Its funny how you remember things some times but my next job allowed for a very quick break back in Melbourne. Only, I spent much of it in pain as a tooth of mine had to be crowned! It seems typical that my body should break down after coming home to relax, but at least I could go see my family dentist. Barely had it healed enough to eat solid food and I was off again, this time to Singapore.

Good friend and long time collaborator Senior Producer Leollyne Teng at Shooting Gallery Singapore had sent me a script for the ANZ bank‘s launch into Asia. The script was very familiar to me, with strong connections to my own HP work as well as having been based on creative developed in Australia. The Australian TVC’s looked very much like HP’s “hands treatment” originated by Goodby & Silverstein anyway so I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that much of the creative had come full circle. There were differences though, namely the entire Actors head was to be in view where as the HP idea revolved around the hands only, cutting off the head. Leollyne had actually sent me two scripts, one for “Platinum Card” and the other for a more “Premium” credit card product that was to be newly launched. That version was dubbed SPB (Signature Priority Banking). Australia doesn’t have this “Premium” credit card probably because anything “Premium” in Australia means “Expensive”?! In any case, it was a nice opportunity to design a new look and feel for this product. Obviously it couldn’t veer too far from the overall look of ANZ branding but it had to stand out from the “Platinum Card” version somehow.

I flew to Singapore in early February and immediately began a series of Agency and Client meetings. I met with CD Mohan Prabhakar and Copywriter Juliana at Agency TBWA Singapore where we started the process of discussing how we could provide a premium look and feel for the second script. Both Mohan and Juliana were keen to try to extend and go beyond what was already created in Australia but I think they came up against fairly sizeable internal resistance. Much of the script was already fixed by the time I got to Singapore, having been researched, approved by Client both in Singapore and in Australia. It left very little room for me to contribute artistically, in a way that could utilise my filmmaking skills to communicate more clearly their offer. Its a common frustration for Directors I feel that limits what we can bring to the party in terms of experience. None the less, I was happy to help TBWA Singapore and their creatives to push as far as we could for innovation and creativity! Just to be clear, TBWA and ANZ Singapore were fantastic to work with. They were both super supportive and great people but as with any global companies, where control lies elsewhere, the unseen forces are often the killer to passion. So the initial work involved extensive testing with Post House Blackmagic Design Singapore, trying to come up with a rendering style that looked “Premium” but still lay close to the ANZ style set in Australia. Version after version was rejected on grounds that it ventured too far from the ANZ style set in Australia. It must have been more frustrating for Mohan and Juliana then for myself because eventually Mohan moved on to other projects. … and so the process went on!

This blog entry should highlight to others how the process of Advertising really works. I think its important to showcase how things really are, in a way that could help others in the future. So much of our work is collaborative and derivative its often difficult to define the individuals contribution. In fact, as time goes on, the role of the Director is questionable at least with its traditional definition of the word. In the past, Directors were hired because of their leading work, design skills, story telling ability and so on. However as business has sought to place guarantees on Clients money, removing the variables has been the order of the day. So everything is researched to death these days, work is revised over and over again by different Copywriters, Creative Directors and so on that no one actually has ownership anymore! By the time a Director is hired, a fully researched and approved storyboard has already been produced! Now I do have relationships with Agencies where this scenario really doesn’t apply but on the whole it is true! The fear of the unknown is so great that often the Cast is already set in stone as well. Removing any element of possible failure by collective consensus seems to be the goal! Off course its not just Directors that suffer, creatives inside Agencies must be equally as frustrated. Much of it is driven by marketeers and business people and I guess the result is that a “no mans land” is created between the worlds of Creativity and Business. Its important to understand that I’m not directly referring to this current assignment but pointing out key issues that are common industry wide!

Finally we arrived at a new look that everyone was happy with and we began the preproduction phase of our job. From TBWA, Art Director Joel joined the production. I had spoken with several other freelance creatives in relation to this job along the way however for now the team appeared to be settled. On the 21/2/2012, we began filming at Shooting Gallery’s studio in Singapore. The first day of our two day shoot was focused on the “Platinum Card” script. I utilised the same techniques I had established on my HP Commercials, making use of Vision Mixers, Monitors and a helper animation for our Cast to follow along to. The “Platinum” script was very dense with script moments and required a great deal of focus on timing, accurate positioning of our casts hands, eye line etc. It was very technical as usual but also required a great performance. Our cast for that script luckily was up for the challenge! He understood the process very well and after several takes, we shot a performance that everyone liked. Because it had to be in one single take, checking for accuracy of hands, timings etc was critical for the animation to work latter on. The Shooting Gallery team luckily is very experienced with this form of production and helped to make the process very efficient and fun. Having the team from Blackmagic Design on set was brilliant as well. Good friend and editor Tammy Quay was on hand to cut the TVC on the spot with her assistant Claire Ang. Using a portable FCP setup, we presented an offline at the end of the day! Client and Agency were very happy!

Day two was more or less the same thing but different shit as one could say! Not to belittle the work, since this day was all about the famed “Premium Card” script but the process was largely the same. The difference lay in the style of performance, some “helper objects” that we employed to help our new Cast member visualise the 3D world around him and the more relaxed timings. Our cast did find the role difficult and I spent a lot of time working with him to work through his performance requirements. In many ways because the script was far more relaxed, he found it difficult between the transition moments from one plot element to the next. Its always a thing to recognise on set – where are those awkward moments you know are difficult to kill later in post production! Its made especially true of one shot commercials where every breathing moment of the TVC is out in the open for scrutiny. There’s no shaky, shallow depth of field techniques to hide behind in this style of direction unfortunately. You can’t just cutaway to some meaningless “artistic shot” to cut out the dead spot in performance, staging or framing. However, despite the struggle, our cast did produce a performance that everyone was excited about. Client and Agency once again viewed our Offline on set and went home very happy!

Post production began at Blackmagic Design Singapore …. and then the news! VHQ had bought Blackmagic Design Singapore – not the hardware company but the Post House! It happened right in the middle of our ANZ job! As you can imagine this did make things awkward for me. I had specifically sold in a Post House because of their experience with my HP TVC’s, particular expertise in animation, colour grading etc etc and now I had to support the change. To be clear, I’m good friends with the team at VHQ Singapore as well and have enjoyed handling Post Production with their team on numerous occasions. Initially the takeover appeared to be more of a merger of talent but it became clear that this was not the case. Many of the original BMD team were leaving, including our key animator, compositor, Post Production Supervising Producer and so on. Luckily we had BMD members Derri Ng, Colin Foo, Tammy Quay, Claire Ang and Vincent Yoe staying with the project, at least to its end. Changes still occurred and Daniel Wong replaced Leollyne Teng, Senior TV Producer from Shooting Gallery. She had to leave the production at this point as well. From the Agency, TV Producer Yanti Sannie (six toes) also had to depart on another assignment and was replaced by Freelancers Jamal Paiman and Shareen Thumboo at various stages, while creatives Joel and Juliana were swapped out with Regional Creative Director Gary Steele (TBWA\Whybin) and CD Hagen de Villiers (TBWA Singapore).

All the changes took place because this job took nearly 2 months to complete! The sheer length of time made it difficult for everyone. I think by the end, I was the only consistent team member that saw the project all the way through! It did place me in a position where I was defending earlier team decisions, living with changes made by others along the way! While the results are fine, my vision for the project was thoroughly diluted by the end. It became a project management job and less about designing, creating and directing unfortunately. Still I did enjoy working with everyone along the way. Each had a unique angle and inspiration to contribute but we were all boxed in by the situation. So I would happily work with them again, hopefully under different circumstances. I certainly made some good friends on this job!

If I didn’t write down the turn of events on this job, I’m not sure I could actually write about this experience at all! Glossing it over with a cleansed version would belittle my true contribution, dedication and involvement in complicated environment. There is so much to be learnt from a project like this that to not share it is withholding valuable learning experiences. Not long after we thought that the project was going to finish, it became apparent that the Client wanted to repurpose the “Platinum Card” version and create another TVC from it as a base. That script was called “Travel Card” and was more urgent then the previous two scripts! So suddenly we dropped everything to deliver this third incarnation quickly. However by this stage we had lost Vincent Yoe our lead animator and it was to be the last job for several others also! VHQ quickly responded by putting together a team of people to help out. The Online was a whirlwind of activity and a race to complete all three Commercials. I should mention that we delivered variations of all three TVC’s to Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan which added yet more complexity to the graphic heavy nature of all our animation!

In closing, I don’t want to appear down on the process in anyway but rather share in the experience – my experience – of the extremely complicated role I had to play in this job. Watching the TVC’s you could be oblivious to the process that went towards their creation! I’m told they have performed well so they are a success.

I would like to thank the team from Shooting Gallery Singapore, the many new friends at TBWA Singapore and an extremely gracious Client in ANZ Singapore for your hard work and support.

The “Signature Priority Banking” TVC can be viewed here. I will post the “Travel Card”  and “Platinum Card” TVC’s soon.

On the 15 of October I flew to Shanghai to begin production on a new TVC for Minute Maid Juice. This time we would be working on a short 15 second script created by ECD Kelly Pon and shepherded by Agency TV producer Julienne Wu from BBH Shanghai. Having worked closely with Kelly before, I really felt comfortable in knowing what she wanted to achieve in this Chinese New Year special. Once again we would film Eason Chan in Hong Kong but this time we would employ the magic of a 3D dragon to bring to life a fantasy tale especially for Chinese New Year 2012.

Production House Producer Geok Lem, arranged for my visas into China and after several face to face meetings with the Client and Agency, we flew to Hong Kong on the 19th of October to organise the shoot. We stayed at the newly opened East hotel, which I want to point out as very special. A truly remarkable hotel for Hong Kong with lots of space and great design virtues! Enough of the free plugs and more on the production process.

Several days of preproduction followed with casting and wardrobe calls, meetings with my Art Director on the set design etc. I was reunited with most of my usual Hong Kong crew which was great. This time “Elvis” was my 1st AD While Ben Sum and his team had furniture built, dealt with several cast changes and a multitude of wardrobe options.

On Sunday the 23rd of October we began production in the studio. We shot everything we could using a double for Eason, including cutaways, reaction shots and technical stuff the 3D dragon would require to interact with. Including the cast and crew, the studio was filled with people and even though we were only producing one single 15 sec commercial, our day was completely full of activity. My Cinematographer this time round was legendary Hong Kong based DOP Oceanic. He’s a long standing professional, who is deeply respected by the local crew which definitely made my life easier. His eye for lighting was similar in style to my own which made conversation easy. Of note is that I asked him to employ smoke on set. I did this because I’m often concerned about how sharp and clear the RED’s 4K output makes things. By using smoke sparingly, we would be able to add contrast in Post Production without having such a strong harsh look.

Monday the 24th of October, we filmed an 8 hour day with our Cast and Celebrity, Eason Chan. Once again it was great to work with him. He’s a highly experienced entertainer with followers in the millions all over the world, so he’s definitely not shy! However he is gracious, patient and very supportive, especially of our younger cast members. He actively helped to make the young boy featured in the TVC, to feel relaxed and have fun!

As with many of my Commercials, the complexity of the shoot involved wrangling people’s eye lines so that Post Production could integrate a 3D character with real life. This was no easy feat! It involved a Dragon forming (made from pulp) and dancing around them.  We ended up having crew members holding sticks, toy dragon’s on booms and clap queues to help the cast to look in the right direction at the right time. I did think of using a quad copter at one stage but that would have moved to slowly, been too dangerous considering our young child actor and Eason (given his celebrity status). In addition to that, we had curtains being swept by the Dragon, a Woman’s hair being blown by the dragon and lots of confetti raining down – all synchronised with the actions of the 3D character. Off course all of this had to be timed to fit into a 15 second TVC!

Tuesday 25th of October I flew to Shanghai to begin the Offline Post Production! Cutting the RED One footage at Attic Post, Terence Manuel was my editor. Fitting everything in and imagining where the Dragon would exist was our main concerns at that time. Terence did a lovely job, helping the Client to see where the Dragon would be by animating a “lens flare” around the screen to simulate the flight path of the Dragon. We got approval for the Edit on Friday the 28th of October and went straight to Final Grade at Shanghai’s PO (Post Office). Michael Jaing graded the images beautifully, including adding a lot of contrast to arrive at a strong “look”. Because we had shot with smoke, the image did not end up fiercely sharp looking, and instead had in my opinion more falloff between colours and contrasty areas. After the grade my job was done for a while! It would be a few weeks before I would fly from Melbourne to Singapore to complete the TVC at Blackmagic Design!

The Dragon design was another important element. We actively tried to create a Dragon that was constructed from as little “Pulp” as possible. Minute Maid is China’s no.1 selling orange juice and the “pulp” is a reference to the product. In previous TVC’s the pulp “comes alive” and display character, creating a kind of mischief and playfulness around Eason as he drinks. This time, in an effort to cheer up a young boy, Eason conjures a Dragon made only of “pulp elements”. The 3D team at Blackmagic Design in Singapore were responsible for bringing this to life. Kelly and I were pretty resolved in creating a “Pulp Dragon” with as little pulp as possible. We wanted to avoid a very complex 3D, which would be difficult to animate and to help make the communication clear – not look like a hornets nest of activity etc! And yet it had to easily communicate as a Dragon. BMD rose to the occasion and designed a fantastic Dragon for us. Led by Senior FX artist Ronnie Chin, a hand full of animators worked for a couple of weeks, tracking, animating and incorporating the Pulp Dragon into our live action photography.

Music was again another key ingredient. Utilising Singapore’s Song Zu Recording Studio, Composer Lindsay Jehan created an energetic and fun track, underscoring the images perfectly. Further sound design elements were added also by Sound Designer Damien Waddell.

Meanwhile back at Blackmagic Design, Damien Yang oversaw the compositing side of things. He had to correct a few eye-lines from errant cast members, retie a few things here and there but mostly the images were clean and easy to work with. Damien as usual did an amazing job of coordinating his team and managing client changes. On the 25th of November we concluded the project successfully and I flew on directly to my next assignment in Shanghai China. Once again I have so many people to thank. I should quickly say thank you to Producer Geok Lim, who did an amazing job calmly, Kelly Pon for working so collaboratively, Damien Yang for being so dam reliable and the whole Hong Kong Production team. There are so many others not singled out here, but rest assured you are not forgotten. A link to the TVC can be found below:

On the morning of Sunday the 14th of August I flew from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, to work on a TVC for Malaysia’s Celcom, a telecommunications company. They were looking to create an exciting, visually interesting Commercial for their Xpax brand, which is geared towards young users between the age of 18-25 years old.

The TVC required shooting for 3D integration however the time frame for this job was extremely tight. With careful consideration with production house Carrot Films, I took the decision to develop all the 3D animation sequences early and have them ready before we had even shot a frame of the live action. Local post house Pixel Post KL was tasked to come up with 3D, “chewing gum style”, “Speech bubbles”, that when popped would rain gifts/prizes to their owners! That meant pre conceiving how we were going to shoot the commercial to a much higher degree of accuracy! The style of all of the previous Xpax TVC’s is MTV inspired – Music video techniques, fast cutting and moving scenes with young people, using the product in energetic ways! The colour grading on all the previous Commercials were heavily rinsed with their corporate colours of Purple & Orange.

Day one was “hit the ground running”! An early wakeup and we were off to look at various “House” locations around Kuala Lumpur! We ended up seeing four or so locations before heading back to the production office to review Casting, brief a Storyboard Artist and meet Carrot Films Producers Jefferi Tik and Lani Layali.

Day 3 was a continuation of Day one, with more location surveys. Luckily the days efforts revealed an amazing house with a very minimalistic feel and plenty of space to work in. Returning back to the office, we continued Casting, Wardrobe and Propping for the rest of the day.

On the morning of the 17th of August, I took some time to go see the Batu Caves and Temples just 30 minutes outside of KL. That was an amazing experience. I was the first person there, other then Tamil practitioners at the Temple. Before the lights were even switched on I had climbed the 1000 odd steps to the top, entered the Caves and explored the Temples inside the Caves themselves. Only Monkeys, Doves and Bats accompanied me for about an hour! Quite magical and special I think?! I spent some time taking HDR images of the subterranean world lit only by an ocular in the roof of the Cave! I witnessed a private religious event as three women rolled themselves along the floor and then had water poured on their heads. I’m not sure of it’s significance but it was quite amazing to witness!

I also drove out to see the Electronic Shops out at Jalan Pasar and several ITC Malls. In the afternoon, I returned to the Production office to go over more Casting and Set design. The Agency arrived later for an official Preproduction meeting. It was great to finally meet them.

Day4 – August 18 was D-Day for much of the preproduction work with a Client Presentation scheduled for later in the afternoon. However there was not much I could do at that point. So I decided to go with Moga, the driver, back to Jalan Pasar to explore more of that street with electronic component shops on it. We had missed a huge section of it on our original visit. Despite the electronics scene being relegated to “extreme hobbyists” there definitely is a presence of “Hackers”, “Makers” and even Professional Engineering in the air. That afternoon we presented what we had to the Client at Celcom’s head Office in KL. The meeting went very well although a murmur of change was brewing!

Day5 started with some challenges! The Client made some changes which slightly changed everything! I was handed the news and went straight away into battle station mode. In all fairness the Agency and Production House were incredibly supportive and explained that “this is how it is” with a big smile on their faces! New Cast was called for, we scrapped locations within the house, set dressings and started looking for city skyline views of KL. Although much of the original script had changed, in many ways it hadn’t! I realised this as I was working through my shot list. Much of our preproduction was still relevant. However, the Casting was a battle. Out of four original cast requirements, we had reduced it to just one! The Client approved a young Girl by the name of Chrissy but she was based in Bangkok Thailand and had to be flown in!

Day6 – Saturday the 20th – I awoke very early and was picked up from my hotel in Mid Valley and driven to Set. We began production that day with Chrissy, who had arrived at 2AM the same day, from Bangkok. After meeting her &  the Crew, Arn (my 1st AD) and I reworked our plans to accommodate the new situation. I was hugely relieved to discover that Chrissy was not only vivacious and gorgeous but very accomplished as an actress. I had no problems chatting with her and trying out different performance ideas on camera! She was incredibly energetic given her very early morning arrival into Malaysia! Eric Yeong, my Cinematographer, helped out here by lighting her beautifully and playing the role of the calm observer! The shoot went very smoothly, helped by a fantastic team from DraftFCB Malaysia, the Carrot Films Crew and importantly, the team from Pixel Post who had sent their effects supervisor along for the day.

Day7 – Sunday 21st – Again waking at 4AM, I was picked up from the hotel and driven into the centre of KL. There we transported ourselves to a helipad on the 29th floor of a city building. From this vantage point, we filmed time lapse and realtime footage of the sun dawning across Kuala Lumpur. For that we had no less then two Canon 5Dmk2′s, the ARRI Alexa from the previous day and my DOP Eric brought his brand new RED EPIC M along for its first official engagement! It was kind of crazy but we shot the “crap” out of it! Sadly none of that footage made it into the final TVC although it looked amazing! The RED Epic is so small and the low light performance is clearly a major selling point!

Day8 – Monday 22nd – At 10am, I was whisked to go see Pixel Post – the post production company handling the Offline/Online as well as the 3D requirements. Having slept for most of the previous day, after our vigorous shoot on the Helipad, I was pretty rested and keen to see the rough cut. Editor Billy, had created several versions and I was pleasantly surprised that it all worked and fitted into a 30sec TVC nicely. We spent a few hours working on it together before I had to go to the Grade! That’s right, a final grade before we had even finished the offline! The timing of this TVC was so short that I had to travel to APV (Asia Pacific Video lab) in KL to setup the look of the TVC. We were never going to be able to come back with finished pictures because we were grading the data files shot from ARRI’s Alexa and RED’s Epic directly in Lustre. The Colourist did a very nice job! After the grade, it was back to Pixel Post for more Offline before our Agency presentation at 8PM! We had a few discussions about which version to present but finally at 9PM we presented our offline’s to the Client. We were still shifting the edit during that session to fix timings with the music, find best performance etc it was so organic! We arrived at an approved offline at around 11PM that evening! I think the Creatives Richard, Brian and Dave from DraftFCB and importantly TV Producer Brandon Chai helped enormously in getting the TVC across the line successfully.

Day 9 – Tuesday 23rd – Pixel Post continued on with the task of finishing the TVC. I took a trip into the centre of KL and walked around the Petaling Street Market. Later I filmed some Time Lapse footage of the Petronas Towers transitioning from day into night before getting an early nights sleep!

Day10 – Wednesday 24th – Popping my head into Pixel Post at 2PM there was still quite a lot to be done. The grade was done, including all the new shots we added during the Client Presentation! that looked very nice. Much of the 3D was in various state of rending but I could tell it was coming together. Despite the incredible speed of the job, changes in concept and quest to stay flexible, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I should take a moment to thank the team at Pixel Post for their enormous effort. Producer Kenny looked after the project so well but their were quite  a few involved from their office.

Day11- 25th of August -  12pm I again popped into Pixel Post. Thankfully a lot of work had taken place overnight. The TVC was really starting to feel finished which was amazing. The team had worked very hard to clean up the images shot on the ARRI Alexa as well as render finals for the 3D “Speech Bubbles”. Online editor, Kitson, rushed through all the composting tasks with flare. The Agency arrived at 7PM while we were still finishing the TVC. By 10PM it was all done and the job was complete! I need to thank so many as usual but especially this time! We had so little time and this TVC was effectively produced in 4 days which is incredible! Incredible because it has interactive 3D, great production design by Leslie, fantastically coordinated by Connie and Arn my 1st AD and supported by a two excellent Production Producers. It made use of new technology like the RED EPIC M and Arri Alexa! The entire production team worked very hard but made it seem easy and pleasant – so thank you for your effort guys, much appreciated – Especially since the entire process happened during the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan!

Day13 – Malaka – got up early and drove with my driver Moga to Malaka, about 2 hours out of KL. Staying overnight, I enjoyed seeing the sights, photographing old Portuguese Forts, churches, the local food and generally touring around Melaka. A huge thank you to Moga for making that trip so easy!

On my second day in Malacca I ran into a group of young guys playing around with their cameras. They were part of a photographic club, experimenting and learning about photography with a model. I asked if I could join in and for about an hour I had a bit of fun using my strobe gear. The model was really excellent and generously gave me a few poses.

At 4PM the next day, it was time to head back to KL. After a meal at the Petronas Towers,  I quickly packed up my stuff for an early morning flight to Singapore the next morning. Touching down in Singapore, I caught up with Damien Yang from Blackmagic Design and Leollyne Teng from Shooting Gallery Asia about various up coming projects. I also managed to catchup briefly with good friend Bruce Watt for a quick social get together. After visiting a few Time Lapse locations, ITC malls I headed out for the airport again. Making a comfy nest in my airplane chair, I fell into a deep sleep and relaxed for the first time in ages!

On the 1st of September I landed in my home town of Melbourne.

The TVC can be viewed by clicking the below image:

On the 2nd and 3rd of April 2011, I began production of a Television Commercial for Nippon Paint in Indonesia. The product called “Vinilex” is a popular household paint which was due for a new marketing campaign. The Agency, Dentsu Jakarta, wanted to explore a bit of digital alchemy, some visual magic with their idea. Key creatives ECD Rostina P (Tina for short) and Art Director Edhya Listiani wanted to play with the “magic of colour” by creating a world where a fresh coat of paint could create joy, excitement and perhaps a dash of dare!

Working with Kemistry Films in Jakarta again, I was reunited with Producer Rini Hewitt and her core team. They included 1st AD Agnes, Production coordinator Anita Sandrayanti, Costume Designer Imelda, and Art Director Malek Prada! I had previously worked with all of them on other TVC’s in Jakarta so it was great to reunite! New to the group was DOP Ipul & Editor Ravi both of whom were really great to work with.

The TVC required a location shoot but what we wanted was quite exotic. At first I was thinking “Set Design” and a Studio based shoot but soon learnt that wasn’t going to be possible. A location scout returned with many photos from various galleries and public spaces around Jakarta but one set stood out immediately. In Jakarta, there is a tourist destination called Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. It’s a massive park filled with examples of every type of building construction found throughout the 1000+ islands of Indonesia! If your into Architecture then this is a great spot to go and visit. Deep within the complex is a science centre for schools and people interested in science and engineering. Its a huge round building with a very futuristic look and feel. It’s not well frequented by the public so they had a vast section unused which we could take advantage of.

So off we all went and visited the site! On looking around, Malek and I immediately came up with an awesome plan to build a small section of set. He drew the plans that afternoon and construction begun the next day! It was a “Guggenheim inspired” Gallery set out like a giant colour wheel! Panels would stand in spoked sections of the “wheel like” space! A curved, highly reflective door would lead audiences into a cathedral styled room that a studio set design simply would never have afforded! I loved the design and was so happy when the Agency and Client agreed to it.

Key to this Commercial was Blackmagic Design in Singapore. Lead compositor Damien Yang and his assistant Chia Choon flew to Jakarta to supervise the extensive 3D and 2D effects. In the region, I’ve come to depend on the Blackmagic Design team for not only excellent workmanship but their friendship. Damien is a master compositor par excellence! His strong sense of design and technical skill are incredibly valuable to me but its his flexibility when it comes to Client/Agency changes (and even my own) that is truly exceptional. He deals with it all so well. This job was a joy however as we had such a great on set team. Malek’s Art department team had built all sorts of rigs and tricks to help make the 3D magic go smoothly. He built “Paint Splattering Machines”, a water ramp that could dump a large amount of water onto our cast via a curved piece of Perspex to form a massive wave, painting dripping rigs, etc etc. All in all we had a lot of rigs and tricks to play with!

Casting was a huge deal for me on this TVC. We were looking for an unknown who could pull off all the technical requirements as well as carry off the humorous and fun moments. Luckily we found it in a young man called ‘Boy”. His understanding of English was limited but we were still able to communicate effectively. He had never performed before on a TVC so he had a lot to learn!

Shot on 35mm Kodak film, Ipul, my very young DOP, had a lot of cool elements to play with! The overhead domed glass ceiling would pose somewhat of a challenge to him as the sun became full strength at times! In an unconventional manner, Jakarta’s sky cleared of its drab grey clouds and spilled harsh sunlight through the very impressive ceiling! Sadly day two didn’t follow suit and we did have to rebalance shots later in Telecine. However Ipul did an amazing job dealing with the scale of the shoot and the vast space of the location.

At the end of Day Two, the main Cast had been completed and we moved on to filming many elements for 3D. Damien and Chachoon oversaw the filming of paint splats, drips, dunks, water spray etc, all shot in high speed 35mm film! It was actually quite fun to watch!

I shot the pack shot as a time-lapse sequence using my 5DMK2 in stills mode. An artist painted the Pack Shot for me on a canvas while the camera recorded each stroke as a time lapse event. Later we removed any reference to the artist so that the Pack Shot could be seen to self animate on screen!

So after a fun packed 2.5 day shoot, we progressed to Post Production in Jakarta. Robert Cook at VHQ Jakarta had graded the one light rushes for us and freelance FCP editor Ravi brought his laptop down to the Grand Kemang Hotel, where we cut the offline edits over the 5th and 6th of April. We cut a 60, 45, 30 and a 15 second which we presented to the Agency and Client on the 7th at the Cutshop Jakarta. That went very well. In fact as a result, the Client bought the 45 second TVC!

With picture locked off, the final Grade occurred on the 8th of April at VHQ with Robert Cook again. His grade was very nice and with that, we headed off to our own worlds for a couple of weeks! I briefed in the Music to KL based Composer Mike Bloemendal who’s company Imaginex was handling the Audio Post Production. The images left Jakarta and headed to Singapore for cleanup and 3D at Blackmagic Design while I headed home for a very short break.

I didn’t rest for long. As the 3D team were hard at work in Singapore, I rushed off to Hong Kong to shoot another TVC. Following the conclusion of that shoot and subsequent offline in Shanghai, I returned back to Singapore to oversee the Online of Vinilex. The team at BMD had been in constant contact with me while I was away (via Skype and email) so I was fully aware of progress. Now that I was back, we began the serious task of compositing all the elements. I arrived on the 5th of May via Hong Kong. By Monday the 9th, we presented to the Agency and mostly we were in good shape. Mike Bloemendal sent through his track of music and blew me away with his “accurate to the reference” composition! He was able to add his own elements to it but it retained the spirit and feeling of the reference track! He also managed to rope in a good mate from the USA to do the vocals which was awesome! Damien and his team at BMD had pulled off yet another miracle in cleaning up vast areas of the images, removing stray public, messy backgrounds, and conflicting colours. In a few sections, the set had to be extended or repaired thanks to our rigs. Chia Choon and the 3D team built Cars, Oranges and water elements while Damien composited them into their respective scenes. There were still some elements needing completion but by Wednesday the 11th, we presented to the Client.

The Vinilex TVC was a fun experience for me. I think I was lucky to not only work with so many very talented people, many of whom I consider great personal friends, but a fantastic agency team as well. There are quite a few names I should be mentioning here from the Agency side but shamefully I don’t have them written down anywhere! I use my blog to record, pay respect and say thank you for an otherwise thankless world in advertising. Since no credits roll at the end of a TVC I want to take the opportunity to say thank you to the Agency, the Crew, Kemistry Films, Rini Hewitt, Imaginex and the Blackmagic Team for a fantastic effort.

To watch the TVC press the following image! Enjoy!

Part of being a good filmmaker, I believe, is to constantly try new things. For me that includes equipment, new technology, different Crew members, new Clients & new Ideas etc. Recently I had the pleasure of working on a new Campaign that forced me to think about my own “filmmaking process” in a different way. That project was a Television Commercial (TVC) for Ponds, a beauty product.

For me this particular project was different because it was a beauty Ad! It was different because the process of making this TVC was different to other work I have been involved with. I suppose on a filmmaking level, the nuts and bolts is the same, just the interaction with the Agency & Client was quite different. As you may be aware, many of my Commercials involve the heavy integration of 3D. This Commercial was no different. The balance here was to create a “Beauty Spot” which involved a “high concept idea” of pages from a magazine flipping helping us to tell a story, but remained soft, feminine and playful.

It all started back in January, when Kemistry Films in Jakarta Indonesia contacted me to have a look at a concept for a TVC involving pages flipping. I had previously created a TVC for Canon that involved a “Flip book” style and I guess once you have done one, you get calls for more (hopefully?). Any case there was enough of a difference for me to be interested in the project. The opportunity to extend my repertoire to include beauty products was enough of a lure.

On the 1st of March, I flew to Jakarta from Singapore, having just completed a Canon Commercial for China. In fact, we were still finalising the Online that Sunday for Canon and by Monday afternoon I was attending preproduction meetings for Ponds in Jakarta! The TVC was written by Ad Agency Ogilvy & Mather in Jakarta by creatives Dinah Sumantri and Dewi Putri. Both are young, very considered, super thoughtful and I’m not just saying that because I was working for them! They were incredibly cool to work with. Both had produced many beauty spots in the past for Ponds but had not had a huge amount of 3D integration experience. Nor had the Client. So finally, after months of preproduction work, I finally met with everyone in Jakarta to discuss how we were going to make this TVC. Creative Director Dewantarie Hadikoesoemo helped walk the Client through the process and if there is one thing I could stress the most is the importance of “Managing peoples expectations”. It’s absolutely critical on these types of of jobs. It’s also fantastic when the Agency is so supportive in this regard and Ogilvy & Mather rose to the occasion.

This Ponds TVC is built around a competition involving three winners. I spent several days putting most of the winners through, not only make-up and wardrobe tests, but also a photo shoot. I used this opportunity to break them into the weird world of advertising. I always like to rehearse whenever I can to eliminate much of the initial folly that can take place. That way we can concentrate on making the best possible TVC with the most fluid, tightly integrated 3D and post production effects etc. Importantly though, it gives me the confidence to mould their performances in the best way I can.

On the 7th of March, Goh spent the day pre-lighting the sets for the shoot. He is a true gentleman to work with. A quiet achiever with a real flare for lighting which I really appreciated. Actually my entire crew was fantastic. Rini had recommended a brilliant Production Designer from Malaysia called Malek Prada. He came up with some pretty awesome designs and Set pieces which was great. Fendi, the make-up artist, was another very creative individual who sculpted our girls “looks” and really brought out their best. Wardrobe stylist Imelda Untoro was yet another vital ingredient to the overall success of the “look” of the TVC and her gracious and understanding manner made her a pleasure to interact with. Others I had worked with before included 1st AD Eugenea Agnes, who was not only an absolute pleasure to work with but conscientious and diligent while always being fun spirited. What more could anyone ask for! Rini had assembled quite an amazing international crew as well as provided a very solid and capable local Indonesian crew, which as awesome!

On that day we tested for as many scenarios as we could before finalising for the shoot. I place a lot of value in rehearsing Actors before any shoot. Keep in mind all our Girls were “civilians” not actors! None of them had any experience at all on screen. They all had a speaking roll to play as well as look glamorous on screen and to their credit, performed magnificently.

On the 8th of March we started filming. The two day shoot was actually quite involved, requiring everyone to imagine a 3D world around them. Quite a number of elements were required to be filmed including a huge list of high resolution images to be used as textures for 3D. Having Damien there on set was absolutely fantastic. He’s a very creative person and it’s great bouncing ideas off him while actually still on set – a process that I really enjoy. Finally with the 2 day shoot behind us, it was time for Post. The guys from BMD flew back to Singapore while I continued on at VHQ Jakarta to oversee the Telecine with Goh Meng. Rushes looked great and I finally met my Offline editor, Zaki Marican. He is a freelance editor who edits on his Macbook Pro and an external monitor. It’s an ever growing trend for editors to be completely independent from Post Houses. Zaki was great. On the 11th of March, he cut the TVC in a small amount of time using the rough 3D animations created on set by Chachoon and Damien Yang. The TVC was actually quite polished even at this stage. Later that afternoon, Rini and her assistant Producer Elle brought in a Composer to receive a brief from me. We talked about musical styles and I handed him a few references. At the end of the day, I felt like a lot had been achieved and good work had taken place!

The 12th of March, we presented first to the Agency and then later to Client. They loved it! On the 13th, I finally flew back to Singapore to handover the Rushes, Edit Decision List etc to Damian at BMD. With that, I left Singapore for home – something I hadn’t done for almost 3 months due to all these back to back projects! The next two weeks, Damien and the gang at BMD spent enormous amounts of time creating and rendering amazing 3D content. They were sending me mpegs to approve along the way. Derri NG (BMD Producer) and I sent each other quite a few emails back and forth, fine tuning things.

On the 30th of March, it was time to fly back to Singapore for the last leg. Over the next week, we rendered out each of the scenes. The Client and Agency arrived in Singapore on the 4th of April and we presented for them a work in progress. The purpose of these final Client/Agency meetings is to make sure that we are all on the same page and are moving forward in the right direction. It affords some minor changes at this point, if the Client wants something corrected by giving the 3D team some time to effect the change. The last couple of days are fixed in stone though. It’s merely a process from then on to finish the TVC. That’s exactly what we did. Hours before I was due to fly back to Australia, I was still overseeing the last renders in the timeline. Lead animator at BMD, Vincent Yoe, spent a few days glued to his seat, continuously! He is one of the most gifted animators I know with a style that I really enjoy. Off course there are others working with him who are equally talented and I thank them all for their help on this project. Damien weaved an incredible amount of compositing magic, blending the 3D with the live action shots and once again proved that he is an exceptionally talented compositor! The Girls all look fantastic and the 3D is very fluid and beautiful to watch in my opinion. Damien is incredible person and a very trusted and dear friend of mine. I always enjoy catching up.

Just as a side note, many of the images you see on this blog entry were shot for the Commercial also. They were used as part of the content of the flipping magazine, although much of that was reduced by me in the final version. I took hundreds of shots of all our cast & crew, including the Agency to be able to fill a magazine full of images etc. This in itself was a big task. As usual, this type of job is a huge collaborative effort. From the resourceful crew at Kemistry Films, to the clever gang at Ogilvy & Mather to the persistent & talented tribe at Blackmagic-Design, I think we created a nice spot for Ponds. The three winning Girls all look great and have a light and feminine touch to their personalities. I would like to thank the patient crew of the shoot for helping me to create this TVC. Hope you enjoy it also. Cheers!

Much of my work is away from home. Often I travel to places like Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong to Shoot & Post my television commercial projects.However, I sometimes like to fill my spare time with an experimental project. As an owner of a Canon 5DMKII, I have been shooting time lapse for some time. I even recently posted a short film on Vimeo called the “The World in Motion“, which was shot all over the place using the 5DMKII and time lapse photography. On a recent trip to Singapore, I wanted to capture a sunrise and try and tell a visual story of a new “Dawn” in Singapore. I wanted to showcase the “Awakening” of Singapore as a visually spectacular and technological megapolis. My only problem, it rains in Singapore a lot! So I think I spent nearly 12 very early mornings, shooting the sun rising from various vantage points in the city. I even caught a taxi to “Marina Barrage” to try and film the Singapore flyer (Giant Ferris Wheel) and city scape at dawn. During editing, I could have used even more scenes if I had shot them! With only one camera, it’s difficult to maintain continuity, while still describing the sun rising all over the city. Nearly every single shot has differences from levels of clouds, rainy weather, sun, no sun etc. Still, I don’t think it matters now. Singapore looks amazing at night with it’s city lights. What’s actually more difficult to film, is the day time. I wanted to try and have a certain amount of blur in the motion of objects. That’s not easy, even at 100ASA with the iris stopped right down. So I started to look around for something to help me.

I had heard about a 10 Stop ND (Neutral Density) being released by Lee Filters, which I was pretty keen to hunt down and try out. using a 10 stop ND in daylight hours would allow me to expose a single frame for about one second, blurring the motion of any moving subject. I found one at Cathay Photo and picked it up. While the system isn’t cheap, it’s flexible enough to work with all my lenses, using the appropriate adapter rings. The large square (4×4) glass filter easily covers my largest element lens (82mm).

Using a square filter system is a lot easier to use then the circular types, especially if you stack them. I also purchased the sunshade system to protect the filter from sun flares. This is essentially a paper bellows which can be extended or retracted with relative ease. I did find occasionally that this would creep into frame at times or if I accidentally rotated the front filter holder system on a 45º angle, using a wide angle lens. So my suggestion is to always check your edges before committing to the final position of the filter & shade system.

Another reason to use a 10 stop ND filter was because I was shooting with my new 24mm Shift & Tilt lens. For the most effective focus effects, you really need to shoot wise open or close to. Again in daylight, this would be impossible without a heavy ND filter. However, with the Lee 10 stop, I was shooting in the middle of the day, in full sun, at about f2, with the shutter set to about 1/4 of a second. That’s remarkable! While I didn’t do extensive tests, it is my opinion that there is very little colour shift when using the Lee 10 stop filter. Certainly, not enough for me to care. I graded the images you see in the film in Final Cut Pro. I had more difficulty in matching sunrise levels from shot to shot then any colour shift caused by the 10 stop filter!

Next tip is frame your shot first then put the 10 stop filter on. Otherwise you will see jack through the viewfinder! Luckily, the Lee Filter Holder has a very good quick release mechanism. Because I was working at heights, I was particularly careful with this release mechanism and the way the filter was installed in the Holder at all times. However, it’s well built and easy to use and I trust it now.

My last tip has to do with motion blur and shallow depth of field. The two don’t like each other much. I say this because I was trying to shoot wide open at night and also create some streaking light sources. Trouble is, the image can all look blurry or out of focus quite quickly! So my suggestion is to shoot night scenes, time lapse, with some Stops on the lens to increase your depth of field a little, especially if you are using longer lenses. I typically was shooting f4 at nighttime with a longer exposure time for blur length. If you are after less blur length, then it maybe OK to open the lens up a bit to say f2 but it does depend on your lens size.

Finally, “Singapore Awakens” was filmed using a variety of lenses including the 24mm TS lens, 100-400mm Canon Zoom, 24-105mm Canon Zoom and a Canon 50mm f1.4. I used my Canon Intervelometer again which is very useful and a very lightweight Carbon fibre tripod made by Manfrotto. I do love this tripod but with the heavy click of the shutter, this tripod is not ideal for time lapse. Using Mirror lockup isn’t an option either so my suggestion would be to use a heavier gauged tripod.

As mentioned earlier, I edited the footage in Final Cut Pro. The images were again converted into Apple ProRes (HQ) using Mpeg Streamclip and I scored the soundtrack in Garageband. Actually this was my first experience using Garageband only and it is definitely a very capable soundtrack editor. I normally will use Logic or Soundtrack Pro but I thought I would give Garageband a go.

That’s it for now. Enjoy “Singapore Awakens”.

On the 22nd of February I jumped ship from another project to resume work on a Canon TVC. This commercial was shot in Hong Kong right on New Years Eve December 2009. After production had concluded, I remained in Hong Kong for the New Years Eve celebrations and then traveled to Singapore for the Offline. Over the next few days, VHQ Singapore looked after the Offline edit through editor Corrine Yong, and One-Light/ Final Grade with Corey Spykerman. The Offline was then presented to Client via ECD Hiroshi Yoda (Dentsu Beijing)  back in Beijing.

A break in works commenced as I began work on a documentary project and for the next month, VHQ began to slowly Online the TVC in my absence.

On the 22nd of Feb, we re-grouped in Singapore to finnish the TVC. Swee Aik  Khor was my Online Compositor, who slowly replaced the Hong Kong skyline with mountains and a more appropriate vista! The 3D team headed by Eric Gambini, created a 3D EOS 5DMKII Camera and a Canon Legria HM31 Camcorder plus hundreds of photo frames that represent the high quality image sequence that the camcorder can produce using the same technology that’s found inside it’s professional EOS stills cameras. Over that week, VHQ worked pretty hard to meet our deadline, which meant delivering a Master by Sunday the 28th of Feb. On the 27th of February, we stepped into AMX Studios, off Bukit Paso Rd Singapore. and David Ong mixed and Engineered Jonathan Lim’s Score.

Shooting Gallery Producers Freddie Kee & Leollyne Teng put together the shoot in Hong Kong in record time. Daniel Wu was only available for a certain amount of time before he began production of a major motion picture film in China with Kevin Spacey. That meant that the shoot had to occur with very little preproduction lead up. Amazingly, directly after Christmas, we shot the commercial. Daniel was fantatsic to work with again. I had previously worked with him on another Canon TVC shot almost a year earlier. That time I had suspended Daniel from wires, using a Hong Kong Wire stunt team. This time, we were asking him to ride a horse at high speed! Luckily for me, he’s a great guy and doesn’t mind mucking it out! Because the weather was a constant threat and it was the height of winter, the shoot had to be quick. That meant fast setups, lots of fast rigging and plenty of large scale movement across a large disused land fill site. We quickly changed from dolly shots, to hand held (using an easy rig) on a tracking vehicle chasing Daniel riding his horse. Then back to static camera shooting Green Screen shots. The day was action packed and we had to complete everything before the light fell or it started to rain! Adding to the complication were all the special effect requirements. The sequence of images that form on one particular shot involved a complicated locked off camera shot. Daniel and the Horse would then ride through at high speed. The Camera was then released from the lock-off and traveled on an arc through the line of imaginary images left behind Daniel. The ground was so rough here that it was almost impossible to get a smooth track with what we had and the given time. Still the idea is strong and I think it works.

The Hong Kong production team were really excellent again. Mostly they were the same team I had worked with a year a go, so I felt very comfortable working with them again. The combination of the locals and the small Shooting Gallery Team from Singapore were very efficient. In addition to the film crew, we also had horse wranglers, two horses, tracking vehicle department, and a large Agency team. Actually one of them, John, took it upon himself to act as the rain guardian and spent quite a bit of time directing the clouds with his arms! Luckily we completed the shoot and made it safely back to Singapore.

Back in Singapore, the filming continued. In the Shooting Gallery Studio, we completed the product shots on a purpose built S board. Raman is an in house set constructor and all round “fix it” guy who is just amazing to work with. His brain is wired to think logically and cleverly solve production problems, using anything available to him. On this job, his task was relatively easy but he did it with incredible speed and flare!

After a long day on the 28th, we “Mastered” the TVC and it was done! All in all, I’m happy with the outcome. There were many limitations placed on us while making this TVC. Firstly we had to film everything in Hong Kong – there aren’t too many places you can recreate the wild west in Hong Kong! Secondly, the weather was not in our favour! All things aside, I think we managed to produce an interesting spot for Canon.

The TVC can be viewed here. A making of video can be seen on Vimeo here . Enjoy!

After finally making it back home for a couple of weeks, back in Melbourne, I have been able to catchup with family and friends but also process many of the images I have captured around the world.

When ever I get the time, I try to do some time lapse photography. I’m not entirely sure why, I just felt that it would be a good idea to do a little here and there to form a collection of sequences that could be used on commercial projects etc. Lately I have been thinking that it’s a shame these images aren’t out in the open for people to see. So I started to collate them onto a timeline in Final Cut Pro. With no real theme or purpose, I started to formulate an edit based on a music video style approach and realised that a theme did exist – The World in Motion. For what it’s worth, here is my short film, made entirely out of time lapse I shot on my 5DMKII, using a 24mm Shift & Tilt Lens, 50mm f1.4 Canon Lens, 24-105mm Canon zoom & a 15mm Canon wide angle lens. I used a Canon TC-80N3 Intervalometer to control the camera. The camera was nearly always mounted to my Manfrotto Tripod. I say nearly always because rarely I did do some time lapse with the camera sitting on a box or chair etc.

I use MPEG Streamclip by Squared 5 to assemble the images into a Quicktime movie. Generally I use Apple Prores 422(HQ) as the codec. I then edit the footage inside Apples Final Cut Pro. I will make a note though, when ever possible, I try to shoot with a ND8 filter on so that I can set my exposure time to something close to half a second. It depends what the subject is but generally I try to shoot some where between 1/8th – 3/4′s of a second. This is because I generally don’t like the crisp, sharp time lapse that creates a very rigid staccato movement. This video unfortunately has quite a lot of this which works OK but generally I prefer the softer look of the blurred movement. Knowing what level of blur is acceptable is really the key to doing great Time Lapse work.

This is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the footage I’ve shot, however in the future I might consider editing the rest into another short. Incidentally, the music is composed in Garageband by yours truly. Mostly loops with a smattering of Midi instruments. Finally, all the images you see in this edit were shot in 2010 from January through to March. Hope you enjoy it.

To watch the movie see it on Vimeo.com here or click any of the above images.

After Machete Maidens concluded in Singapore, I stayed on while the rest of the crew headed back to Melbourne. While I can’t divulge what exactly I was working on, other then that it was for Canon, there wasn’t any spare time between the two jobs. The next morning was spent re-familiarising myself with the footage and approving work created by VHQ in Singapore. The process of working on television commercials is just so different to long form projects, it’s always a bit of a culture shock to me when I swap between the two styles of filmmaking! A week of intense Post Production activities past and at the end of it, I think we produced a pretty amazing commercial. I will certainly blog about the experience when the time is right.

In true fashion, the TVC was completed on a Sunday night, after the last official day of the Chinese New Year Celebrations ended! Actually, I went down to Chinatown to witness the fireworks display and street theatre that took place in Singapore. Quite a cool experience. However, on Monday the 1st of March, I flew to Jakarta to start my next job. As it turned out, again there was no break between the projects! After landing I went straight into preproduction meetings at the office before finally crashing in my hotel room!

I’m now deeply intrenched into the preproduction stage of that job, with filming to start on the 8th of March and conclude on the 9th!