Iconclast worked with We Are From L.A directors Clements Durou and Pierre Dupaquier on HP’s newest product launch for OMEN x Desktop featuring a frustrated gamer who completely loses his cool when his computer crashes.
The explosive spot was brought to life by The Mill’s VFX team, who comped in a range of live action objects at super slow speeds as well as augmented in 3D. Lead 2D Artists and VFX Supervisor Jimmy Bullard comments, “We shot on the new Phantom Flex 4K at varying framerates up to 1000fps in order to capture objects and people moving at super slow speeds that we could use in our comps. There were a number of items we couldn't capture in camera so our CG team led by Laurent Giaume, built a lot of completely original objects that we could add into our shots. They also recreated all the objects we had on set so we could remove the real ones and reposition/replace them with our CG versions. We also incorporated complex simulations in Houdini in order to achieve a realistic movement to the objects flying through the air.
Creatively, we really wanted to have continuity on positioning and look of all the items, this was a big challenge for the 2D team. There are a few nice little gags in there that we spent a bunch of time working out and setting up. There are the obvious ones such as the water droplet and the basketball but my favourite is the little secret storyline of the goldfish battling to avoid the shark's jaws inside the water.”