Tomorrow Calling – Directed by Robert Samuels
Tomorrow Calling was a very exciting project to do. It is a series of talks and think tanks hosted by Red Bee Media. The promo is a teaser to go online with a button at the end, which launches the website. The filming of the project thew up certain logistic and technical challenges. The location was a disused Thames Water pumping station.
The trio were completely unaware of the VFX artist about to pounce
Due to access issues, all ofthe film-equipment had to be winched in; carried down two small ladders – including the dog. Technically, there were tracking issues, for the cube, due to with strobe lighting. Basically don’t try and track with strobe lighting! Luckily we had two VFX wizards, Dan Sollis and Nial Brown on set.
Ed and I wanted the colours to be reminiscent of Terminator 2, with a blue cast augmented by small pools of red lighting.
The Rocketman on set pointing. Who knows what he’s pointing at – but he’s pointing.
Additional challenges were animals, which I’ve never worked with before but Lilly the Lurcher was amazing, if you didn’t like her, you had no soul.
“Look away, now look at me, look away, now look at me. You are holding the three of diamonds.”
I wanted the cube to faze in and out of reality and designed the skeletal metal underlaying structure; below left, which Katrina based her 3D model on right for the Cube. The Cube was built using Lightwave.
Concept sketch: Robert Samuels/3D Model Katrina-Ensor Oxley
Alex Brown took this model and created several cube ‘skins’ in Maya that could be composited in Smoke, and with Dan’s match-move tracking data, we were able to cut between and composite all of the different skins in any order we like.
The cube was voiced by the actor and thoroughly top guy Ben Chaplin (The Thin Red Line). The compositing was done entirely by Smoke Artist Nial Brown at BBC Studios & Post Production and scored by Max Herman. For more information and credits on the finished promo click here.