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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

fantastic ridiculously high speed stuff...glorious

thanks for the link that was awaesome. I bet the guy getting the balloon in the face was PA that someone said, "hey you, c'mere....stand right here and
don't Move"
 
Looks like they used a Phototron Camera.


George Patterson Y&R and director Garth Davis created "Burst," a
whimsical spot happy enough for kids and nostalgics while remaining
thoughtful and visually compelling enough for the tipplers.


What was the brief for this spot?
I wasn't given a script, which was pretty cool. I was given what
we're calling an "ideas document," and in that the agency had
discovered this high-speed camera and knew it would capture exploding
water balloons in pretty amazing ways. So I thought it was a great
technology and great way to express that moment of opening a bottle
of Schweppes. They did have a script that they showed the client to
give them an idea of what might happen, but they were adamant not to
show the director. They really wanted me to interpret the idea so it
wasn't contrived and had a certain artistry to it.

What kind of tech was involved in filming the spot this way?
It was shot with Phototron cameras, which shoot up to 10,000 frames
per second, so it was a whole new journey for me since I'd never
worked with these before. The DP had worked with an earlier model of
the camera but they'd since improved it. It used to be that there
would be this flicker when you were shooting above 5,000 frames per
second but we managed to get that addressed and fixed. It was a major
challenge and I could go on about it forever. Everyone's familiar
with popping water balloons–you've seen it, I've seen it, kids see
it, grandmothers see it–but they've never seen it like this before.
I think what's so exciting about the camera is that it doesn't
contrive anything, it just shows you something you're familiar with
but in a completely different way. That's where technology like this
works, instead of inventing the reality in a CG sort of way. Viewers
will love it because they'll know it's real and still can't believe
that's what it actually looks like.





How were the balloons punctured? Did that differ from scene to scene?
I broke the spot up into themes like popping, dropping and exploding
and most of the balloons we used are standard ones that you'd buy in
a shop. So you either pop them with needles or you chuck them at
someone's head or you drop them on the ground. All pretty simple,
human ways of popping them as you would normally. But when you're
shooting them at 10,000 frames, suddenly they become these very
beautiful things. Also, obviously, scale was something I wanted to
explore and we tried to get the biggest balloons we could but there's
a point when the mass of water is far too much for anything
resembling a store-bought balloon. So we explored that a bit and we
found some that got up to about a meter in diameter, which we'd drop
out of cranes and detonate in the air with explosives inside. So all
that was highly challenging, but I really wanted to get some large
balloons in there so I could open up the landscape more.

How much of the spot was visual effects?
The entire thing was shot in camera. The only post was in painting
out the crane rig but other than that, every single shot is in
camera. There's no compositing. Even the guy in the forest. He was
actually running at the same time that the balloon blew up. It almost
looks like he's standing still, but he's actually running.

What were some of the biggest challenges? Any scene in particular?
I think the biggest challenge was coordinating a moment of action
that was only a second to two seconds long, and then in those seconds
I had to make sure I had the emotion of the performances and the
water being in sync. For instance, that shot with all the kids' feet,
I can't tell you how hard that was. Even if one kid jumped a
millisecond later than another, at 10,000 frames it might as well be
a minute later. So to try and get all the feet lifting off the ground
at the same time was really hard. I'd have the slow-motion shot
planned out in my head, but to make that actually happen was
incredibly difficult.
The exposure was also difficult. Even though the cameras are really
good with shadows, there's a moment when water explodes that it can
blow out so the exposure had to be set to that. So when you're
looking at the monitor, it looks nearly black. Luckily [with this
camera] you can underexpose shadows massively and it still comes out
beautifully. There was a lot of time looking at the screen and hoping
it would be all right, just trusting the camera.

Did all this coordination, in terms of getting all the timing right,
require a lot of takes?
Not really because the reset time was quite big. With detonations, we
only had a certain amount of budget and the reset time can take 40
minutes to an hour. And the scene is just a second long–you drop a
massive balloon out of a crane and it explodes, which only takes a
few seconds to happen. It's almost a bit unsatisfying at the moment
of directing it because it's over so quickly. Also, to save a shot it
takes 10 to 20 minutes. So it's not like film where you just keep
shooting and shooting.

How did that affect your working style?
It just slows everything down because there's all this crap attached
to you. You've always got an umbilical cord. The most frustrating
thing was, with film, the DP and I can jump in my car and go to the
next location with a box of lenses and a camera to eyeball the next
shot but with this you can't. There is no optical view-finder, you've
got to plug in a monitor and it's got to be connected to a computer.
So that was the most frustrating part, limiting that energy you can
have with film where you can just muck around and find frames. With
this you've got to drag everyone along and plug everything in...it
just forces you to be very patient.

Your spots always have a strong visual element, but tend to be either
big, wide-open productions like Toohey's Catapult and the Xbox 360
"Cops and Robbers" or more introspective like Sony's "Kiss" and
Herringbone's "Henri." Where does this one fit?
Yeah, this was definitely in the realm of Sony "Kiss." It's almost
like an inward focus, where Xbox and all that other stuff is just
massive and very free with high energy, giving it an exhilarating
quality. This is much more technical and focused, and the restraint
is smaller and more inward. So that was really interesting.

Do you prefer one style over the other?
Well, I feel more at home shooting things that happen more freely but
I was really excited about taking on the challenge of this and not
just making it a visual effects ad. I really saw something different
in it, just a different way of looking at things.





Did you have a favorite scene during shooting?
One of the highlights was the water fight we constructed with all the
people in dinner suits and dresses. The client really wanted to see a
sense of friendship and for me, the only way to get a real
performance like that with water balloons is to have them throw the
balloons at each other. So when (the actors) came down all dressed
up, they didn't know what was going on. Then we started handing out
all these water balloons and said, "We're all going to throw these at
each other's heads." And they all got so excited, like little kids.
So it was just this gloriously fun moment.
 
I can't believe that dude is actually running toward the balloon. At 10k FPS he is sooo frozen... it's amazing. I can't get enough slow speed stuff. It's such a different way of seeing the world. It really emphasizes the relativity of time.

Thanks for pointing this one out.
 
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