Sight Unseen
I recently worked with Mark Bowey, creative director of Foxtel Design, on a commercial that looks a whole lot different from what we shot.
Produced for UK cable channel BBC Knowledge, we shot footage in an office adorned only with tracking markers. No set design, the only lighting some intense backlight to create the silhouette of a man and an alien visitor. Then Mike Tiong ran the footage through Maya and After Effects to map the tracking markers and build a whole new CG environment. The camerawork was simply employed as a means of getting a hand-held look, which is very difficult to emulate.
Plus, its a pretty funny piss-take on the “aliens among us” Roswell conspiracies scattered throughout pop culture like pheromone glands dotting the dermis of an extraterrestrial.
So what did you do on set exactly?
Cinematography, which might seem redundant, but we still had to shoot the alien and agent silhouette flooded with back-light. Plus we had to shoot the environment anticipating the post effect, based off storyboards.