The Brief
Following the success and popularity of 3D (deployed by Inition) at MPH 05 and 06, MPH’07 producer Rowland French approached Inition for a new 3D extravaganza: ‘The GATSO Dragon’. MPH (now Top Gear Live) is a unique concept including a live theatrical car show, hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.
Inition were briefed to produce a spectacular in-your-face 3D short film to be choreographed with on-stage action of The Stig (the mystery test driver) doing battle with the 3D Dragon.
Solution
Concept- "The year is 2050, and the Government has gone mad. A small resistance of petrol heads do their best to fight Baby Blair’s army wherever they can. Leader of the resistance is The Stig; top of the Government's Most Wanted, he roams like a road warrior battling traffic wardens and mobile speed cameras where he can. In response to his success, the Government has designed a new type of mobile speed camera – something more frightening and devious than anything seen before: GATSO Dragon".
Inition’s concept artists got to work for various treatments of the GATSO Dragon developing ideas and direction:
The Show- Inition provided a 3DVidBoxHD playback server, high-transmission polarising filters, a 40-feet-wide silver screen and over 100,000 pairs of 3D glasses for the show. Inition technicians supervised the 3D installation at the show and operated the playback for all 20 shows (to date).
Results
The 3D sequence ran flawlessly in every show.
We asked the client for some feedback on the MPH project and a quote for the story….
"Inition are fucking brilliant; if you want the best 3D in the UK, you'd be mad to use anyone else", said Rowland French, Producer of MPH 07.
Rowland went on to say: "Often the greatest working disappointments as a producer are when the reality of something bears little or no relation to what you had in your head. It's easy to design giant fighting koala bears in your mind, but who is going to make them?
"The same sense of foreboding haunted me when I came up with the idea of making a giant 3D dragon to fight The Stig, live in the MPH arena. Not complex enough already, the dragon had to be from the future, with armaments to deploy in the scrap, armour to be blown off - and most importantly had to have enough character in its face and movement to almost be a 'fourth presenter'.
"Inition were as excited as me about the idea, and organised plenty of artist meetings where we could discuss the dragons look. Once they had my barmy outline, they then started supplying their own drawings, and slowly the dragon in my head came to life on paper. Their seemingly limitless patience was never tested by my constant 'eyes need to be further apart' and 'the wings should beat slower' redesigns.
"When I finally sat down in their subterranean lair in East London, and watched the exact dragon from the middle of my head bob and flap in 3D in front of me, I was speechless. The dragon was all I could have hoped for, its movements were totally animalistic, its look perfectly well-worn futuristic. Jump to the first performance in Earls Court and The Stig tears around evading rockets and razor edged parking tickets, the audience ducking the stereo moments and jumping as the rockets cue with huge pyrotechnics on the floor. Inition had graced me with a beautiful baby dragon, and I was as proud a father as you could imagine."
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Cadbury Zingolo 2D to 3D
The Brief
To work with Drum PHD and Fallon, to help create Cadbury’s first ever 3D ad. The high profile ad spot screened prior to James Cameron’s 3D epic ‘Avatar’ in over 200 3D cinema screens nationwide.
Wach the 2D version here:
Solution
Using Cadbury Dairy Milk’s recent ‘Zingalo’ ad, which celebrates the chocolate brand’s fair trade credentials, Inition converted the footage into a fabulous 3D Stereoscopic version.
Results
The process of converting the existing 2D film into 3D was turned around in record time. The Zingolo ad lent itself well to 3D conversion because it features a head emerging from a garage and in 3D it appears actually to float right in front of the cinema audience creating a very impressive cinema experience.
Cadbury Dairy Milk’s ‘Zingalo’ advert has won the 3D Cinema Advertising Award at this year’s British Television Advertising Awards. The advert, which celebrates the brand’s fair trade credentials, featured a buoyant head which appeared to actually float in front of the cinema audience creating a very dramatic viewing experience.
The Award recognises the best TV & cinema commercials made by British advertising agencies and production companies. Working with Drum PHD and Fallon, Inition converted the footage into a fabulous 3D Stereoscopic version which screened prior to James Cameron’s 3D epic Avatar in over 200 cinemas nationwide.
Keane 3D Live: A Milestone in 3D Broadcasting
The Brief
The live 3D transmission of a performance by Keane at Abbey Road Studios to a domestic 3D television marked a major milestone in the history of 3D broadcasting and pioneered many of the 3D transmission techniques to follow.
Solution
Inition conceived the idea in 2008 and was the primary technical partner behind the project which was backed by BSkyB, Island Records and Nineteen Fifteen Productions.
Keane 3D was broadcast simultaneously to three very different mediums – The Vue’s flagship Leicester Square RealD cinema; a dedicated website where Keane fans could watch the performance in anaglyph (red/cyan) mode and over the BSkyB transmission infrastructure becoming the first ever live 3D transmission on their network.
Sky Transmission- The Keane broadcast was the first ever 3D transmission to be broadcast over the BSkyB transmission infrastructure to a domestic display. The 3D feed was transmitted as a side-by-side frame compatible signal over a high definition satellite transponder using SENSIO encoding which was linked to two Hyundai 46 inch high definition 3D TV screens. A VIP audience in Abbey Road's world-famous Studio 2 were able to watch the full live Sky transmission nearby.
3D Webcast- A separate 3D webcast was streamed over the Internet in anaglyph (red/cyan) mode. This was the world’s first ever live webcast in 3D which Keane fans around the globe could watch in 3D by wearing a pair of anaglyph glasses. The webcast later went on to become nominated for The Innovation Award at the UK Music Video Awards 2009.
Vue Cinema Showing- A live broadcast via a satellite uplink to the 3D-enabled Vue cinema in Leicester Square, using SENSIO's 3D Cinema Encoder.
The Set Up- Inition supplied five 3D rigs for the historic event – three mirror/beamsplitter rigs, and two side-by-side rigs and one MiniCam rig. Each left and right camera recorded the Keane 3D broadcast in full HD for archiving purposes.
On set was a Jib cam, PoleCam, a dolly, a 45 degree angle shot and a wide angle shot. The Inition crew monitored the live and preview feeds via several StereoBrain Processors which can output a left and right signal in a variety of 3D modes.
As access to Abbey Road Studios were very limited, Inition’s production team pre-planned every single shot using stereo pre-viz animations. This allowed the team to determine the best focal lengths, rig positions and stereoscopic effects weeks in advance.
Results
All the planning paid off and each individual transmission was a technical and creative success which was later praised by the national media.
Watch an interview with the band about their 3D performance here
Click here to read an article about the event in TVB Europe Magazine
LG 3D: Europe's Largest 3D Glasses-Free In-Store Promo
The Brief
LG approached us to produce a 3D promo to showcase their new 3D smartphone’s multimedia capabilities in a way that would grab attention via LG branded in-store point-of-sale 3D displays.
Solution
Inition developed a treatment based around a 24" glasses-free 3D display and the concepts of shooting, sharing and gaming in 3D. The treatment involved parkour and acrobatic skills to demonstrate the filming capabilities of the screen in an eye-catching way. 3D graphics were developed for pop-out moments detailing the unique specifications of the phone. The production was completed entirely in-house thanks to our specialist 3D filming and post production teams. Inition also supplied 200 top-spec glasses free 'Alioscopy' displays for installation in mobile retailer outlets across Europe.
Production challanges- Inition’s production team shot the three-minute sequence with our stereoscopic Red-based 3D camera system. The Red cameras recorded the stunts at 100 frames per second, allowing the post production team to include slow motion sequences and time-manipulated Matrix-style moves.
Traditional stereoscopic films require left and a right viewpoints but as this film was to be displayed on glasses free lenticular screens, 8 unique viewpoints were required due to the way these displays work.
Watch this video about the production processs:
Results
Filming with 8 individual cameras wasn't practical (!) so Inition’s developed a novel workflow using a combination of high-end post production tools such as Nuke, Ocula, SpeedGrade and 3D Studio Max. The end result was a film that featured 8 virtual viewpoints as if it were shot with 8 unique cameras. Inition were delighted to work on the project which drew on our full range of 3D expertise from technical consultancy and hardware supply, to live-action stereoscopic production, CGI and post.
Live 3D Transmissions : Six Nations Rugby Live in 3D for O2
The Brief
40 cinemas across the country screened England’s home RBS Six Nations games live in 3-D. Archibald Ingall Stretton commissioned 3D specialists Inition to produce the matches which became the largest ever UK sports event to be broadcast live in 3D.
Solution
Using the latest 3D camera technology, the matches were captured from seven camera positions providing a comprehensive view of the game which included replays, match statistics and on-screen graphics. Inition worked with outside broadcast experts SIS Live and used 3D 'Quasar' rigs from Element Technica for the shoot. Broadcast graphics specialists Wurmsers creating bespoke stereoscopic graphics for the game.
The BBC is the UK TV rights holder for the 6 Nations – played between England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy – and assisted Inition in the broadcast. Inition has worked on a number of 3D productions from football and ice hockey to track and music events. Inition were also the 3D experts behind the 3D transmissions of England’s clash with Scotland at Murrayfield, in 2008, as part of a 3D test for the BBC.
Results
Forty Odeon and Cineworld cinemas screened the matches, beginning with England’s official centenary game, against Wales on February 6, as part of a deal with O2, the England sponsor. The match against Ireland on February 27 was also screened live in 3-D.
Read TVB Europe's inside story on the project here
Remote Avatar: Gadget Show Virtual Pesenter Challenge
The Brief
The producers of North One Television approached 3D creative services company Inition, asking us to provide the technical expertise for an ambitious 'virtual presenter' challenge.
Solution
Inition helped presenter Suzi Perry to win the ‘virtual presenter’ challenge (Season 15, Episode 4) in which she and Jon were invited to find the best way to present the show without actually being in the studio. Whilst Jon commissioned an android version of himself and placed it in the studio to take his place, Suzi came to Inition to make use of our motion capture technology.
Based on real-time 3D animation software Autodest MotionBuilder, LILA is Inition’s markerless motion capture solution which can provide show stopping interactive installations for brands, exhibitions, tours and marketing agencies.
Using LILA, Inition were able to capture the motion of Suzi in London and transmit this data to Birmingham to drive an avatar which was composited in the Gadget Show studio, all in real time.
Without any calibration required, Suzi stepped into the holo-deck style cube at Inition’s London studios where her silhouette was tracked by 14 x2D cameras. No markers or any special clothing were required. The vision processor software calculated a 3D mesh of her body from these views and a digital skeleton was applied using the Organic Motion plugin.
The frame-by-frame motion co-ordinates from the data were transmitted to the MotionBuilder system at North One TV studios via a special driver which then applied Suzi’s features- including clothes, hair, skin tones etc. The avatar of Suzi was composited into the studios of The Gadget Show next to the real co-presenter Otis and the android version of Jason Bradbury.
Suzi’s avatar character included full face expressions and mouth shapes driven by her voice, fed through LILA’s voice recognition software. The composited footage was sent back to Inition’s Shoreditch studios via Skype which Suzi could monitor on a screen, seeing exactly what the public would see.
Results
This project posed several challenges, not least because of the processing power required to deliver the avatar in real time. This was the first time a motion capture system had been used to drive another avatar over the Internet. By chosing to approach Inition for help, Suzi beat Jason's android by 16 points to just 12.
Based on the success of this project, North One Television decided to invite Inition to help create fun and innovative crowd games to be played at Gadget Show Live, a consumer event based on the television show. Read more about this here.
The LILA motion capture is a complete attention grabbing solution which is available for events, promotions and exhibitions. As well as hire of the LILA system itself, Inition also provide a complete production service with the hardware, software, and creative design of the characters, environments and interactions.