GHD - Scarlet

Following in the footsteps of Rapunzel and Cinderella, it is Snow White’s turn for the GHD “twisted fairy tales” treatment.

“Ah beautiful, thou art the fiercest of them all!”

Following in the footsteps of Rapunzel and Cinderella, it is Snow White’s turn for the GHD “twisted fairy tales” treatment – with the CGI, telecine and visual effects all created by Rushes Postproduction ltd.

Denny Cooper graded the project in Resolve to accentuate the gothic take on the Roaring 20s style. In Flame these shots were further saturated, with an old film effect and dusty haze layered in, plus some product enhancement and clean-up work. Meanwhile, the project’s greatest aesthetic challenge befell the Rushes’ CG Commercials Team: creating the perfect face in the magical mirror.

Director Mark Emberton and RKCR/Y&R;’s creatives requested an ethereal face formed from constantly evolving smoke – neither sinister nor cartoon-like it must retain the character and emotion of the actor James Dreyfus, yet not be recognisable as him.

To accomplish this brief, the team took the face through multiple development stages: after initial design work in After Effects, the live action footage of James Dreyfus was distorted using Nuke’s warping tools then further enhanced by rotoscoping his key facial features. In Maya this was then textured onto geometry within 3D space acting as a particle emitter generating two vaporous particle layers. These elements were then taken back into Nuke where they were enhanced with real smoke and mist elements to accentuate the smoke effect without compromising the legibility of the CG. Some final rotoscoping brought out the big mouth shapes and the eyes and some of the original live action was screened back on to highlight his more prominent features.

Andy Hargreaves, Head of CG Commercials, commented: “The aesthetic challenge of creating just the right face while striking the perfect balance of all the client’s requirements was by far the largest. If the face was too smoky and “real” then the features became lost and unreadable, but if the face was too tangible then it no longer felt that it was made of smoke. It was always clear though that there was a perfect balance to be struck, and it’s testament to the hard work and tenacity of everyone involved that this was eventually achieved to great effect!”

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