The Mill keep Guinness flowing

Oscar-winning visual effects facility The Mill has just completed visual effects on the latest Guinness commercial 'Lava'.
Rupert Sanders directed the spot at Outsider for agency AMV it was shot on location in Poland, where The Mill's flame artist Ant Walsham and Mill 3D artist Russell Tickner spent 12 days.
The commercial sees a small village hit by an exploding volcano, lava flows through the streets, people flee their homes, and when the local bar is in jeopardy, the town's men head off to save it.
Having stopped the flow of lava, all that is left in the way is a small strip of still hot lava. One of the young men decides to walk across to get a pint. He believes he can do it, while the others look on, he reappears with a couple of freshly poured pints.
In Poland Russell went to a steel foundry to shoot molten iron, while back at The Mill, a month's work was carried out by The Mill's Dave Levy, to create a customised 3D shader to create the flowing lava seen travelling through the streets.
The Mill team tracked in the CG molten lava into the live action plates. They also took elements from the molten steel footage and composited them onto the road surrounding the bar. Walsham also built the volcano, which sits behind the town, and added flames to many of the scenes and enhanced the look of the lava that was walked over to get to the bar.
The Mill , www.mill.co.uk
(GB)