutions, and is adding value throughout the production.
McCann Erickson Dublin came to us with sketches of a great abstract concept highlighting Heineken’s support of music events, with instruments and black liquid exploding out from a central source. It was our job to craft the real thing, and decide how best to execute this challenging brief.
OUR ROLE
Having the best of CGI, Retouch and Photography all under one roof means that we can decide how to best balance a production in terms of what is best creatively and what is most efficient in terms of time and budget. Our Creative’s and Project Managers hand-hold every job through from conception to completion, finding the best solutions for images and making sure they are delivered on time and on budget.
PRODUCTION/SOLUTION
We decided on a path that saw us collaborate with photographer Lindsey Hopkinson who captured the flying black paint and instruments at our own studio, directed by our creative team. Our internal photography team simultaneously shot the background which in the end was built out of five or six different shots. We decided to use CGI to sculpt some specific extra paint elements that would have been more difficult to capture with photography. Our creative’s then used all the elements to comp together rough low-res layouts, which were signed off before we put them through our full retouch process.
Creative retouching is what Taylor James was built on, and this piece is a great example of how high-quality retouching can create something special from disparate elements. The trick here was in creating a photographically believable connection between studio shot music elements, freeze-frame black paint captures, and a naturally lit background. To begin with we created an exploding paint sculpture from tens of shots so that the composition had a unified framework and a physical sense of space and dimension that would then make absolute sense in the environment. We then positioned the instruments and worked on how to build them into the composition for best effect, always angling them to best reinforce the sense of trajectory associated with an explosion. Creating the final colour style was the final step, it gives the dark mood and weight they were after and further gels all the elements together.
RESULT
The final image was a great visually fun piece that was both creatively strong and tightly executed. By being in control of all the services we avoid the miscommunication that can occur between agencies that use separate cgi, retouch and photography houses, and clients save by combining usage and production costs all into a single pot. Our in-house project creative’s mean that you can rest assured that your project is being nursed through all the decision-making phases by a cross-platform expert who is looking out for all the foreseeable problems, is finding solutions, and is adding value throughout the production.
PRE-PRODUCTION / LAYOUTS
PRODUCTION / RECCE LOCATIONS
PRODUCTION / STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY - INSTRUMENTS
PRODUCTION / STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY LIQUIDS
POST-PRODUCTION / PAINT TESTS
POST-PRODUCTION / LOW RES COMP
POST-PRODUCTION / INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT
POST-PRODUCTION / FINAL