A sleek black M1 forms a dark dynamic wedge that interplays with the shapes of an abstract sculpture.
Walking around the sand and aligning the massive elements with the car, the viewer can get lost in this creative exploration game. Sometimes the car forms a striking diagonal, sometimes it’s the focal point in recurring framing elements.
The desert’s like a canvas for the photographer’s eye to juxtapose the pale concrete artwork– created purely for art in this space, scoured by wind and sand – and the deep hot black angularity of the car that’s been driven to it, a machine built with function and movement in mind.
These images show the photographer’s own interpretation of what each sculpture is trying to say, as well as how they can counterpoint the car to tell a new story.
How we did it:
This series is a collaborative experiment by photographer Nick Meek with post-production studio Recom Farmhouse. We set out to see how far it’s possible to push the boundaries of photographic realism in full CGI.We created a set with the correct natural terrain, materials and light, which the photographer could then ‘walk’ around, choosing lenses, angles and sun position, but always within the real world parameters that the photographer would have shot.The wedge-shaped BMW M1 in classic gloss black sets off the rough concrete forms. In every choice – car positioning, angles, lighting, rendering, grain, we chose to be as accurate as possible to analogue photography.Graded with meticulous care, the series is as close to the film grade as possible.Finally, we carefully scanned and graded original film borders to make a true, respectful recreation of analogue photography in 100% CGI.This is a series that’s a world away from flamboyant retouching – we have framed it as absolute photographic classicism, to show that working in CGI can embrace everything we love about photography. See the whole series on our site here.
Behind the scenes video:
Credits
Post Production Team: Recom Farmhouse London
CGI Artist: George Russell
Post Artist: Kate Brown, Aljaz Bezjak
Project Team
Photographer: Nick Meek
Creative Supervision: Kate Brown
Join us in Morocco on the location shoot, and in London for the CGI and retouching, in this video:
Photographer Nick Meek and Recom Farmhouse’s Christoph Bolten travelled together to Hannsjörg Voth’s extraordinary desert land art installations in Morocco: Himmelstreppe, Goldene Spirale and Stadt des Orion.
With a profound respect for Voth’s original vision, they envisioned innovative elements that would both honour his intention and contribute to the immersive experience offered by these extraordinary desert works.
During a series of dawn shoots, Nick Meek and Christoph Bolten engaged in thought-provoking conversations about how their imagery of the structures could evolve, exploring ideas that would preserve the integrity of Voth’s vision while pushing the boundaries of artistic expression.
Developing ideas and possibilities of augmenting the beauty and impact of Voth’s creations, the Maserati concept car in gold was the outcome. The smooth angles and precise lines of the car juxtaposed against the otherworldly environment of the sculptures form a vignette of adventure, a fragment of a story that’s still to be told.
TECHNICAL PROCESS: FULL CGI WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND
Nick shot on Kodak Portra 400 film with a Gibellini ACN45v2 camera, custom made for him, giving us great references to re-create that beautiful filmic look.
While on set we captured plenty of HDR domes with a LizardQ rig, enabling us to seamlessly integrate CG objects into the backplate photos with accurate lighting and reflections.
In Recom Farmhouse’s London studio, CGI artist Anna Toropova gathered reference to perfect the golden car, and worked closely with Nick to position it – here’s a glimpse behind the scenes of her R&D:
With the render passes completed from Anna, retoucher Kate Brown started to composite the car.
The wintery desert light, in combination with the golden car paint, provided her with a solid foundation for creating the desired look, and a realistic bloom and film grain.
Retoucher Kate Brown:
“Initial grading work began in Capture One before the retouching had even started, to get the very best out of the image. Having all the different passes for the car gives us the most flexibility to enhance the car and make it fully embedded into the shot, making sure the colours match to the environment, so the car shape is enhanced without feeling over retouched. Meticulous care was taken to create and enhance beautiful glows and pings on the car from the sun. making it shine like a piece of jewellery in the shot.
Before the start a project we try to study the photography as close as possible to understand how to make the CGI feel as photographic as possible. Imperfections of photography like lens aberrations, flares, blooms from highlights and grain are incredibly important to make something feel photographic.”
‘You see more when you don’t fly’ is Eurostar’s latest TV and print campaign. Trying to train an enormous bird with a brain size of a walnut is challenging enough, but what to do when there’s only Emus or randy ostriches available at the time of preproduction? A CG ostrich comes the rescue…
Photographer Nick Meek asked us to hop into the nest to hatch the unusual tourist on the screen. Before heading to Amsterdam and Paris the team covered several locations in London, accompanied by our local CGI director Christoph Bolten and post artist Maria Luisa Calosso. With the support of an endearing and very patient cardboard bird, our CGI experts made sure to gather all necessary elements and spheres for the comprehensive post production process.
Hatching a plan for a CGI Ostrich:
Besides matching camera angles, scale and lighting, it was crucial to have the bird appear as realistic as possible, without looking too anthropomorphic – detail in the eyes and beak was the key here, and finally some hand-drawing of the feathers for the most naturalistic look possible.
Watch our new feathered friend come alive in these videos!
We travelled to Capetown with Nick Meek to shoot this Nissan campaign for TBWA Paris.
“While some may think that adding technology detracts from the raw experience of driving, Nissan is proving that technology can turn your car into an exciting partner”
With the idea of humanising technology, it was appropriate that we all had the most fun with the spacesuit! Join us nn set with New Moon Productions in Capetown…
Simon from New Moon productions suits up!
In post-production, we put together the astronaut image and ‘painted’ it in Photoshop onto the side of the wall – see how we did it :
Client: Nissan
Agency: TBWA Paris
Photographer: Nick Meek
Photographer’s Agent: Prune Pariente, Florence Moll
Creative Director: Darren Rosenberg
Art Buyer: Claire Sougy-Walwer
Art Director: Joy Robin
Production: New Moon Production
Post Artist: Pepe Alram, Aljaz, Bezjak / Recom Farmhouse
Bold primary colours meet strong abstract shapes in this campaign for Mercedes from Antoni. We travelled with photographer Nick Meek to Calvert Studios, an extraordinary and unique open air car studio in Spain. Enjoy these pictures from behind the scenes:
The dream team – Jorge, Nick, Christoph and Paul.
The final images are used in the deluxe print campaign, and billboards in place in Germany. See them in situ here.
Agency: Antoni
Executive Creative Director: Veit Moeller
Creative Director: Christian Kies, Christopher Hoene
Art Director: Mathias Wilke, Tim Grötzinger
Copywriter: Matti Lietsch, Luca Haeussler
Head of Product Communication Cars Germany: Christine Wolburg
Product Communication Cars Germany: Nancy Weitling
Art Buyer: Valerie Opitz
CGI Artist: Kristian Turner / Recom Farmhouse
Post Artists: Pepe Alram, Kate Brown, Maria Luisa Calosso, Nuria Segura, Aljaz Bezjak / Recom Farmhouse
We travelled to Spain with Nick Meek to shoot the new Nissan Juke in a series of elegant architectural settings. For post-production, this involved a wide spectrum of skills – from shooting duplicate cars in order to avoid complex reflections, bringing sunshine to a rainy day, and finally a dramatic day-to-night conversion.
For this shot, the reflections of the structure were too much to be removed in post, so Nick photographed duplicate cars inside and outside the building, Christoph captured additional backplate elements. We had to deal with very mixed weather conditions! The team went out on a boat to shoot the skyline – the cityscape that you see in the shot was puzzled together from many separate shots to get the perfect backplate, evocative of an attractive city without detracting the viewer from the car as the hero of the shot. Join us on location:
Nights are drawing in! After the shoot was completed, Nissan wanted a night-time version of one of the shots. This was a very interesting challenge – moving a very high key image to be ultra low key
The car is a new, special edition model, so the alterations were complex – far beyond just changing the colour. We re-rendered the paint and the interior of the car – only tyres and lights remain from the original model. Using the HDR spheres that we’d produced at the time, we re-rendered the building and environment. The floor was taken from the original (pre-retouching) imagery, so retained its texture and was accurate at night. We replaced the city at skyline at the back with sourced material to make a new nightscape.
The new shot retains the elegant simplicity of composition that is a key part of the original, whilst adding the distinct ambience of a moonlit night.
Our friend Nick Meek approached our London team with this evocative night shot from Tokyo.
He took it a while ago and always loved it, but kept feeling it needed something extra. He began to wonder what it would look like if the rolling gate was opened – just enough to reveal something special.
Researching vintage cars, he found an unusual and elegant 1970s supercar with a plum paint and golden trim to the scene, and asked us if we could add it to the scene.
Excited about this extraordinary request we reached into our magic bag of CGI tricks, lifted the door and settled on parking this sweet Maserati Bora inside.
After a successful collaboration process, we’re all happy with the atmospheric result.
Red Car, Red Room
We were so happy with how the Maserati turned out that we wanted to work with it some more. A CGI group challenge, themed on “Red Car, Red Room” was the perfect place to take the car out of the garage and reveal it in all its glory. Take a closer look at the exotic and gorgeous Maserati Bora in detail here.
Crop detail of the gold trim:
Software:
Autodesk Maya
Chaos Group V-Ray
Adobe Photoshop
We were delighted to work once again on the post-production throughout the shoot, both on location and in the studio.
This was a shoot of epic proportions!
3 months
3 productions
27 major exterior shots
50 detail shots
6 different models
Crew of 18
The Southern California locations included urban LA environments, desert highways, bridges, as well as an airport and a racetrack. With one of our retouchers constantly on set, we were able to jump start the post production. First pass amends could be in place before sending files to the agency, with feedback from Nick and the clients on set already incorporated.
The production convoy sets off to the desert:
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The car travels in the finest style of course.
Gear and preparation:
Nick’s camera mounted to the end of the rig and ready to shoot.
So many measures to work against the fierce desert sun! This flexible arm keeps the camera in shade and and can also be used to block flare.
It’s a long walk back once the rig is set up – this is at its maximum extension.
The captures go directly to Kate’s workstation. We use walkie-talkies to keep in touch, so post-production can begin smoothly and directly from the image capture.
This exterior station is a convenient direct point for the client signing off elements such as the angle of the car. Left to right: CD Doug Kohnen of CP+B, Kara Hughes of Infiniti, Nick Meek.
Nick inspects some images in the workstation.
At other locations, a smaller portable sun shelter is useful.
Nick goes handheld and low angle for detail shots.
Setting up the ‘Lizard‘ to capture HDR spheres for reference, so we have a full record of the background in case of any later alterations – this means that if we need to change any details we have an accurate record for reflections and lighting on the car.
Capturing some city skyscrapers with the Lizard for use as backup for the city location, in case they were needed.
Life on the set
Tunnel vision can set in on these long shoots…
But the epic skies and open desert are stunning.
Hats are a necessity when working long hours in the blasting desert sunshine.
Clouds drift by as we wait for the perfect light
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Even in the desert, the production team have to be vigilant – when the weather comes in, it happens fast! Approaching storms mean everything has to go under cover at very short notice.
Here it comes!
However the show must go on – no storm can stop Nick from continuing to work! Even in these conditions, he was able to capture great results. These were the shooting conditions:
…and this is the final result!
The precipitation did have some unexpected and spectacular side effects…
In between all the hard work during these long days on the road there were always moments of fun, where we got to play with an array of toys the crew had brought along (e-skateboards, mini motorcycle, remote controlled cars etc), and as we were being baked by the hot desert sun, we got to listen to some fine tunes by the motorhome band, while being spoiled by some amazing catered foods – Many thanks to Will Taylor of Ink and Oranges for their work on production!
Recom kept standards high with Kate coming first in her Go-Kart team.
The rig came in handy as a gigantic “selfie stick” to capture the crew, though no cable release was long enough to operate the camera!
All in all a very productive and delightful job. It was great to work once again with Nick Meek, the production was a big success and the same team is currently in the US working on the next Infiniti project.
Honda’s endless quest to communicate a never ending commitment to performance and quality has translated into this brilliant Droste effect advertising campaign. The Droste effect is an optical illusion whereby a picture appears repeated within itself in an endless way. Created both as a TV commercial and a print campaign, we worked with photographer Nick Meek to create a set of 3 images in which, every time, a smaller version of the image is repeated within a billboard forever showing the same.
Our CGI director Christoph Bolten worked from the earliest pitching stage with Nick and the team from McGarryBowen to help bringing it all together. He travelled to Spain with the crew to pre-visualise the car on set and to capture the lighting environment for all shots by shooting HDR spheres – see snapshots below.
Once back in London, our 3d-Artist Florian Einfalt created the billboards and power lines, making sure to add enough imperfections and signs of age to have them blend credibly with the landscape. Post-Artist Pepe Alram then created the final composition and look – and this is how he did it:
Above: a gif animation showing the optical illusion of the Droste effect.
CREDITS:
Client: Honda
Agency: McGarryBowen
Creative Director: Angus MacAdam
Art Director: Holly Fallow, Charlotte Watmough
Photographer: Nick Meek
CGI Director: Christoph Bolten at Recom Farmhouse
CGI Artists: Florian Einfalt, Kristian Turner at Recom Farmhouse
Post Artist: Pepe Alram at Recom Farmhouse
We recently went with photographer Nick Meek to Paris and to lake Montriond in the French Alps to shoot the latest Nissan X-Trail campaign. The car and far backgrounds were captured photographically by Nick, whilst we built the architecture in CG.
