press release
Panasonic 'Share The Air'
Eyeball Shares the Air with Panasonic
A Multi-screen Video Wall Installation for the Dew Action Sports Tour 2006.
NEW YORK September 25, 2006 -Showcasing a grill that glitters and pulsating to a heavy background beat, the open to a new ad from design house Eyeball for JEEP immediately gets in the face of the viewer. Apologies aren't supplied, and the ensuing ride through city streets reinforces the opening's tough exuberance. But it's not wanton roguishness that feeds the action, it's a stylized version of what it means to drive a JEEP.
Produced in collaboration with ad agency Global Hue, the newest JEEP spot, "Bigger Deffer" recognizes the 4x4''s long-standing place in hip hop culture. The rough-and-tumble vibe of city life, highlighted by vintage footage of old-school rappers, break dancers, DJ's, and graffiti, is a fitting context for the spot's star: the new 2007 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited.
"The Jeep job was a unique challenge for us," said Limore Shur, creative director at Eyeball. "We wanted to make the new Jeep the protagonist of a hip-hop centric spot and to relate it to an audience of older professionals who grew up during the birth of Hip-Hop. The biggest hurdle was to ensure that the viewer watching the spot would not question its realism."
That's because, though stunningly true to life, the Wrangler in "Bigger Deffer" is a computer-generated composite of the real thing, which, while providing flexibility in the production process, was a demanding technical achievement. "We are always eager to take up the challenge of creating photo-real CG," said Julian Bevan, associate creative director at Eyeball. "But it requires rigorous attention to the smallest details."
And the details pop, as the Wrangler's green metallic exterior shining to reflect a cityscape and graffiti from the brick walls, as the JEEP cruises past on its trek through the urban milieu. "We did an intense amount of work finessing the lighting and texturing of the vehicle." said Bevan. "Sometimes the best looking reflections may not come from your simulated environment, so adjustments have to be made to reflection maps to bring out the beauty and richness in the car's surface."
Replacing a real Wrangler with a computer-generated one also helps with how information is presented. The new Wrangler comes equipped with four doors and a retractable soft-top roof, features that JEEP wanted to highlight. In "Bigger Deffer," all four doors detach from the Wrangler, hover next to the vehicle, then quickly return to place, deftly emphasizing the new attribute while maintaining the spot's momentum. And with camera angles and movement unbound from human limitations, diving into the JEEP to check out the interior is a smooth and swift process that keeps the pace and holds the viewer's attention.
To execute the project, Eyeball experimented with new methods of working with technology, enhancing the end product while improving the work flow. "We created a technique with the help of some custom scripting to take animated cameras created from After Effects and import them directly into our 3D program," said Stuart Simms, computer graphics director at Eyeball. "This facilitated a more fluid back and forth between the designers and the 3D artists by allowing the designers to create unique camera moves that played off the music and allowed them to tweak timing and camera angles without having to wait for a new camera to be rendered from 3D."
The result is a computer-generated environment that rides roughshod over barriers to creativity, opening a limitless realm for the JEEP Wrangler to experience. "Having pushed the realism in all layers of the project," added Shur, "we succeeded in drawing out the child from within who yearns for that ultimate possession."
