"This spot has everything," said Mill Producer, Charlotte Arnold, "celebrity talent, lions, explosions, comedy, aliens brought together by Peter Berg. We see The Rock run through an obstacle course of disasters with the initial instinct to stop and help people, but his pursuit of the Milk ultimately comes first. The comedy comes in the pain you can see in his face at not being able to stop and and help these people".
One of the biggest challenges for was creating a Hollywood scale scene of chaos, destruction and impending alien imperialism for the end shot. The idea was that the tone of this shot match the slightly over the top theme throughout, and give the Rock something to really get his teeth into once he's had his glass of Milk! Using images from the tech scout as a base, the team began to lay out a matte painting for this scene well ahead of the shoot. This allowed time for the creative team to comment and tweak the content of the shot at a very early stage. The matte painting ultimately informed how the scene would be shot, allowing for plenty of space around the Rock for the various elements required in the scene.
"There were so many small elements in the body of the spot which our team worked furiously to get finished early, giving the 3D team time to get all their elements in order before we started on the hero shot," said 2D Lead Artist Corey Brown. "This also gave us space to find unique solutions to separate the one shot across three compositors, all adding an individual voice, but keeping a common direction. It helps that we all love to really sink our teeth into a juicy job like this, and the amount of enthusiasm in finding ways to push it further was really exciting."
Designing the vast alien mother ship hovering over the city was a really exciting element. Exploding buildings, abandoned cars and panicked citizens, helicopters, countless alien attack ships and of course a fully CG alien, were all seamlessly composited onto a beautifully crafted matte painting of the city.
Agency: Deutsch NY
Producer: Josh Litwhiler
Chief Creative Officer: Greg DiNoto
SVP, Creative Director: Bernie Hogya
VP Associate Creative Director: Chip Rich
EVP, Director of Integrated Production: Joe Calabrese
VP, Senior Producer: Josh Litwhiler
Production Company: Pony Show
Director: Peter Berg
Executive Producers: Susan Kirson, Jeff Frankel
Producers: Fern Martin, Helga Gruber
Director of Photography: John Schwartzman
Editing Company: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Adam Pertofsky
Producers: Helena Lee, Juliet Batter
Edit Assist: Victoria Lesiw
VFX & Design: The Mill
VFX Producer: Charlotte Arnold
Shoot Supervisors: Chris Bernier, Corey Brown
Creative Director: Ben Smith
2D Lead Artist: Corey Brown
3D Lead Artist: Chris Bernier
2D Artists: Antoine Douadi, Robert Bruce, Caio Sorrentino
3D Artists: Naotaka Minami, Jimmy Gass, Justin Diamond, Navdeep Singh, Wyatt Savarese, Hassan Taimur (Crowd Effects/Massive)
Matte Painting: Olivier Mitonneau
Spaceship Design: Bryce Wymer
Mix: Audio Engine
Mixer: Carl Mandelbaum
Sound Design: Soundelux
Music: Beta Petrol
Performed by: The Styletones
Creative Director: Brent Asbury
Executive Producer: Jason Adam Baker