Monday 12 March 2012

TubeTape Commercial

I decided to enter a contest being held by TubeTape.com. TubeTape is a company that sells lights, green screens, effects bundles and a bunch of other video production equipment. You can see some of the equipment if you check my behind-the-scenes video posted here.

The contest is for creating a 15 second commercial for them. It was a challenge coming up with something that couldn't exceed 15 seconds that included a before and after concept of how their products help. Lighting is always crucial to setting a good scene, and a green screen can place you in a new world.

The following screenshots are a breakdown of some of the layers in the ship scene. I purchased the Thunderbike model from Daz3D. I did the 3D animation in Blender, attached some lights, and exported the camera and object data out to After Effects. While Blender was rendering, I went over to After Effects to set up my scene, ie background stars, parented lights to object data from Blender. 

Render from Blender with alpha channel

Background Star layer added

Fractal noise red smoke and blast ring added

Optical Flares added




For voice work, I want to give credit to Aaron, a friend from work. I asked him if he would record a couple of lines for me. The, "That, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done!" is him. He gave me all sorts of takes with varying levels of intensity. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Thanks Aaron!

Also, my wife Elisa. She is the other radio voice. For version 2, I also had her do a narration with an English accent. I think it worked out very well and gave it a more commercial feel. Thanks wife!

In the end, I think having 3 voices (mine included) really adds production value. It really makes you feel like there are a lot more characters in the scene.

As for the contest, they'll announce the winner tomorrow. Wish me luck.