Directed by Stanley Davidson for Genesis Advertising, the NIO Domestic Violence commercial was a smooth and flexible journey into tapeless High Definition...

The Format
The commercial was shot on Steadicam with Mark Garrett as D.O.P. using the Sony XD CAM HD Camera. With a 1080 picture size in camera and options for overcranking and undercranking with real time play back on set – it had real advantages for the director and the client. The images, colour and detail made for stunning pictures and a good deal of latitude in the grade.

Pictures were recorded onto disk at HD resolution which plugged straight into
Avid Adrenaline for Offline editing. This was then exported directly in DS Nitris for Online & Grade – all at HD resolution.

A Producer’s dream…
From a production point of view, the workflow was so easy – keeping the integrity of the HD quality, with all grading, compositing and special effects executed in the same room with real time approval and the option to change any element at any time. This has obvious advantages from a directorial point of view, but it brings a smile to a producer’s face too…

To do this without a robust compositor like DS would mean using specific applications to carry out each task ( one program for grading, another for tracking, yet another for compositing, etc. ) which is a very linear workflow, with many approvals and lock-offs at each stage of the process. Not so flexible, not so much room for experimentation and difficult for client approvals…Some of those tasks are set out below:


Compositing:

One move…
An apparently continuous camera move was required for the narrative. We move from outside the house through the letterbox into the hallway and then the kitchen. As the camera withdraws from the kitchen a door slams and we find that our character is in a completely new location - a prison cell. DS was used to blend three separate shots together - EXT house, INT house, INT prison.

Through the Letterbox…
The letterbox was filmed on location and then recreated in CG from the reference so that it could be timed to open as required. DS was also used to seamlessly extend the natural camera move to get us through that letterbox. On location the real camera stopped about 4 feet in front of the door.

From Kitchen door to prison cell...a seamless transition
Two separate camera moves ( the track back from the kitchen and the track back from the prison cell ) were stabilised and blended together in DS so that the character's face is positioned in the same place in both shots. DS was then used to rotoscope an animated matte around the cell door which masks off the kitchen as the cell door slams.

Grading...
The approach to grading was dynamic, with two distinct grades in the hallway and kitchen changing seamlessly over time. Secondary grading was used to lift and draw attention to the characters' faces.