Concrete Post Produced Credit Crisis 3D Piggy Bank For BBC Panorama Documentary

Concrete has just completed 3D post-production work for an introductory title sequence, which leads into the latest BBC ONE Panorama documentary titled "Tax Me If You Can" presented by Jeremy Vine.
The programme, which explores the hidden world of tax evasion in havens such as the Channel Islands and the Bahamas in the context of the current global crisis, was produced and directed by BBC's Howard Bradburn. The title sequence was overseen, directed and designed by Senior Creative Designer Morgan Sendall, based at Concrete.
It depicts a porcelain piggy bank being smashed by a hammer into tiny fragments, revealing spinning coins amongst the broken pieces.
Concrete's brief was to find a way of illustrating the current financial climate in a visually interesting way. A 3D porcelain piggy bank was decided upon as it represents people's savings and provides an arresting image to start the programme off on. The dramatic impact of the hammer hitting the piggy bank then provides a powerful symbol of the serious financial crisis we all find ourselves in. Morgan stated: "We decided to use 3D to achieve our aims for this project, as 3D provides more control and dynamics than live action footage would have done in this case. We were very happy with the results that Aleksandar achieved at Concrete."
Concrete's 3D Senior Digital Artist Alexksandar Stiglic modeled the piggy bank and hammer using various images in Sub-Division Surfaces in Maya. He then rendered the images using Mental Ray. He applied Mel-Scripts to shatter the piggy bank into pieces and implemented the PhysX plug-in with Maya (Nima) to simulate the action and capture the effects realistically. Aleksandar also artistically animated by hand the 3D coin that pirouettes in slow motion amongst the fragments. The background was then blurred in Smoke to keep the piggy bank in full focus. The photo realistic results, depicting a marble effect porcelain piggy bank with reflections and shadows, were achieved by Aleksandar's outstanding attention to detail.
The series aired on BBC ONE on February 2, 2009 at 8:30am and is currently available on BBC iPlayer.
Further information is available at: www.concretepostproduction.com.
(KMcA/BMcC)