The Mill London team have produced a beautiful new commercial for US luxury car mark Infiniti. Directed by French directing team Pleix for Chiat Day/ TBWA through BlinkInk, the spots contain a very clever use of paint for dramatic effect. In the first spot we see the Infiniti creating and parting huge waves as it drives through a sea of warm coloured paint, and in the second spot a stormy sky of deep blues, purples and yellows crash above the cars below.

This is another successful collaboration with Pleix and The Mill. Pleix worked with The Mill on another car campaign for US manufacturer Pontiac called ‘EQ’, ‘Swarm’ and ‘Worlds’ and more recently on ‘Birds’: a music promo for band Vitalic.

With pre-production lasting over two months, this effects-heavy project employed four of our senior flame artists and key members of The Mill 3D animation team.

Lead Flame Artist on both spots and VFX Supervisor on the shoot Yourick Van Impe commented, ‘I want to make sure that viewers watching these spots know that there was no time-slice involved in this project ?‚àö√ë‚àö¬® all the paint was shot in the studio at high speed with Phantom cameras ?‚àö√ë‚àö¬® the original paint was one colour and to create the multi-coloured paint I had to grade each section’. Shooting the paint at high speed (up to 2,000 frames a second) rather than time-slice gave the director and Mill team greater range for creating the effects.

All of the live action paint shots and splashes required CG enhancements, colour grading and lighting detail. The process of matting-off the live action paint from the backgrounds and compositing with the car and making the interaction of the paint and car look realistic was very challenging for the Mill team.

Along with aesthetically improving the footage, other challenges included creating translucent light and reflections in the paint, the addition of 3D paint splashes and creating realistic shadows for the cars.

View the Spot here!

Adam Scott, Senior Colourist at The Mill London, brought this beatufiful film to life with a vibrant colourful grade.

Infiniti is on-air in the US only.

The Mill, London
40-41 Great Marlborough Street
Soho, London W1F 7JQ
+44 20 7287 4041
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The Mill, New York
451 Broadway 5th floor
New York NY 10013
+1 212 337 3210
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