American Cinematographer - July 1994 - 22

Burgess Meredith and Danny Kaye; DDay to Paris, which features the final
stages of the battle to liberate Paris,
showing Churchill and Eishenhowerand
the destruction of a launching site; and
Mummies Blessing, documenting the
unwrapping and X-raying of an Egyptian
mummy in a laboratory.
For information: The History
Factory, 2831 Fifteenth Street, NW,
Washington, DC 20009, (202) 387-3228,

the live-action perspective, effects pro¬
ducer Roberta Brandao and creative di¬
rector Mark Malmberg were on hand

FAX (202) 387-0666.

Pizza Spot
Planet Blue has done visual
effects and compositing for a series of
commercials for Pizza Hut featuring over-

Animated Mascot

Rental's first

the economical value of Pizza Hut's

foray into the world of

D

over

cell animation for the attention

grabbing effect. Vic Fina completed the
3-D animation using Garripoli's
Wavefront with the Dynamation op¬
tion, and Michael Tyson did the 2-D ani¬
mation

BULLET

reputation and a bit of
engineering have combined
to create an amazing new lamp with
a built-in "Lamp Protection System".
This LPS eases the globe up to full
intensity over a 6 second period,
brilliant

and then

turned

eases

it back down when

off-eliminating the need for

awkward dimmer boxes, AC or DC,
and prolonging the life of your globe!

on

the Getris Venice system.
For information: Garripoli De¬

3500 West Magnolia Boulevard
Burbank, California 91505

(818) 843-4560

a

Pizza Hut shot

on

location in

Los

Angeles; a background plate of sur¬
rounding buildings, shot in downtown
L.A. to resemble Washington, D.C.; and
greenscreen shots of pedestrians to be
composited on the walkway of the Sen¬
ate model. Planet Blue used an elec¬
tronic pan, assembled from the different

angles and lighting levels for each plate.
photography Stefan
Czapsky shot the miniature Senate in

0728.

front of the Pizza Hut at the same time,
a nodal camera pan was required to
keep the perspective correct and give
it real depth of field. These elements,
as well as the background buildings and

Fruit Drink Animation
Xaos recently contributed its
unusual brand of computer animation to

"Liquid Basketball," a commercial for
Capri Sun fruit drinks. The 30-second
spot, a combination of live action and
computer-generated effects, features
alien kids who come to a basketball court
in the form of thick, metallic liquid, which
transforms into the shape of humans.
Xaos animators created the traversing
mercuric liquid using proprietary
metaball software. The puddles rise up
from the ground in human form, then

morph into image processed figures of
live characters. Before the Capri Suntoting aliens are discovered, they trans¬
form back into liquid puddles with a
heavy splash and slide away.

mators added motion

reflect maps.

blur, shadows and

The reflect

maps gave

the

liquid its metallic look, reflecting sur¬
rounding imagery in its surface. To aid
in matching the computer animation with

FAX(818) 843-7834
20

derworks;

While director of

image processing techniques, Xaos ani¬
CORPORATION

Bigfoot. Four elements were composited
in each spot: a foreground miniature of
the Senate, made by Brick Price of Won¬

signs, 5410 Mariner Street, Tampa, FL
33609, (813) 288-0005, FAX (813) 289-

In addition to metaball and
CINEMILLS

558-9160.

the-top company spokesperson Ricky
testifying before the U.S. Senate as to

fully articulated 3-D character animation
and appears in a series of :15 entirely
animated spots. The designers chose 3-

Cinemills' world-famous SILVER

For information: Xaos, 600
Townsend, Suite 271E, San Francisco,
CA 94103, (415) 558-9267, FAX (415)

Garri Garripoli of Florida's
Garripoli Designs has created an ani¬
mated checkmark for Payless Car
television advertising. The new mascot
is a combination of 2-D animation and

The best 20K tungsten
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during the shooting of the scenes to en¬
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angles would blend in the finished piece.

in CA (800) 692-6700
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July 1994

greenscreens of pedestrians, were trans¬
ferred by Planet Blue colorist Wayne

Hampton in preparation for compositing.
To marry the spots, Planet Blue
visual effects compositor Maury
Rosenfeld developed the electronic pan.
"We did things like imitate lens aberra¬
tions so that the perspective shifts as you
pan across," he explains. "Electronically,
we added a 3-D vanishing point and syn¬
thetic motion blur to make the surround¬

ings look very natural, so the Senate,
pedestrians, Pizza Hut and background
buildings looked like a real neighbor¬
hood." He also retouched

scenes

to re¬

power cables and street lights and
color corrected the Pizza Hut roof to make
it look snappy.
move

For information: Planet Blue,
1040 N. Las Palmas Ave., Los Angeles,
CA 90038, (213)871-8280.
American Cinematographer - July 1994

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