Stop at Nothing

Paired with the distinctive voiceover talent of actor Jeffrey Wright, the campaign was a VFX-heavy project, created and shot entirely during the pandemic lockdown. The Framestore team was involved from the pre-visualization phase through to the CG-heavy environments like the server room, ship, and an astronaut floating in space.

In order to make the anthem spot feel cohesive, the Framestore team ideated ways to transition each shot into the next. Working in Flame and Nuke, any re-edits caused a ripple effect on the following sequences, so the focus shifted to each camera move and the timing of transitions, in addition to making everything look photoreal.

When it came time to create the astronaut sequence, the team tracked the original plate shots, UV unwrapped the face texture, then modified the previs version to reflect the actor’s but retexturing her face around a CG head -- showcasing a very creative 2D and 3D solution.

Within the second spot, ‘Cloud,’ CG glass panels and a CG server room were created in addition to a variety of compositing work on the R&D lab with the water tank.

Within the second spot, ‘Cloud,’ CG glass panels and a CG server room were created in addition to a variety of compositing work on the R&D lab with the water tank, not to mention more transitions between various environments to create that steady one shot look.

“I’ve been fortunate to have a longstanding relationship with both the agency and brand teams, having worked on a number of Dell projects over the last decade,” said Gigi Ng, Framestore Creative Director and VFX Supervisor/2D Lead. “But working with Daniel Kleinman for the first time was such a wonderful experience -- he was so involved throughout the entire post process and had such a strong, inspiring vision for the final piece.”

The final spot was expertly graded by Framestore’s Beau Leon.