Cadbury - Pumped, Ad
Delivery
For the 2012 London Olympics Cadbury commercial—built around a public competition to feature winners singing snippets of "The Final Countdown"—my primary VFX responsibility was populating the spot with numerous integrated LED screens showcasing the winning contestants.
Methodology
The core methodology focused on creating convincing, fully integrated LED displays mapped across a wide variety of surfaces in the live-action plates, including buildings, buses, windows, and signposts.
Technical
While the baseline CG setup was initiated by the lead, it required extensive manual refinement to achieve final quality. Source plates were first processed with 2D looks / treatments to create a LED effect. A custom procedural setup was engineered for the LED screens: the 2d source image was split into its individual RGB channels. Our CG screens were constructed from a grid point cloud representing real-world LED bulbs (each bulb was a cluster of three, where each point would read a separate RGB channel). The points dynamically sampled the color of the 2D source image. This meant that close-up camera moves revealed a true three-dimensional asset rather than a flat 2D comp effect. Furthermore, we fed the image sequence into volumetric lighting setups to generate animated gobos, ensuring the light cast onto the environment dynamically correlated with the screen content. Beyond the screen integration, I also executed several of the project's most complex camera tracks, including the challenging final 360-degree shot.
Planning
Main setup was done by the lead, before I joined the project. This was split up between multiple generalists.
Delivery
For the 2012 London Olympics Cadbury commercial—built around a public competition to feature winners singing snippets of "The Final Countdown"—my primary VFX responsibility was populating the spot with numerous integrated LED screens showcasing the winning contestants.
Methodology
The core methodology focused on creating convincing, fully integrated LED displays mapped across a wide variety of surfaces in the live-action plates, including buildings, buses, windows, and signposts.
Technical
While the baseline CG setup was initiated by the lead, it required extensive manual refinement to achieve final quality. Source plates were first processed with 2D looks / treatments to create a LED effect. A custom procedural setup was engineered for the LED screens: the 2d source image was split into its individual RGB channels. Our CG screens were constructed from a grid point cloud representing real-world LED bulbs (each bulb was a cluster of three, where each point would read a separate RGB channel). The points dynamically sampled the color of the 2D source image. This meant that close-up camera moves revealed a true three-dimensional asset rather than a flat 2D comp effect. Furthermore, we fed the image sequence into volumetric lighting setups to generate animated gobos, ensuring the light cast onto the environment dynamically correlated with the screen content. Beyond the screen integration, I also executed several of the project's most complex camera tracks, including the challenging final 360-degree shot.
Planning
Main setup was done by the lead, before I joined the project. This was split up between multiple generalists.
Role
Senior CG Generalist
Senior CG Generalist
Client
Client
Cadbury
Cadbury
Vendor
Vendor
Prime Focus
Prime Focus
Location
Location
London
London
Year
Year
2012
2012
