The new Candyman Crčme Lacto commercial marks Prime Focus’ first full production in association with creative agency Draft FCB+Ulka. Along with directing and shooting, Prime Focus has also completed the entire post production for the commercial under the guidance of Huzefa Lokhandwala and Prakash Kurup, Co–Founders and Creative Directors at Prime Focus Commercials in Mumbai. Prime Focus VFX Supervisor Ben Cowell-Thomas directed the commercial.
The TV commercial showcases the journey of a young boy through a magical world with a magician. The commercial starts with the boy eating a Crčme Lacto candy as a magician appears and takes him into a magical world made entirely of milk, sugar, caramel and crčme. The spot ends with the boy coming out of his magical world as he finishes his candy.
Talking about the execution, Ben who was also the VFX and CG Supervisor for the TVC says, “There were two parts to the execution for the commercial – we had to design, create and animate a magical land as well as the character of the magician.” In addition, the boy had to fit into the magical land and the magician had to fit into the boy’s real world. “We shot the live action with the young boy partly on location and partly in the studio on green screen. In order to ensure smooth execution, we carried out extensively planning prior to the shoot,” he adds.
Rather than using usual CGI methods whilst creating the magical world, Prime Focus used a more creative approach to unify the magical world. “We modelled and lit the entire world before we rendered a series of still images which were then painted with handcrafted textures. These were then projected back into the film, giving it a more illustrative and warm feel.” Ben shares.
Discussing the challenges the team faced during the execution, Ben says, “One of the biggest challenges we faced was the fluid dynamics. With animations of products such as the milk, and crčme as waterfalls and splashes, we had to ensure it looked tempting as well as delicious.”
“Finally the animations and the live action footage were matched and composited together after which online work was completed on Smoke. “He concludes.
Talking about his experience working on the new commercial, Prakash, Co–Founder and Creative Director at Prime Focus Commercials in Mumbai says, “Working on the ad was fun as well as a great learning experience. This was the first time we directed a commercial completely in-house. The knowledge and skills gained and borrowed over all these years of working on commercials came into play, making this a truly enriching experience.”
“All this while, we’ve worked and contributed on various aspects of various commercials and never an ad on the whole, however this was the first time we’ve worked on an entire commercial from head to toe. With Candyman, we got to see our thoughts and ideas all come together and that felt good.” Adds Huzefa, Founder and Creative Director at Prime Focus Commercials in Mumbai.
Credits.
Project: Mobicash
Project: Candyman Crčme Lacto
Agency: Draft FCB+ULKA
Production House: Prime Focus Commercials
Director/VFX and CG Supervisor: Ben Cowell Thomas
Creative Directors: Huzefa Lokandwala, Prakash Kurup
Producer: Daniel Varghese
Line Producer: Tarun Verma, Priti Gulati
Prime Focus.
Creative Directors: Prakash Kurup, Huzefa Lokandwala
Colourist: Rahil Merchant
Offline Editor: Prabir Someshwar
Online Artist: Asad Ansari
Online Assistant: Renuka Braganza
Tracking Lead: Atal Bachani
Compositors : Ketan Kale , Mayank Shekhar, Babu Parameswaran, Abhineet Christian, Nilesh Doshi, Vikas Nag, Anuj Uphadyay, Ninad Pethe
Lighting Artists: Ashwin Karthik, Arun Sharma, Persie Jalgaonwala , Ravindra Adate
Modelling Artists: Ashish Jadhav, Jigar Patel, Deven Patel
Animation Artists: Aditya Padwal, Rupesh Nikharge, Abhishek Jain, Subodh Satpute
Rigger: Manoj Thakare
Texturing Artists: Kinjal Panchal, Prashant Kumar
Dynamics Artist: Ranjan Kumar, Tushar Shah
Matte Painters : Satyawan Pawar, Manish Hedaoo, Prafull Velkar
Roto/Clean Up: Jiten Harkhani, Vaishali Awaghade, Nagesh Jadhav
Junior Creative: Nitya Hariharan
VFX Production Team: Tarun Verma, Arun Shiva Salian, Nicole Seth