The Mill make a splash with 3D Goldfish

Oscar winning visual effects facility The Mill have just completed a series of three spots for Goldfish credit cards.
The 10-second teaser 'Fish Tank' and two thirty-second commercials, 'Breakfast' and 'High Street', were directed by Phil Taylor at Sneezing Tree Films for TBWA/London.
The teaser introduces the 3D fish just swimming around. Breakfast involves a couple looking at their gas bill, which has the 3D fish swimming in the clear window of the envelope. In High Street a woman walks into a store via the shop front where she appears to be swimming in a tank full of fish.
All the fish were created by The Mill's 3D team using Softimage and Mental Ray. CG fish rather than real fish allowed the director more control over movement and choreography.
A model of the fish was designed using reference material, and then revised and given a high-resolution texture by The Mill's Dusan Strugar. He then set about constructing 20 generic moves for the fish, from which a further 200 variations were developed. Various layers were composited, paying particular attention to the composition of depth.
The Mill, www.mill.co.uk
(GB)