FLYING GOLDEN UMBRELLAS PROVIDE SHELTER

When Kuwait Finance House wanted to introduce their new gold investment account - “Gold account-i” to the Malaysian public with their first ever television commercial, the directors and production team were asked to not just inform of the bank’s new product features, but also convey to consumers a persuasive message that gold is a safe investment and Kuwait Finance House (KFH) is the bank for Malaysians to invest with.

The idea for the TV commercial which was developed by Directors Think Tank, answered their client’s brief in full and more with a simple but visually stunning idea using shiny ‘golden umbrellas’ floating from the sky, hovering and providing shelter to people as the symbolic icon for Kuwait Finance House’s and its new gold investment account.

The TVC opened with “big feel” scenes of country outskirts panned to urban cityscapes depicting KFH’s availability around the country. Showing people from all walks of life and ages was also a key component of the ad’s concept in suggesting that the bank and its new gold account is for everyone.

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Despite the simplicity of the idea, producing the images on the concept of gold umbrellas floating in from the sky to hover over people was not so simple for Asia-Pacific Videolab (APV). The APV team was given the responsibility of creating seamless motion and blending the whimsical and fun gold umbrellas into shot footage of KFH’s “The Umbrella” TV commercial. From early on in the production, APV’s team was consulted to get the winning end result. Actual umbrellas were used and shot on film everywhere. The production crew had at all times of the shoot an array of umbrellas that were shot on blue screen in a wide variety of perspectives and lighting conditions in all the locations of the commercial.

The commercial, which required shooting a variety of umbrellas in as many views as possible, supported post-production with its thorough planning. Asia-Pacific Videolab’s team was given the challenge of producing scenes with sheer numbers of gold umbrellas and each having its own distinct “character”. Adding more to the umbrellas shot on blue screen, additional CG umbrellas were made and animated for better visual effect. The challenge of animating and compositing the large number and variety of umbrellas in so many shots was overcome using Flame.

Using Flame, the CG artists and designers at Asia-Pacific Videolab had to firstly, key out blue screen umbrellas that were shot stationary but rotating at different speeds. This was followed by giving the umbrellas a nice floating motion then set on a path in 3D space. To produce better realism, APV’s CG artists further tweaked offsets with timing, rotation and bobbing. The final touches to each umbrella is another process that starts of with colour-grading, lighting adjustments, adding atmospherics, Z-defocusing effects and ending with adding in some film-grain.