Title: Dissection
Client: Absolut Spirits, Stockholm
Agency: TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York
Worldwide Creative Director: Rob Smiley
Creative Director: Lew Willig
Copywriter: Meghan Simons
Art Director: Megan Williams
Producer: Jamie Grady

Production Company: Psyop, New York
Directors: Marco Spier, Chris Staves, Mate Steinforth
Designer: Mate Steinforth
Director of Photography: Martin Ahlgren
Executive Producer: Lucia Grillo
Producer: Nathan Jew
Assistant Producer: Tarun Charaipotra
Live Action Producer: Paul Middlemiss

Visual Effects Company: MassMarket, New York
VFX Executive Producer: Justin Lane
Technical Director: Jacob Slutzky
Lead Flame Artist: Nick Tanner
Flame Artists: Chris Staves, Theo Maniatis
Pre Visual Artist: Damon Ciarelli
Editor: Cass Vanini
XSI Team: Dave Barosin, Jan Bitzer, Andrea Gebhardt, Jae Ham, Bashir Hamid, Andy Hara, Florian Witzel, Miguel Salek, Boris Ustaev, Jason Vega, Lee Wolland
Roto Artists: Leslie Chung, David Marte, Joon Park

Sound mixer: Peter Holcomb, Sound Lounge, New York
Music: Small Sails, Somnambulist

Directed By Psyop VFX By MassMarket.

The Spot And The Rest Of The Story:
Q&A compiled by Psyop & MassMarket on "Dissection".

What was the creative brief from the agency?
The spot is based upon one of their print campaign ideas which features a cocktail glass exploding out to reveal the liquid contained within it. They wanted to expand on that concept and disassemble a full Absolut Vodka bottle, linger on the vodka within, and then reassemble it by the end of the spot.

How did you approach the project creativity?
The first question we asked ourselves was how to keep a 45 second spot interesting in which you essentially only see a bottle breaking into pieces and coming together again. We introduced the concept of rising complexity. We wanted to start the spot very abstract and sparse, gradually adding complexity and realism. The breakup of the bottle would be only a graphic line at the beginning which would branch out and crack open into more and more complex patterns.

We would follow this progression in interesting close up shots until we get to a moment at about two thirds of the spot in which the liquid is floating in space, separated from all glass pieces. This would be a moment of pause. At that point we would reverse the direction of movement and have the pieces come back together. But rather then having them just reversed, we wanted them to reassemble in a somewhat intelligent way, as if each of them would have some sort of intelligence, finding the pieces next to it. Eventually they would form the Absolut bottle.

What was the most interesting or best part of this job?
The shoot was pretty impressive. We knew that all of the glass pieces would be created in CG, but in order to achieve the suspended vodka at the center of the bottle, we wanted to photograph as much as we could of real liquid. To capture this, we used a water balloon, with roughly the same proportions as the main body of the Absolut bottle, and pierced it with a blowdart. We filmed this at 8000 frames per second (normal film runs at 24 fps). This allowed us to capture the milliseconds between when the balloon peels away from the water and when the water starts collapsing. To watch it in real time is unremarkable, but when the film is slowed down this much, the water maintains the shape of the balloon for several seconds before slowly collapsing on itself. It's mesmerizing to watch.

Were there any challenges?
Technically there were a lot of challenges involved. We were shooting the balloon at 8000fps, which is about the fastest you can go with a decent image resolution. So, we needed a crazy amount of light for that, which was just at the edge of what the electrical systems in the studio could support. Sometimes the balloon would pop just from the heat the lights were generating.

Coming back from the shoot, we started creating all of the glass elements in CG, which was very challenging, because there is a huge amount of pieces, which all reflect and refract. Our bottle had three layers of glass pieces that all had to interlock in all 3 dimensions. To be able to render those scenes, we ordered 10 new 64bit, 16GB Ram Renderboxes.

What tools were used?
We used Softimage XSI as a 3D Package. Compositing was done in Flame.

Anything else I should know?
About 80% of the liquid featured in the spot is real, photographed slow-motion vodka, but there are a couple of shots that feature completely CG vodka. We were pleasantly surprised at how well we were able to integrate the CG vodka with the photographed vodka.

Inside PSYOP:
www.psyop.tv

Psyop was founded in 2000 by Eben Mears, Marie Hyon, Marco Spier, Kylie Matulick and Todd Mueller.

New York City-based Psyop is an inspiring culmination of creativity, collaboration and production focused on providing visual solutions in motion for the advertising & marketing, video gaming, broadcast and music video industries.

The company continues its insurgence into these industries with its distinct conceptual approach, collaborative nature and dynamically fresh aesthetics. Seamlessly blending the disciplines of design, animation and live-action directing Psyop approaches elaborate challenges with extraordinary creative and technical flexibility providing unique solutions and design with meaning.

Psyop's appropriation of the identity of the United States government's division of psychological operations represents a critical awareness of the power that advertising has and the importance of accurate and targeted communications.

Their motto is "Persuade, Change & Influence"

For More Information Contact:
Shannon Stephaniuk | Website: glossyinc.com