The next installment, which introduces SSE's boiler rescue service for customers, sees Maya introduce Pixel, to the environment in which they live, a park overlooking London, brought to life by a neon house structure in its centre. As they cross paths with a human family, also made up by a mother and her young child, the two children dare to explore the neon house, quietly representative of the light and energy running the city, who’s skyline lays romantically in the background throughout this spot.
Head of 3D, Rob Holmes tells us, “With two award winning spots under our belt, the latest installment of the SSE campaign had to surpass it's predecessors creatively and technically. Our experience on the previous SSE commercials gave us a solid foundation. Every artist from modeling through to compositing was attuned to the idiosyncrasies that make each component feel real.
Conckerco directed a beautiful film and series of idents, which presented us with a number of new challenges. The greatest of which was the introduction of Pixel. They say never work with animals or children, we had to create a character that was both of these in a fraction of the time it took to craft Maya.
The biggest challenges, however, were the intimate close up shots of Maya and Pixel. The painstaking tech-animation needed for hair interactions between multiple characters required us to create bespoke tools for this specific task. Needless to say, it all worked out as well as we hoped and these shots look fantastic.
Overall, the team did an amazing job on SSE 'Neon House' and we look forward to whatever challenges may await us on any future films.”
Colourist Mick Vincent also added, "The grade on this SSE was, as usual, a real collaborative process. The initial grade on all the empty plates had to be close to the end result so that the CG could be made to fit seamlessly without introducing a moving target.
Not only were we concerned with the Orangutans but the blend of the real and CG neon lights. The look of the neon became quite a big issue as they needed to be warm and cold with a hot spot through the center, however if they were too hot they took the eye away from the mother and baby, similarly too warm and the background appeared cold.
We applied the original grade to the tech pass every few days to re-evaluate, fortunately we stayed true to the original, allowing us to see what needed to be changed to produce the quality we now expect."