HP Mini 1000

During the month of November 2008, I directed a new television commercial for HP in Singapore. The production was quite unusual for both myself and HP as the script called for a woman to walk while continually pulling off clothing to reveal new clothing underneath. The concept was put together by Creatives Ginny Lim and ECD Joe from Publicis Singapore. What was so unusual about this TVC was that unlike previous HP TVC’s I have directed for HP in the past, this one was on the move continuously while still framing the image to cut off the head of our actress! The “Hands” treatment had moved from being studio based to the outdoors.

Ginny and Joe wanted to put new life into the basic “hands” concept by being more dynamic while still retaining the magic. I too wanted a new challenge and this version certainly provided me with lots to think about. Firstly, I studied every Commercial I could find that had already explored the “Cloth Changing” effect in the past. There were some blog articles that scared my when they outlined that they had “weeks of preproduction”, with people studying various physical methods of changing the clothing etc. I simply didn’t have such a time frame to work with. At best I had a couple of days in Singapore to prep the production. I quickly shot a test using a mini dv camera in the location we had found. Handheld, I got my DP to walk backwards with the camera while my production assistant Jocelyn acted out the clothing change. We repeated the same camera move three times and with each occasion Jocelyn had a different clothing combination on. Handing the test footage over to Damien at Blackmagic Design Singapore, he set about trying to composite the test for me.

I flew back to Melbourne and spent some time with my family for a week before returning to Singapore. Damien had worked his magic and to my pleasant surprise the technique worked! The test proved that a shaky handheld camera could indeed be used like a motion control unit and with very careful choreography, we could have our actress walking towards camera while changing clothing.

Next, I wanted to have our actress change clothing so that it was more obvious that she wasn’t simply wearing it under thicker and bigger outfits. So I spent some time shopping with my designer Ashley in various shopping malls around Singapore. The brief was street wear so we hung out in all sorts of strange punk, skate and street themed shops. Once we had chosen a range of outfits, mixed and matched them, it was time to sequence them so that they matched “her thoughts”. My criteria of having clothing changes that were obvious was also applied. Once they were approved by the Client, I presented them to Blackmagic for a technical review.

HP had sent over the new mini 1000 to us, so that we could model it in 3D. Blackmagic produced an amazing 3D rendition of it and the 3D team commenced modeling and construction of the other 3D props.

Leollyne Teng (the Shooting Gallery Asia) and I scouted for many locations that had a more international feel to them. The Agency wanted us to make the TVC for the Asia Pacific Region, so we had to make sure that it didn’t look like Singapore. There were not many locations that had the street feel I was after. Graffiti, tipped over rubbish bins and back alley kids are not that easy to find in Singapore so we set about transforming a lane way near Arab St into a culturally rich cesspool of pop culture! It’s kind of a blend of street party meets “hang out” zone for skateboarders, Bikers and Buskers. My colour tone references were influenced by Cuban images of old cars and buildings. Again, Singapore doesn’t allow older vehicles to be on the road without considerable cost to the owner, so we struggled to find many vintage vehicles. A yellow mini with the Union Jack on it was found which was great. A blue BMW was also found. To inject warm colours into the scene, we placed a hot dog stand with an umbrella into the lane way. Other props included benches that the skateboarders could use as a rail, dented and spray painted rubbish bins and Graffiti on the pillars and walls.

Casting was also a major issue. We needed quite a few people (nearly thirty in the end) to populate the lane way alone. They had to be a mix of Anglo saxon, African, and Asian cast. Shooting Gallery conducted a huge hunt across Singapore to  “Street Cast” the whole show. They eventually hired some really talented hip hop dancers, a bunch of BMX bikers, Skateboarders and others.

Next – The shoot! This time around, I felt there was enough to think about so I decided to enlist the help of a very talented DOP. The Shooting Gallery has on staff, a really great DP named Sham. He shot my Asus TVC also. He’s a veteran of many commercials shot on 35mm. However this time I was keen to employ the RED camera system. Because we were going to zoom up our image to a very large extent at times, I was aware of the risk of seeing artifacts such as Grain, Blocking etc so I was keen to film using RED’s 4K capabilities. Every image that we would film would involve compositing. With Asia having a predominantly smoggy or overcast sky, RED is actually a very good choice for TVC’s and since so much post work would be involved, RED seemed to me to be the right choice. Additionally, we had an extremely tight post schedule also. Everyday counted, so to save a day on Processing and Telecine was huge! Blackmagic embraced the RED concept also. It was their first foray using images shot with the RED One camera. They elected to send an onset editor, Tammy Quay to cut as we shot to save time during our offline. This was truly a massive benefit I have to say. Another benefit using the RED system was the fact that each clothing change involved three different shots. A shot with the first Clothing then a shot with the first clothing over the top of the new clothing. Then the last shot with the new clothing only! So that meant a massive saving in film stock costs plus no fear of running out halfway through the shoot! I just had to convince Sham. Luckily for me, he embraced it also.

To assist post, I really wanted to shoot the whole TVC using a steadycam. By choosing RED, the savings allowed Shooting Gallery to fly in from Indonesia a very talented Steadicam operator. He had flown the RED a few times before so I knew his rig could handle it. As it turned out, he was an excellent operator, with really good sense of timing and precision. Damien, my lead compositor from Blackmagic was I think very thankful. His team would have to take every shot and rotoscope the lead actress out of the scene to enable him to blend the clothing changes. The steadicam eliminated minor tremors and shaky camera movement from each shot. In fact, Blackmagic sent the 3D team to take pictures for texturing and environment maps, Damien the compositor, Tammy the Editor and a partridge and a pear tree! It was wonderful to see so many of them out on set.

Our lead actress, Fabi was cast in Singapore. She is Brazilian and I think initially she was dreadfully scared of the task before her. So it was my job to make her feel comfortable and support her through all the technically difficult shots. In the end I think she enjoyed herself and the crew treated her very well. There were so many difficult moments to explain to her. One scene involved her to walk through a wall into a cafe while quickly changing her clothing. She was then to pick up a milkshake, take a sip while still walking! Then she was to jettison the Milkshake as we transits to the next scene! And everything was synched to a click track to maintain her rhythm. And as before, she had to perform this three times with three different clothing combinations! This sort of thing was common to every scene. Very, very complex.

Post production was a massive undertaking also. We had only two weeks to deliver the finished TVC. That’s not a great deal of time when you consider the amount of rotoscoping, 3D modeling, 3D tracking and compositing of other 3D props. The offline was viewed by the Client on set. The final scene shot at the university allowed Tammy to edit, using Finalcut pro on a laptop, and present the first cut to myself and the Agency/Client team. So the next day after shooting, we were able to present the Offline for final review before the online commenced. Using simple dissolves, the offline effectively conveyed our intentions and we were allowed to continue to the next stage.

A local Singaporean Audio house, the Gunnery, was approached to compose the music. The music was extremely important to me, to sound cool and funky and drive the pace of the commercial. The track the Gunnery composed literally blew me away. They delivered a track that was totally on brief and so much cooler then I had hoped for. Using the same beat that we had set for Fabi to walk to, the Gunnery were able to musically synchronise to the visuals.

I could definitely write a bigger article on the experience of directing this commercial. It was amazing that we were able to put such a complex thing together so quickly and I think to a very high standard. There were so many variables that could have gone wrong and thankfully didn’t! New camera systems, new crew members, highly ambitious post production techniques, large outdoor shoot in blisteringly hot Singaporean weather, etc etc. All in all, I am thankful to the entire crew, the extended crew and the post production team that helped put this commercial together. Thank you. You can now see the TVC Online, here on this blog. Just navigate to the Reel Page above