New Work...

American Total Orthopedics 'Art of the Body' campaign



Medical marketing is an interesting phenomenom. The infusion of cutting edge technology mixed with the science of the human body are the subject matters of choice. In this recent campaign completed entirely under the roof of Locke Bryan Productions, I got to create the hyper real.

First, we began with the how. How are we going to imply a level of futurism but not simply recreate the latest Star Wars? Ideas were thrown around, some thrown out, in the end it was agreed upon that we would display the human body...as art. The Phantom High Speed camera by Vision Research was set to be used to shoot these bodies, at 500 frames per second. But that wasn't enough. In order to contrast the fluid motion of the athletes, a guide would walk us through the experience walking and talking naturally.

And that was the brief. No big deal. I began with references. The body on display. I thought of Damien Hirst and his creepy displays. The idea of a museum came about. Interiors were referenced. White on white, a blank canvas. Light would be the paint brush.



We shot on a Thursday. Everyone watched the monitors closely as gymnasts, ballet dancers, and martial arts experts performed gravity defying moves. View more production stills here. Now the hard part begins...



I modeled the space in 3ds Max. Part musuem, part purgatory; I ran into Steven Holl's work. His use of ambient natural light was exactly the mood I was looking for. Also referenced were Frank Lloyd Wright's use of windows and many trips to archdaily.com. I used HDRI imagery to light the space from the outside. Not a single interior light was used. Vray was my render engine of choice because of it's photorealistic indirect illumination capabilities.



Watch the rest of the making of unfold here.

I designed a GUI and implemented that with xrays of an accurate model of human anatomy to push the tech and medical themes. The GUI's design was centered around a central theme of a circle. All animation was derived from the center.



All compositing was done inside of The Foundry's Nuke. This allowed for multi channel open exr files for optimal control of the 3d plates.

Finally an original score was written by Stephen Benitez. Sound design was added by Audiobob. Finishing was done in Avid Symphony at a 2.15 aspect ratio to further differentiate this campaign from all others. The end result can be seen here.



Thanks to everyone involved including all at Locke Bryan Productions, ATO, Chip Schneider for concept and script writing, and DP Gary Watson.