• TANQ Joins the Line-up at the Oscars

  9 March, 2010

  Sunday night's glittering and star studded Oscar broadcast featured a commercial with glittering and star studded visual effects and design work from New York's TANQ.  
  
  TANQ creative director Alex Catchpoole partnered with director Matthaus Bussman of Sandwick Films to create 'Perfume', a provocative piece of advertising slight of hand for McCann Erickson, which had its premiere screening during the Oscars broadcast on Sunday night.  The US TV audience has been estimated to be 41.3 million viewers.

  'Perfume' features a beautiful girl following a trail of magical, drifting points of light through a mansion.  The light trail leads her to a crystal perfume bottle, mysteriously obscured by the lights.  When the bottle is revealed it isn't a product we were expecting, and the voice-over explains the incongruity.

  
  Susanne Frenk, McCann's Art Director on 'Perfume' was enthusiastic about the project: "I loved the collaboration with TANQ on this job, there was a lot of passion involved and an enormous love for detail. They made the sparkles really come to life. They’re a big part of the storytelling and Alex integrated them in a  very organic and beautiful way."

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  The spot is the latest project in a long creative partnership between TANQ's Alex Catchpoole and McCann Erickson SVP Group Creative Directors Doug Welch and BJ Caplan.  "Over the years Alex has been our go-to guy when we need to get maximum visual impact - but with exquisite taste," said Welch.
  
  TANQ's involvement began in preproduction, and continued through each stage of production and post to final delivery of the HD master.  TANQ designed, animated and composited the light effects featured in the spot, and also did cleanup, rig removal and beauty retouching.  The spot was edited by Homestead's Mark Nickelsburg and finished in HD.
  
  "The design of the sparkles was critical," explains TANQ's EP Mary-Joy Lu.  "When we began discussions with the creative team and the director, the concept was very abstract - 'floating light sparkles' is open to a lot of interpretation.  Before the shoot and during the edit we came up with a number of design options and animation tests that helped define the look of the effect until we arrived at the unique and magical look that the lights have."
  
  Catchpoole further explained the design approach and his desire to make the effects feel physically present in the shots: "I wanted the sparkles to surround the model in a very sensual and beautiful way, and knew that simple 2D overlays weren't going to work.  The camera would be constantly on the move, and I felt that the light effect really should be part of the scene, part of the photography."  That meant building and animating the sparkles in 3D and match moving the camera for each shot.  Camera data and lens information was collected during the shoot, with particular attention to depth of field.  "The sparkles were designed to fill the frame and I planned to use the focal depth of each shot as a design element, since points of light look so beautiful moving in and out of focus."  The camera's depth of field for each shot was then reproduced in Flame and applied to the sparkles.  Multiple 3D layers were rendered to create the glittering multifaceted look of the particles, and then combined and manipulated in Flame to arrive at the final look.
  
  During the shoot TANQ also worked with the Director and DP to ensure that the location and model were lit in a way that would compliment the effect.  "The effect adds light to the scenes, so it was important for the location to be under-lit so that the digital lights wouldn't be washed out by too much practical lighting" explained Catchpoole.  "We also talked about the light that the sparkles would cast onto the model and the walls, and how we could achieve that practically in each shot." 
  
  The finished spot strives to create the intricate beauty and polish of a high end perfume or cosmetic campaign, and in doing so hopes to attract the demographic associated with those products, but ends with a very different message targeted to that audience.  The spot is sure to provoke a response, and to generate lots of attention.

  A higher resolution posting is available at:
  
  PERFUME_HIRES_QT

  
  FULL CREDIT LIST:
  
  Agency: McCann Erickson
  Creative Director: Doug Welch - SVP Group Creative Director
  Creative Director: BJ Kaplan - SVP Group Creative Director
  Producer: Donna McCracken - VP Creative Content Producer
  Art Director: Susanne Frenk - VP Creative Director
  Writer: Jan Franks - VP Creative Director
  
  Production Company: Sandwick
  Co President: Bill Sandwick
  Producers: Bridgitte Pugh, Stephanie Haberman
  Director: Matthäus Bussmann
  DP: Danny Hiele
  
  Edit: Homestead Editorial
  Editor: Mark Nickelsburg
  Assistant Editor: Kevin Palmer
  Assistant Editor: Tim Hansberry
  Executive Producer: Lance Doty
  Producer: Lauren Cancelosi
  Assistant Producer: Kate Johnson
  
  Telecine: Nice Shoes
  Colorist: Lenny Mastrandrea
  
  Visual Effects & Post Production: TANQ
  Executive Producer: Mary-Joy Lu
  Creative Director: Alex Catchpoole
  VFX Supervision / Flame Artist: Alex Catchpoole
  Effects Artist: Mat Rotman
  
  Audio Post: Blast
  Mixer: Joe O'Connell

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