A Hairy Assignment: Making-of CGI “Sunsilk Monsters Commercial”
London’s Glassworks’ 3D-CGI and Live-action Work on Sunsilk Commercial Spot is Monstrous’
Seems like there’s no better use for today’s 3D-CGI techniques than to create various kinds of monsters. Producers and directors can sometimes be monstrous, but in the case of Glasswork’s recent production of a commercial spot for Sunsilk shampoo, the critters needed to demonstrate this product’s capacity to eliminate hair problems, were a challenge to director Rory Kelleher and the company’s head of 3D-CGI work, Alastair Hearsum.
As any animator knows, working with animal or human hair and creating visuals that portray man-fur in a realistic way has been a difficult area for years. With the Sunsilk commercial, we can see how this hair-monster for animators was addressed, battled, and conquered.
The 30-second Sunsilk spot blends live-actions scenes of good-looking folk in offices or in commuter situations, with the small animated ‘hair monsters’ on top of their heads that Sunsilk promises to eliminate. The effect is a bit disturbing, and might range into a more Freudian explanation of why such fine young Europeans might be walking around with little goblins on top of their heads wreaking havoc with their hair-styles, but it’s an eye-catching bit of work and the point is made that Sunsilk is the answer to this kind of ‘bad hair day’.
“We’re quite good with creatures and things,” says Hearsum.
Design challenges
The 46 year-old Londoner has been with Glassworks since the company was started 10 years ago. He said the Sunsilk spot was created on Softimage XSI software, and that Glassworks also uses Maya, Discreet Logic’s Inferno, as well as Shake, Aftereffects and Photoshop. Top-line PC computers are used for this type of work, he added.
“With XSI, you can generate hair,” he said. “One of the chaps generated code to enable us to build the hair, and things like the creature’s spines.”
Creature-design was by artist Sang Jun Lee, known for his work on the ‘Star Wars’ films. There are three that appear in the commercial spot, and they all have to look like they would really mess up your hair. One is seen mercilessly slobbering all over some poor person’s hair-style; another is like a ratty clump of hair you might sometimes get; and the third just seems dedicated to spoiling your appearance, hair-wise.
Director Rory, who is not a Glassworks employee but was brought in for the project by virtue of award-winning work on as many as 20 or 30 commercial spots, said part of his job was to tweak the design of the animated creatures as they were developed.
“When I came on the project, the basic design for the creatures had already been done by Sang Jun Lee,” Rory said. “The first phase was modeling in 3D. In the process of doing that, they would change considerably.”
Director Kelleher on his work for ‘Sunsilk’ spot
Rory is 34 years-old and divides his time between work in Dublin, and London. He has a degree in graphic design from the Limmerick School of Arts and Design, and spent seven years working in TV. “I tend to do an awful lot of effects stuff,” he said.
For the Sunsilk commercial, Rory filmed at locations in Brussels and Belgium, and also on studio sets. He wanted the live-action parts to be “quite stylized”, with a sleek look and feel complimented by a modern, up-beat music sound-track.
“You create a really nice atmosphere for it,” he said. “You really need to consider how it all hangs together.”
The music for the spot originated with the Paris ad agency that commissioned the ad, he said, and was not the music he had originally wanted. Hearsum said the same agency came up with the concept for the spot, with the expectation that Glassworks would refine it into a gem.
“This one was quite unusual,” he commented. “In this case they wanted to know what the best way to do it was. They had thought about doing it as animatronics, but I think the best way is CGI. You put more life into it.”
A certain amount of animatronics, or puppetry, was employed to get the effect director Rory wanted, however. Puppeteer Jean-Pierre Grandet worked off-scene in live-action shots of actor’s scalps and hair, to move the real hair as it would need to be moving when the CGI creatures were edited in.
“The reason is because the monsters are so cartoony-looking,” said Rory. “There was a challenge to make it as real as possible.”
Rory said that aside from the live-action work, he oversaw the efforts of the animators for the textures, hair and then movement of each creature. The production took about two months. Glassworks has about 40 employees and almost all of their work is in commercials. The company is also known for special projects, such as a race-car simulator, spots for Pepsi and Sprite drinks, and material for the singer Bjork.
Shampoo sales and CGI competition
“Competition is tough for all sorts of CG work,” said Hearsum. “Margins are getting eroded all the time and larger companies are sometimes prepared to take a hit to get this type of work, something we can’t do that often. As well as our two main post-production competitors (Framestore and The Mill) we face competition from the animation production companies who are becoming CG savvy. Our edge is our ability to cover all bases.”
Director Rory said a newbie animator looking for a job in this industry needs a broad knowledge of techniques. “From the directing side of things, art college is the best thing,” he said. “Or film school, where you get a broad range of skills.”
“We like to get people who have something special to offer right from the word ‘go’,” said Hearsum. “They need that extra spark that is impossible to teach. It could be a skill in animating, an eye for photo-realism, or a flare for technical innovation. It’s a given that they know how to use software to certain standards. Education is largely peer-based. They feed each other’s enthusiasm.”
A working knowledge of monsters might not hurt as well. “From our point-of-view it’s such a hoot to work on something like this,” said Hearsum. “And to be honest, sales of shampoo is not at the forefront of our minds as animators.”