Nevada Energy | Next Level Savings

The Challenge:

After working on a previous Nevada Energy spot with the team at R&R Partners, I was excited when they came back for another. This time, the brief was more open-ended, with the key ask being a visual concept that featured our hero characters interacting with large-scale 3D phrases, all tied to key callouts in their energy-saving campaign.

The Solve & My Approach:

On paper, this spot was deceptively simple but ended up being highly technical (my favorite kind of job if I’m being honest). This spot needed a few things: Detailed previz, big, dynamic camera moves, and a smooth pipeline from our practical elements on set to the CG elements in post. Here’s how we put the puzzle pieces together.

Previz:

Before jumping into 3D, the team and I at R&R developed the story flow for the key callouts to their campaign. It was crucial to get these locked in as early as possible. It started with rough diagrams of each phrase and how the camera might move.

Once these were all approved, we moved into full 3D previz with our VFX artist Joey Deutsch. Please enjoy my incredible voiceover.

Camera Movement

From the beginning, we knew we wanted the camera to feel big and energetic to match the scale of the typography. Motion control gave us the precision and repeatability we needed, so we shot on the Bolt. We really wanted these moves to feel larger than life and keep the audience on their toes.

The agency and I also loved the idea of starting and ending the spot through a washing machine rather than just diving right into the 3D world.

From 3D to Practical, to Post

This is where things got highly technical. I have to shout out my DP Patrick Ouziel and VFX artist Joey (again) for the countless hours we spent on Zoom prepping.

Given how much our characters physcially interact with these 3D letters, I knew how important precision was. For example, when characters had to sit atop or push/pull certain phrases, we’d need to know the size of them in 3D space to make sure they matched with their physical counterparts. I knew that any inconsistency here would ruin the illusion so I have to thank Noel Calizo for leading the art team and his attention to detail.

We even designed a grid like system in the 3D space that would align with our practical set. Given that we had a single shoot day, this grid system allowed us to place our motion control unit in a spot that it could stay in all day.

Finally, our amazing motion control tech, Ben Sledge worked closely with our VFX artist on set to give us a live view of our camera move aligned with the 3D phrases. This was particularly useful for the client and agency to see what the final product would look like. With projects like this, the more we can show up front, the smoother the process is for everyone.

Here’s what our entire spot looked like pre-VFX.

And the finished product.

And as a little extra…