The new HP “hands campaign” commercial
2. What have you found is the best tool or innovation that has come out in the last year?
The red digital camera
3. The project (film, television, commercial or music video) that most impressed you in the last year? Why?
Enfermà©s dehors, a French movie directed by Albert Dupontel. Good humor and excellent performances.
4. The best or favorite project that you worked on in the past year? And why?
HP “Michel Gondry” (directed by Olivier Gondry). I love the mix of different techniques.
5. Name the top 4 artists on your iPod?
Antibalas
daft punk
Gwendo&Dan
Mat&Fab
As one might expect, this first ad is both fresh and entertaining, with fashion icon Vera Wang expounding on the many facets of her life impacted by the capabilities of her HP notebook. The spot begins with a locked-off shot of Wang's desk; the designer is seated behind the desk, with mostly her hands and voice apparent to the viewer. As Wang extols the virtues of her HP, the surface of her desk becomes a canvas for her life: her daughters are seen ice skating, numerous vignettes of people and places pop up, even the set of the commercial in which she's appearing materializes on the desk. The point is that Wang uses her HP notebook for everything, from personal and business media to communications, music and design.
"Olivier described his vision for this spot as the creation of fine art," explained Eight Executive Producer Baptiste Andrieux. "We are taking little moments in our hands and piecing them together on Vera's desk, as we would links in a piece of jewelry." The vignettes in the spot are the result of a collaboration between Gondry, Goodby, and Wang. "In the course of meeting with Vera, Olivier was able to glean a sense of her art and life and how it could relate to her HP," said Andrieux. "Working with the agency, the ideas developed into scenes, which we were asked to consolidate into a series."
While the spot flows seamlessly, with Wang using hand gestures to usher imagery in and out of the scene, there was quite a bit of magic involved. "The desk is the basis of a miniature world," said Senior Compositor Stefan Gaillot of the six vignette changes that take place over the course of the spot. "We used a combination of small-scale models, scaled-down actors and objects, and a dash of Computer Graphics."
"Vera Wang: Empress of Style" differs from the previous HP campaign, in that, for the most part, Gondry chose to manipulate practical elements, rather than simulate them. "Given the interplay among all the elements, this is not the kind of job for which you can pre-visualize the entire vfx and editorial landscape," noted VFX Supervisor Fred Hopp. As such, Gondry and Eight's artists worked closely with editor Mike Hackett of Filmcore. "The post process was a very fluid and interactive process."
"The end result," said Gaillot, "is that in this handmade little world, everything is real and everything is imagined."
CREDITS
Client: Hewlett Packard / PSG
Title of Spot: "Vera Wang: The Empress of Style"
Air date: April 16, 2007
Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Creative Director, Co-Chairman: Rich Silverstein
Creative Director, Partner: Steve Simpson
Group Creative Director/Copywriter: Mike McKay
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Stephen Goldblatt
Executive Producer: Josh Reynolds
Producer: Vicki Tripp/Josh Reynolds
Assistant Producer: Jen Moore
Account Director: Nancy Reyes
Account Manager: Elena Korzhenevich
Assistant Account Manager: Philippa Campbell
Production Company: Partizan Los Angeles & New York
Director: Olivier Gondry
Cameraman/D.P.: Tim Ives
Executive Producer: Sheila Stepanek
Line Producer: Valerie Romer
Head of Production: Ian Bearce
Visual Effects Company: Eight VFX, Santa Monica
Executive Producer: Baptiste Andrieux
Producer: Marsi Frey
Art Director: Yann Mallard
VFX Supervisor/Inferno Artist: Jean-Marc Demmer
Inferno Artists: Ryan Yoshimoto, Stefan Gaillot, Nicolas Cadorette Vigneau, Amalia. Luyet-McMahan
2D Artists: Amalia Luyet-McMahan, Randy Little, Joe Chiao, DJ Fitsimmons
3D Supervisor: Fredric Hopp
3D Artists: Scott Metzger, Chien-I Kao, Matthias Jourdes
On Set Supervisor: Jean-Marc Demmer
End Title Designer: Amalia Luyet-McMahan
Producer/Post & Design: Marsi Frey
Online: Eight Vfx, Santa Monica, CA
Editorial Co.: Filmcore
Editor: Michael Hackett
Assistant Editor: Kristin McCasey
Executive Producer: Scott Friske
Sound Design: Stimmung/Santa Monica
Sound Designer: Gus Koven
Final Music: Mutato Muzika
Composer: Mark Mothersbaugh
Audio Post:POP Sound, Santa Monica
Mix Engineer: Peter Rincon
Crafts: VFX/Animation
Sections: Creativity
Did you enjoy this article? Sign up to receive the StudioDaily Fix eletter containing the latest stories, including news, videos, interviews, reviews and more.
