Going Live Action vs CGI

Today we won our sixth FWA for the production of the Lexus IS Series microsite. What’s really interesting about this site in comparison to a lot of automobile sites today is that all of the video is live action and not CG. The decision to shoot the cars was based on one thought — How can you truly convince someone of a car’s performance if ultimately they know that car is not real? With CG we can make our car do amazing things, speed from 0-60mp/h in 1.2s, take hairpin turns at lightning speeds, and even make them fly if should we choose to. There’s something to be said for doing it “real” and that just what the folks at Dentsu decided to focus on.

Our shoot took place in a beautiful private airport in Miami and was handled by Sons & Daughters who produced the accompanying broadcast commercial. It should be noted here because it’s awesome, that the site was not an afterthought which is so often the case in digital. We were involved early on from the story boarding phase of the broadcast spot with Dentsu’s creatives which allowed us to ensure that both the commercial and site worked together as one. It also allowed us the luxury of adding a production day for interactive and to piggy back on a very big shoot that would have normally been out of budgetary range for most of us digital folk.

Another stand out was that the site’s footage wasn’t clipped together out of edits from the commercial they were specifically shot for the site with each of the 3 models showcasing one specific feature of the 2010 Lexus IS Series. The lightning fast IS F guns down the strip from 0-100km/h in 4.8 seconds while, the 250 IS cuts through turns in a pylon test and finally the hard top convertible shows us its ultra sleek transformation.

Now while “keepin’ it real” can lead to some amazing footage, it doesn’t always allow the creative flexibility and forgiveness you get with CG. Since we couldn’t do effects with the actual car we came back to Dentsu with a plan to spice up the video segments by including some sexy motion graphic work over top of the demos (which I love especially on the IS F demo). We’re also firm believers that “interactive” should actually be INTERACTIVE, so we made sure to add as many little details to the site while keeping in mind that our target market is older and not to get too experimental. Two simple yet effective things we did with our footage was the mouse controlled 3D angling of the cars as well as the draggable hard top roof.

When in the hot spot sections and users move the mouse left to right the perspective of the scene shifts along with it including the car. It’s a very neat trick where with only a still photo we are able to produce a 3D effect that allows us to rotate the car approximately 20 degrees giving our users the illusion that they’re actually seeing more of the car. In the convertible scene we allow visitors to drag open and close the roof much like a zipper… it sounds really simple, and that it is — but for an older demographic it was pretty cool and it’s a part that we’ve heard many times that people love.

Many of you reading this who work at agencies have heard it from every digital shop before. “Get us in earlier, get us in earlier…” This site is one of my favourite’s because it speaks to true collaboration between agency and interactive and the end result, dare I say it, was awesome.

Check out the Lexus site here.

_Posted in Awards, General, Video Production, Work
_Tagged award, CG, FWA, lexus, site of the day

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