Grimbergen

"World of Flavours"

Final DC spot on YT

The Brief

In 2021, we got to work on project with the director Martin Aamund. We had the great opportunity to work with him on many other projects at UPP Advertising - you can check the VFX Breakdown on their site. The task for this project was to showcase the hero flying through different worlds that would highlight the different flavours of the Grimbergen beer lineup. That means a guy flying on greenscreen, full CG environments, some CG squirrels, a huge big-ass phoenix burning and catching that guy mid-air — the cool shit! :)

The Process

I was brought on board from the very beginning as an art director / right-hand man for our VFX Supervisor / CEO Jan Malíř. A lot of back and forth with the director and agency, tons of references, and some treatments from our side to get the ball rolling.

We partnered again with the guys and gals from One Pixel Brush — getting to meet Shaddy Safadi in our Prague studio was great — seeing him acclimate to Czech weather still in flip-flops, LA style, in late October 🙂

Concept art by One Pixel Brush & UPP Advertising.

OPB designed most of the environments, and the rest was done on our side by our concept artists Martin Kostuň and Lukáš Hoffman. Most of the time was spent developing the cathedral interior and the bird, I think — handing over concepts and me doing overpaints and sending them back to the OPB artists. And after the concept stage, there was still lots of development by our CG team, with Thomas Scarlett finishing the design of the bird with all the feather crazyness in Maya. Animation was pretty tricky as well - time it together with the live action shot of the guy falling on wires, the giant bird catching it mid air and make it all believable physics-wise. This was handeled by David Drbal. The birds crazy long tail was simulated as well as the inferno sim by Václav Rolník in Houdini.

Phoenix development.

Environment development.

I might have this wrong, but I think this was my first serious art direction job after quitting 2D work/compositing, so I was also diving into the world of 3D and had my first encounter with issues regarding world scale and units — yeah, that fucking world of trouble :) But that learning process helped me and the team figure out certain shots — like the mystical forest with giant trees, and it broadened my understanding of cameras/gear and their effect in post-production.

Other responsibilities I had were a mix of rough concepts for matte paint finishing, searching references, layouts for the forest, and paintovers. Generally collaborating throughout the studio with all artists from any department to keep the visuals coherent and make sure the story & tone were respected from the initial brief.

The Conclusion

I was very happy about the opportunity to work on this project and start to figure out my new role as an artist — shifting from compositing to basically a generalist VFX designer. Being able to be in the very early stages of the project, decoding the ideas of the director/agency and helping transfer them to the final visuals.

Thanks for checking out the project!