Broadcast Beat Magazine 2018 IBC Show | Page 26

ALIVE WITH TECHNOLOGY: REVIEWING PHOTOREALISTIC ROBOTICS By RORY MCGREGOR It’s likely that Citroen’s 2004 ‘Alive With Technology’ campaign will ring a bell. Directed by Oats Studios founder Neill Blomkamp, the short featured a Citroen that realistically remodelled itself into the form of a Transformers- like humanoid, before busting a move to Les Rythmes Digitales’ Jacques Your Body against a hazy sunset backdrop. The ad caught the attention of thousands even in the pre-viral age – and in the process put cre- ative studio The Embassy on the map as one of the premier up-and-coming visual effects studios in Vancouver – just a short two years after it was founded. The Embassy has since gone from strength to strength. Its skill in photorealistic vehicle creation has led to contracts with the world’s largest auto- motive and transportation companies, but it has 26 • Broadcast Beat Magazine • www.broadcastbeat.com also resulted in VFX work on defining Hollywood franchises like Iron Man and sci-fi blockbusters from The Hunger Games to Neill Blomkamp’s Academy Award-nominated District 9. The team has also worked on explosive simulation effects in Elysium; avalanches of evil attacking snowmen for Nissan; and photorealistic jet liners for Cathay Pacific. The slate of projects continues to grow, and with it, so too does The Embassy’s embrace of web-based review and approval solu- tion Frankie. With Frankie, Embassy VFX ensures its core cre- ative skillset remains at ultra high-quality from project to project. HANDING CLIENTS A PAINTBRUSH “For us, Frankie is a paintbrush that we hand to clients, who otherwise might not express them-