Motion Graphics Studio: Energi Design Creative Director: Steve Holmes
www.clickenergi.com
Le Tourment Vert is owned by Vinet Ege
© Energi Design
What was the main concept and inspiration for this project?
We came up with three different concepts. There was a colorful version, a lighter one, and then I came up with a third, darker one, where everything was offset, cracked, and broken. There is a sense of life and new growth with a sort of clean feel that transpires from it, but there's also a sort of a grungy, dark, and slightly twisted feel to it. I really, really liked this concept, but unfortunately it didn't go through.
Figure 4.81 Steve Holmes.
186
Chapter 4 LIGHTS, COLOR, AND CLARITY: PREPARING YOUR TITLESThe finished design was very clean. What I tried to do with the launch of the product was to take it away from the historical visual that people associate with absinthe, which is the backstreets of Paris and the late 1800s and early 1900s. The product appeared very modern, and I think it needed to be approached from a slightly more historical view, and that's where the textured paper came in. I was inspired to form a mixture of clean graphic elements and old- fashioned backgrounds and then just blend the two together to create something different.
Figure 4.82b
Chapter 4 LIGHTS, COLOR, AND CLARITY: PREPARING YOUR TITLES
187
I like the idea of a clean graphic element being used to actually spill the design elements out onto the page, which in this case blended with the general scene remarkably, almost as if the liquid was dripped onto the paper.
We went through ideas of making this almost like real liquid, having it shine or glisten. That flow became pretty much the standard for the rest of it. We followed it through on the type and everything else. Trying to keep things as connected, so like putting in maps in the background, as if you were watching the reflections and refractions in the background imagery through a glass. It really was that challenge to take new imagery and make it old; I think that's really where it started.
There's a nice flow to the piece, almost as if it was a script. How much has your research influenced the piece?
Well, oddly enough I had to go to Paris shortly after this brief came in. I ended up going to the Museé D'Orsay and actually viewing the unique pieces that are in there, which was perfect.
There was a series of artists who had already been featured in some of the advertising for the launch of this product, some pieces had already been put out there, but they were all really modern. Ideas like “It worked for Degas, it works for whoever.” I decided to take a look at the work of 1,800 artists such as Degas and the textures they used in their works, and I took a few pictures whilst I was there.
And that's where my ideas for the artwork came into play, because I was able to see their work and almost imagine this green flow of liquid forming their art, 'cause that's what they said, really; absinthe was their muse. It was good to be able to mix elements together in terms of color and historically.
What was your approach in regard to type?
I didn't want something that was too modern, so I did a little bit of research on serif typefaces, old-fashioned typefaces, block typefaces.
It also worked nicely that the thickness of the serifs lent itself very nicely to the thickness of the swirls that would come from it. With Clarendon, our second-best choice, the slabs were so thick that the swirls coming out of them would have been too heavy, and I think this would have overwhelmed the rest.
The messaging was kind of simple and I think the typeface we used just fit it very easily, because it was condensed. It works in a good mixture of large and small, and that was the nice thing about it. I wanted all the messaging to be stacked on top of each other, keeping similar widths and just growing heights. With a condensed typeface you have a lot more flexibility in that respect.
I just like the form it's got; it has a slight Western feel to it as well. That was probably my third choice, and the client went for it.
To what extent were you allowed creative freedom by your client?
There was a lot of creative freedom, which was really good. There were three concepts provided, 30 frames for each concept, presenting an entire story and laying the basis of the messaging right. They liked all three initially, and I believe they wanted to use all three, which was great.
But they boiled it down to the fact that the one they've picked was a lot cleaner and a lot sharper. And so, from this I then developed it into a texture, and as the texture got darker, that was the only time really, that they pulled back and said, “Let's just keep it on the light side.” But really that was the only major feedback.
We changed some of the elements, as there were a lot more graphic elements originally. They wanted paintbrushes when it was all about the artist, they wanted this script in the background when it was about the poets, and that actually became a little busy.
The whole thing was only 30 seconds, there was only so much distraction you could have there, so I went back to them and exposed the problem, and they were okay with that. So it was good in that respect, it was one of those projects that flowed fairly well.
188
Chapter 4 LIGHTS, COLOR, AND CLARITY: PREPARING YOUR TITLESWhat did the project timeline look like, from beginning of the project to the deliverable?
I think we spent about two weeks on concept, and then about another week refining the final concept when it was chosen, and production was about two weeks. It was fast turnaround. And that probably affected the lack of changes and the direction the client was going in.
Since the spot was going to be used at the Sundance Festival between each of the film sections—as they were promoting the drink there—and was also going to be played in flight in Virgin America—as they became the first airline to take this drink on board—they had to have the commercial in a very short time. That's why the timeline was kind of fast and furious. It gave it a kind of definite “We have to have it done by this time to have it by this time.”
How does the use of camera move the story forward?
The camera movement on this commercial was defined by the concept: a drink or a bottle spilled over onto a napkin or a piece of paper. So you are following all of these trails no matter how far they go across this infinite-sized piece of paper.
We wanted the camera moves to be flexible enough to rotate: not just follow a line but actually spin around 180 degrees, over the z-axis and the y-axis, but also to have a little bit of movement, a slightly handheld effect, but not too much.
The distance of the 3D camera from the paper stays essentially the same. The individual objects have a different z-space value which gives them a slight offset when things move, like having textures moving separate from the background.
By pulling those elements off separately by 100, 200 pixels each, we had the capability to use a little bit more flow with the camera. That then revealed more of the differences between those 3D layers. If we kept all the elements flat, then the camera moves would have pretty much just made it all, and I think that would have been boring.
I think we took a good decision because to randomly move the camera would have been the easy choice. We would have ended up with a more lazy, storytelling kind of view, instead of a distinctive drunken feel to it.
The only forced camera move that had to be done was right at the very end when we come in on the logo. The design element of the devil's face here in the background bleeds in. But it is barely there, and as it gets darker toward the end of the commercial, you can see it actually becoming quite heavy, which is nice I think, it has got a nice imposing feel to it. The end frame is actually my favorite of the piece because of its dark texture and because it gets a little more foreboding. I now have this image in my head that I can't get rid of.
The camera move on this last shot was actually a trick: It resulted from a two-dimensional rotoscope. This was because coming from 3D and revealing the two-dimensional bottle got a little too complicated. So inside essentially there's another composition, and I just rotoscoped five or six frames to reveal it. And in the new composition there's just another 3D camera that's just slightly moving in. So that was really the only twist.
The French background of Paris, that was really quite nice. Was it done by a designer of yours?
No, actually a designer called iStockphoto! We found some fantastic high-res illustrations of Paris landmarks and we just acquired them, layered them, and repositioned them so they would fit the HD and the SD versions. We then filled them with texture, which I originally intended to do in paper form with the text on it, kind of like the dark design.
But in the end it was a little too dark overall, and you couldn't see much of the detail because the texture was taking over. But they worked really well and they took a little while to render, especially the Eiffel Tower, there's so much detail in that. Everything else was provided.
Chapter 4 LIGHTS, COLOR, AND CLARITY: PREPARING YOUR TITLES
189
Figure 4.83a Still frames from Le Tourment Vert, designed by Energi Design.
Figure 4.83b
Figure 4.83c Figure 4.83d
Figure 4.83e Figure 4.83f
190
Chapter 4 LIGHTS, COLOR, AND CLARITY: PREPARING YOUR TITLESFigure 4.83i Figure 4.83j
© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi: 10.1016/B978-0-240-81419-3.00005-2