Somewhere, Anywhere
Melissa McCarthy conjures up a series of dream holiday scenarios in this optimistic comedic musical film for Booking.com’s Super Bowl LVII showing. Combining music, lyrics and visuals in a captivating way, the spot contains cameos from McCarthy’s real life husband Ben Falcone, and shows how the anticipation of dreaming up destinations and booking them can be half the fun.
Sparking imaginations and capturing the emotions of embarking on a long-awaited vacation, director Alex Prager joined forces with the brand and Framestore’s VFX team to transport viewers through a portal of possibilities.
Collaborating across Los Angeles, New York and London, teams leveraged the Framestore VFX pipeline which allowed for seamless file sharing across the network. Tasked with creating a series of vignettes which each had their own personality and quirks, the project required virtual production to shoot certain scenes on an LED stage. Framestore did significant pre-planning and proof of concept testing as they implemented a new 2.5D technique on the volume, capturing 360 degree footage at various locations and strategically separating background, midground and foreground to reproject onto meshes in a realtime 3D scene that was fed to the wall. Beginning with building a winter wonderland with sprinkled snow, artists also added dimension to a scene in Joshua Tree, populated a beach with people and umbrellas, and animated a seaplane and banner in 2D.
In the extended version, beautiful blue skies were enhanced with digital matte painting, falling dog hair scattered with the help of CFX, and seamless transitions created, all in an effort to support, but not detract from the performance.
“We worked closely with Alex Prager and the brand to interpret their vision and provide elevated imagery that carried the message across,” said Framestore Creative Director Corrina Wilson. “The spot is fresh and fun, with shades of an Esther Williams musical – full of energy, honesty and optimism, while giving a nod to the ‘I’m over it’ feeling that we can all relate to. Melissa’s performance is fantastic, and it’s the commercial we need for this time.”
Final color grade was completed by Company 3.
