The camera zooms in. It zooms out. It pans across. It love’s it’s subject. It adoringly tries to make…oh screw it…it’s just another winding road car commercial. That’s probably what visual effects company A52 thought when LA agency Team One asked them to “winterize” a previously shot commercial for the 2006 Lexus IS. Explaining the strategy, Team One Executive Producer Jack Epsteen said, “We have a long history of relying on A52 for complex visual feats and in this case, we felt that tapping into the company’s artistic expertise to add snow effects to this spot would be an interesting way to back-up the ‘Why live in one dimension’ tagline.'” See the work here and wallow in a full regalia of HD resolution, digital-matte, CGI, camera tracking data, geek-speak.
While digital manipulation is nothing new, we’d say A52 did an excellent job making winter look like winter. We wonder how much better it might have looked if the original work was a bit more inventive than “another winding road car commercial.” Although, with almost every car commercial following this exact approach, there’s got to be some very convincing research out there indicating this is the approach to take. Anyone care to share?
