Method Creates a Monster

  Method recently collaborated with Crispin Porter & Bogusky and Director Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead) on “Break From the Crowd” a 60-second spot for Miller Lite.  Using cutting-edge previsualization, motion capture, and Massive, the Method team led by VFX supervisor Alex Frisch used a thousand individual characters to create one friendly giant plodding through the streets of a big city, adding to its bulk as it goes.  

  To achieve the look of this dynamic spot, Method was approached early in the process by Agency producer Matt Bonin.  Method collaborated with Halon Entertainment in pre-visualizing all the scenes from Zack’s storyboard before production began and several of our 2D and 3D artists were on hand to supervise on set.  After the shoot and meticulous planning, the Method team was ready to create the CG giant.  

Making innovative use of Massive software and working with motion capture experts House of Moves, Method went about creating a believable giant.  Our team of 3D Artists, led by James LeBloch, incorporated all the motion capture clips in Massive blending real world dynamics on to the mocap moves; the individuals react to events both as individuals and as a group.  With the giant comprised of approximately 1200 people, Method developed tools to enable our artists to make changes to the giant that would be reflected in each of the people.  Gil Baron, CG Technical Supervisor for the spot, oversaw a whole new pipeline in which we used Massive for all the dynamics and Autodesk Maya to set up the shots.  Our software developer Hai Nguyen wrote software to feed the data from Maya to Massive and back again.  The data was then sent out using Mayaman to Air, our rendering software.  It was a complex process, but the final effect of the spot is only more impressive with the efficiency and speed in which we finished it.