I think naming your “best” piece is always difficult, since it really depends on my mood and what I am working on at the moment I do have a few favorites for sure, but if I have to name the projects that are closest to me, I’d have to name the Timbertech Avantgarde campaign and the 1887: a Journey in Time campaign.
For me, it has a lot to do with how much creativity and fantasy we were able to put into the image(s) and if they still speak to me after some time. Lots of work we do is great, complex and certainly drives me to go the distance, however, these two projects gave us a lot of creative freedom and depended a lot on Luminous’ own design choices and ability to bring the fantastic ideas of the agency to life.
1887: a Journey in Time
For the 1887: a Journey in Time project, we were asked to create and visualize an alternate reality Steampunk version of Paris, that promoted the Ice Skating show on the big cruise ships from Royal Caribbean. The great people from The Imagination House in Orlando, Florida, briefed us on the idea and gave us some reference images to work with. Our team started making sketches for the overall design look and feel, and also designed all the various items, balloons, skyships, etc. that were needed for the visual.
One of the more challenging parts that we did not have the budget to have a photoshoot for the two main characters in the front, but they had to be very prominent in the visual, so we had to find a way to solve this. In the end, we decided to create them completely in post by starting out with an illustration and “dressing this up” with photography to create two realistic-looking people dressed up in era specific clothing with corresponding old-time skates on.
It was a lot of work and the time pressure was quite high (as it often is), but we managed not to let this hinder us and came up with a very nice style for the visual. This was then translated into the 3D models by our modeling team and combined with retouching and illustration in the final steps to create a fantastic image that still makes me happy when I look at it
Timbertech Avantgarde campaign
The second project that makes my creative heart tick is the TT Avantgarde campaign that we worked on together with OUR close friend: photographer Cade Martin!
We were asked to visualize three fantastic looking images with a corresponding cinemagraph and animation, that promoted Timbertech’s new line of outdoor decks. Each of the visuals would have the viewer looking out over a great looking deck, but instead of a normal garden, we would look out into a fantastic looking fantasy world!
This of course allowed us to go nuts with the background, thinking up all kinds of fun stuff like floating islands, balloons filled with explorers, dinosaurs, etc. The backgrounds would still have to be believable (so no psychedelic stuff) but had to be dreamlike and inviting.
Our main challenge here was that we were very limited with what could be actually created in CG or photographed because of limited budget and time, so we started combining CG built decks and doors with studio-photographed talent and props and created the backgrounds by combining everything that could help us realize them (stock photography, illustration, CGI etc).
This really forced us to be efficient and think about how we could create a fantasy world without having to spend 15 weeks on getting everything built in 3D.
Another challenge was the 3D/Photography workflow that we set-up to get the talent and props fit into the scene perspective and lighting-wise. We had to make sure that during the photo shoot, we had the correct lens, the correct distances, and measurements, so the talent and props could be photographed in such a way that they would neatly fit into the visual. We worked this out by first roughly creating the 3D main scene with the deck, doors, and interior and gave these setting and measurements to the production team in the studio. They then expertly set up the studio so it corresponded well with the 3D scene and every photographed element and person fit wonderfully well into the scenes!
I loved working on these visuals and am really happy with the bright and colorful end-result!
We are always ready for a creative challenge!