Rushes complete charming new Persil commercials Title: Seven
Dwarves, Beanstalk Rushes have just completed the post work on a charming new pair of commercials for Persil, entitled 'Seven Dwarves' and 'Beanstalk'. In the first, the action is set in a vast fairytale kitchen in what appears to be a castle. In a recreation of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' a young princess is enthusiastically making a cake whilst the dwarves are completing their daily chores elsewhere. She is using a truly vile mixture of ingredients, which includes chocolate, baked beans and tomato ketchup. Her mother, dressed as an ugly sister, watches from the sidelines whilst feeding a piglet in a high chair. As the little girl is making fairy cakes she obviously needs some fairies and as she shakes a huge jar over her mixing bowl, what appear to be glowing orbs turn into a clutch of fairies. They fall out of the jar amidst a flurry of fairy dust. One fairy manages to climb over the side of the mixing bowl, but falls off the rim, sending up a cloud of flour. As the cloud clears we see the little girl standing in her own kitchen, still dressed as a princess, but with more of the ingredients on her than there are in the bowl. Her mother stops feeding the girl's little brother, who is sitting in his high chair with a cuddly pig for company, and undresses her. Everything but her tiara is thrown into the washing machine with a couple of Persil tablets. The washing couldn't have been cleaner if done by magic. The audience sees a dwarf carrying some of the new washing tablets in a net bag back to the enormous Persil box. Rushes VFX artist Paul Wratten says: "There were numerous special effects involved in this job and it was important for us to offer advice prior to the shooting and during the shoot itself. The fairies started life as glowing orbs flying around the jar. When the jar is tipped to add to the cake mixture the orbs turned into fairies. We filmed them using acrobats tumbling onto crash mats with a green screen as a backdrop. The fairies were then keyed onto the background, wings were added by Passion Pictures, and fairy dust was created in Rushes Inferno by Omar Akkari." The close up of one of the fairies trying to climb out of the bowl was treated in a similar way by adding dust particles and wings. This provided a transitional point into the modern day kitchen scene. Paul himself operated Rushes Fire to add the fairies to the jar. This was achieved by shooting a randomly moving piece of Blue-Tac on the end of a pencil under the caption camera. Using Fire's tracking software the glowing orbs were then tracked into the transparent glass jar. The pack shot was captured using a large white box that was increased in size to three feet high. The artwork that was supplied was then positioned on the box to achieve a giant pack. The dwarf was filmed against a green screen and keyed into the shot adding a gold embossed title using Sapphire Embossed Spark and Sapphire Glint resulting in twinkles that gave a magical feel." In the second commercial, 'Beanstalk', two young boys are playing in a magical garden. They plant some beans in a pot in the hope of growing a gigantic beanstalk that will enable them to reach the giant's castle and steal his treasure. As they water the soil the beanstalk starts to grow, climbing rapidly into the sky. As the boys stare up in wonderment at their miracle plant, they hear menacing footsteps coming towards them and the ground shakes. They look up to see a huge silhouette forming against the sunlight. Rather than the expected giant, the silhouette is of the boy's mother. They are back in reality and we can see that they are covered in mud and dirt. Their mother instructs them to get indoors and put their filthy clothes in the washing machine and we see the Persil tablets at work. The film ends with a giant's hand picking up the box of Persil. Paul Wratten of Rushes says: "The prep work carried out on this commercial is where the hand has been shot using a very small packet. The tracking markers in each of the corners were put on all four sides to enable Fire to track supplied artwork onto the small white box that is removed by the giant's hand." |
