Framestore CFC complete work on spoof Playstation spots

Framestore CFC have completed work on a series of spoof spots for Sony Playstation.
In 'Golfers', a migrating herd sweeps across an African plain, as a group of predators pick off a few stragglers. However, being a spoof, the herd is made up of golfers, while their predators are porn stars. A second spot features a group of athletes falling prey to some well-organised ventriloquists, and a third shows a market trader separated from his group and dramatically warned off by a territorial racing car pit-crew.
Agency TBWA/London and Director Daniel Kleinman came to Framestore CFC to provide the necessary authenticity, particularly when it came to making some 50 extras look more like 4000.The spots were shot on a South African game reserve, several hours south of Johannesburg, and VFX Supervisor William Bartlett attended for Framestore CFC. Over four days a cast of local extras, as well as some exotic dancers, were filmed in a variety of locations and costumes. Bartlett helped make sure that the groups that were shot were well mixed up, ensuring plenty of variation in the raw material that he and his colleagues would be working with back in London.
Three further weeks of post production got the spots into shape. In addition to Bartlett and fellow Inferno Artists, Jonathan Hairman and Chris Redding's sterling duplication and matteing, one shot in particular required special attention.
'Golfers' opens with a beautiful aerial shot of the 4000-strong herd moving across the plain. Andy Boyd, Head of 3D Commercials, continued: "I worked closely with Junior TD David Mellor for more than two weeks on this. It was very exciting for us, as it was the first time the Commercials team had worked using Houdini – and it was one of the most pleasurable learning curves I can remember. We have developed a very nice, easy to use crowd system. Now we can't wait to do another crowd shot!"
With the addition of a suitably hushed commentary, the Playstation spots are lovingly crafted spoofs whose originality and strangeness ensures that they stand well out from the herd.
(GB)