Framestore CFC complete multiple effects on new Renault spot

'Hector's Life', a new 60-second spot for the Renault Espace, features animation and effects by Framestore CFC.
The spot opens outside a waiting room at a European railway station. At the bottom of the waiting room doors a flat, paper figure – Hector – peeps out and, after a second, slips through the space between the doors, out into the station.
The spot follows Hector as he crosses the crowded station floor onto the platform. As he climbs down onto the rail track, a song begins – Canned Heat's 1968 'Going Up the Country'. Hector hitches a ride on a freight train heading out of the city. As the train crosses a bridge in the countryside, Hector jumps off and, rolling himself into a protective ball, lands in the middle of ferny woodland. Through woods, cornfields and across rivers, he continues his trek, even briefly hitching a ride across a ploughed field on the back of a dung beetle. Finally, he climbs to the top of some lichen-covered rocks and smiles for the first time as he sits and surveys the spectacular valley below him, the rising wind causing him to flutter gently.
The spot then cuts back to the waiting room and the camera zooms in on a man reading a newspaper. The last shot of the story shows the cartoon strip in the newspaper (entitled 'Hector's Life') from which the hero has escaped, the frames empty save for the word balloons.
The tagline - 'Isn't space the ultimate luxury?' - is superimposed, and we then see a shot of the Renault Espace.
The shoot, which took place in Italy over a week in late 2004, was supervised for Framestore CFC by Ben Cronin and Jake Mengers.
Cronin said: "We shot the station material in Milan's Central Station – a beautiful 19th century structure – and its stockyards. During the exterior sequences, some of which we shot in the hills outside Rome, we were plagued by less than ideal weather conditions, some of which we were able to address in post. The bridge shots, for example, were brightened up by a combination of a pushed grade and some Inferno work. But the final whip-pan across the valley was actually created using a 360 degree sequence of stills we had sent to us from South Africa."
The challenge facing the animation team at Framestore CFC was to create a character who, while essentially 2D, was interacting in a 3D world. This required the construction of two separate rigs, a 2D one and a 3D one for moments when an element of depth was required.
Nicklas Andersson, Lead Animator on the project, said: "We created a low-res version of Hector first, which we used to try out walk cycles and other test elements for the creative team. We also shot some hand held camera footage outside our office and put him in it. The biggest challenge was that working in 2D denies you the sense of weight that you can more easily create in 3D. Altogether it took us about six weeks working in Maya to bring Hector to life."
One small detail likely to be lost on people focusing on Hector is that the beetle he rides on briefly is a CG creation. The life-like creature was built, textured, rigged and animated in two weeks in Maya by Dean Robinson, using a preserved beetle as a model.
Lighting is an essential element in making Hector and his journey believable, and Senior Technical Directors Simon Stoney and Jamie Isles worked hard to create the effects that would place him plausibly in situ.
"We used the global illumination references that Jake (Mengers) had gathered on location for us," said Stoney, “And they'd also place some cut-out paper figures in shots for us. The whole 2D/3D aspect of it made lighting it a real challenge – we were basically doing two sets of renders for every shot."
With the prospect of cinema screenings for the spot, the team decided to shoot it all on film, the high resolution offering a more spectacular look on the big screen. Senior Colourist Steffan Perry created an original grade and transfer at HD, which was then played out and shot onto 35mm film at Framestore CFC's Video to Film facility. This was TK'd once more by Perry, the extra stage offering a further layer of grain to enhance the look of the spot.
First aired in France at Christmas, a UK airing is currently under consideration by Renault.
(GB)