BRIEF
London agency Ogilvy Healthworld came to us with a new creative brief for a print image showing a woman shedding her own skin.  Our job was to create a CGI model of a woman’s skin, left crumpled on the ground whilst the real woman is seen rising out of the old skin and up into a new life.  At the same time, the agency was also weighing up an option from a company that proposed to model-make the skin.  We demonstrated to them that with our skill set we could create photo-realistic skin and hair, thus saving them a lot on the budget, whilst taking advantage of our flexible pipeline which, further down the line allowed them to do a second shot without creating a whole new model.

OUR ROLE
We ran all aspects of this job- the photo shoot, CGI and the retouching.  We love to be able to provide clients with a variety of services as it gives us terrific creative freedom.  Our photographers understand all aspects of the CGI process and our CGI team understands the principles of photography; they feed off each other and work together to produce exceptional levels of realism. Our established retouch department is experienced in all areas of the industry and has over ten years of experience combining elements of ambitious photo-realistic multipart comps.  It was our retouch department that brought the CGI body and the photographic model together seamlessly, blending skin strands and colour grading everything to create the mood the client wanted.  We were also involved in the pose and final layout, finessing the strong composition and keeping the agency informed about the process for creating CGI objects and walking them through the crucial production process.

PRODUCTION/SOLUTION
We used sketches initially to get a handle on the basic setup and composition and worked this through with the agency, striving to find a layout that showed the vibrancy and sense of awakening in the emerging model, contrasted with a pose for the old skin that rang true as a discarded shell.  At the same time we did a casting for the main talent and the client selected a model they were happy with.  We then went ahead and built a basic scene setup in a 3D space that showed both the dead skin and a representation of the model stepping out; this way when it came to the photo shoot we could overlay our photography onto it to ensure we were getting the kind of angle we wanted and knew for sure it would work for the final piece. This process saves a lot of time and money as we know exactly what we want to achieve.  At the same time as capturing our hero shot we also photographed every inch of our real model under flat lighting so that we could recreate her precisely in CGI.

The next stage was for us to sculpt and texture a perfect replica of our real model, and then had to collapse and deflate the CGI model using a fabric and cloth simulation to get all the realistic creases and folds, with additional detail and textures sculpted in.  Extra realism was then added in the lighting stage, with complex sub-surface scattering to create that realistic red translucency that thin skin has when you see light shining through it.  Finished touches and a colour grade brought the final image to life.

RESULT
Of all the images and animations we’ve created over the years this appears to have captured the imagination of viewers more than almost any other and our web traffic backs this up, being the most viewed image on our website. The agency and client were both delighted with the result and felt assured that CGI could help them visualise even the toughest and most organic creative images. The work was also acknowledged by judges at the 2007 RX Show Awards, winning Gold for best overall campaign.