The miraculous inner-engineering of Hyundai's vehicles take front and center in a new five-spot campaign for Innocean Worldwide, as the cars cruise around a massive interior test track built by VFX facility Dashing in the multi-disciplined effort.
Each spot features a Hyundai vehicle cruising through a surreally lit postmodern test facility of giant proportions, as intricate graphics showing off the automobiles' machinations spring onto the screen. "Veloster" displays the car's dual-clutch eco-shift system as it travels through a sheet of liquid light, "Sonata" shows off the car's hybrid technology as it travels thousands of miles, and "Tucson" examines the inner workings of the SUV's suspension as it glides over a bumpy road. The vehicles travel towards a light and, as though appearing in another dimension, emerge from a suburban garage door, as the narrator summarizes the journey, "Just one of the engineering advances we've brought from our test facility to yours."
"It was inspiring to contribute to something conceptually strong—thanks to Innocean—that needed to be real and functional, without seeming too technical, sci-fi or overly designed, as many car spots can be," noted Dashing Founder and Creative Director Robert Moggach. "Innocean brought together an impressive team to design the foundation of this world we were creating. Production Designer John Beard ("Brazil," "Last Temptation of Christ") and Director of Photography Claudio Miranda ("Life of Pi," "Tron," "Benjamin Button") confidently set the tone early on. Dashing was responsible for creating the entire world around these cars. Having a truly filmic foundation meant the CG needed to match that natural, cinematic energy."
Months before it was awarded the job, Dashing was approached by Innocean to develop CG tutorials to aide in conveying Innocean's creative ideas to the client. "Gary Westgate (Creative Director) spearheaded the creative for this project, and knowing there was going to be a heavy visual effects component, he wanted us involved early on to guarantee the concepts were taking advantage of the creative tools we had to offer and achievable within a demanding schedule," stated Moggach. "From concept and design, to fully photoreal CGI production and compositing finesse, they trusted our input and wanted to collaborate proactively."
Rather than hunker down in a technology bunker with a massive team to push out the heavy-duty effects, Dashing employs a more dynamic, agile approach by uniting a highly skilled on-site team of digital craftsmen with similarly skilled artists working remotely around the world. "There's a lot of hype about this new paradigm of VFX production, but the reality is there hasn't been a real working example in advertising and certainly not at this scale. Small teams of creative experts truly can deliver incredible results if you give them the right tools. This project distilled the fact that exceptional, creative visual effects depend on the individual artists, the digital craftsmen—not a big established brand. I was fortunate to have my dream team, assembled from years of experience working worldwide."
Faced with a tight timeframe for a large project, Dashing knew they would have to streamline the process. Previs and storyboarding took place simultaneously in studio and on location, and continued during the seven-day shoot. "We had dedicated tracking and previs teams on set. Editor Chris Van Dyke (School) was with us as well. Because we shot digitally, we were able to have edits approved and tracking and rotoscoping started within days and even hours of the shoot," said Moggach. "The team was assembled from artists worldwide based on their individual expertise and as needed we brought them to the production to guarantee a smooth collaboration. From plates to delivery, we delivered almost 100 shots of full CG environments, design and animation in 8 weeks."