Mercedes AMG "Not an SUV. An AMG."
There are AMGs that might look like an SUV at a first glance, but once you get behind the wheel it’s a whole different kind of beast. At its heart an AMG is all about performance. In this film we playfully illustrate the duality of these cars. Starting in a modern and urban environment, the AMG cars seem to be going on about their usual daily errands while the city, in a subtle way, begin to transform. Buildings fold, car-tracks disappear, walls move, traffic lights get sucked into the ground, you name it! The city is literally disappearing to show what was hidden behind: a racetrack, where the passion for speed is shown in its essence. Not a SUV, an AMG! The VFX production lasted for more than 6 months starting on a concept phase, which we work very closely together with the director and the agency/production, in order to develop and conceptualize the visual approach we all wanted to have for the transformation of the city. After we all agreed on a direction, we started working fully on preproduction, RnD , preViz and of course asset production. We needed to have almost a full CG city with all props and details matching all locations, some being real locations and some backdrops. And we needed to research what will be the most efficient way of animating the city which it was at the end a combination of FX in Houdini and hand animation in Maya. The shoot was a fast paced scheduling marathon and we barely had time enough to have all the aspects of the VFX supervision on set we wished for, but we managed in the end. We gathered quite an international team of modeling and look dev artists, lighters, FX, animators and a compositing team to achieve what it was a challenging mix of creativity and technical path to a very pleasant outcome.
