Making Of ‘Au_XLR8R’ with Thomas Brown and the_kyza – Full CGI

Recom Farmhouse London are proud to present ‘Au_XLR8R – a Full CGI charged-up collision of leading artists in car design, CGI and photography.

Thomas Brown wanted to bring his unique vision to the world of automotive photography. He often works with a set designer to create a physical world, whether it’s a sci-fi storm for Wallpaper or explorations of volume and mass for Frame. For a car, only CGI can bring this freedom of vision.

Khyzyl Saleem‘s work (@the_kyza) is a high-octane mix of the wildest aspects of car design: evolved from the explosive creativity of gaming, founded in an in-depth knowledge of the realities which is fuelled by his bodykit business, extending those outrageous modifications to real-life cars.

Recom Farmhouse ourselves are always looking for new and energising ways to fuel the possibilities of full CGI. We asked Khyzyl if he could provide one of his models for us to work with. With this model, we would create a detailed virtual studio inspired by Thomas’s references, collaborate on the creation of a series of images in this digital set, and then grade them to perfection.

 

The Concept

Thomas’ reference roared and fizzed with energy for us to create his desert art space in an American landscape, an environment liminal in space, time and human intervention. The car would be set as a sculpture, with an elemental quality incorporating ideas of gold, particle collisions, sculpture & precision engineering.

The Car

Khyzyl chose a 1989/91 Porsche 944 Turbo KS combined with 2022/23 992 GT3 RS Variant to be the centrepiece of the installation. Thomas’s vision was a car of pure gold in colour: a glossy and perfect mirror finish, an outrageously extravagant paint job, full of interest with the complicated lighting.

 

The Studio

In Recom Farmhouse’s London studio, CGI artist Aljaz Bezjak created an outdoor studio in Blender as a setting for the car, complete with supports, rigging and power supply. The site has its own ecology and geology, with scrubby desert plants against a background of far mountains. These small ‘real world’ details are what’s vital in making the environment, grounding the exhilarating fantasy in a believable reality.

 

“Mesmerisingly beautiful interactions between particles as they collide at high speed sending them spiralling off from their trajectories. The images chart the path of a particle, chance impacts and ultimately how the influence of others can permanently change their course. ”

– Thomas Brown

The images were ‘shot’ in a very reality-based method, according to Thomas’ usual practice. He would choose a lens and ‘walk’ around the environment just as he would in a real studio, selecting viewpoints that are coherent with those limitations. The point of view could almost be that of an art tourist, taking phone pictures of this desert installation for Instagram, but with the quality that only this attention to detail can bring.

 

” A roadside monument to science, energy, engineering and human creativity.  Inspired by phenomena, physics, chemistry, innovation and teenage wonder.  The excitement of the Gold Rush, frantic exploration and pioneering in search of fortune and the future.”

– Thomas Brown

The final images are a riveting combination of reality and fantasy, on the border of night and day.
See the whole series on our site and on Behance

Photographer: Thomas Brown
Post Artist: Aljaz Bezjak / Recom Farmhouse London
Car Model: Khyzyl Saleem @the_kyza

 

 

 

Making of “A Hypnotic Journey” with Alessandra Kila

“Through the mechanical and perpetual movements of diamonds, malachite, tourmaline and pearls the viewer is taken from a rational state of mind to a trance-like hallucination where both image and colours react to the altered state of mind. Jewels are real, but they are also a sub-conscious reality that exist as a state of desire in our mind.”

– Alessandra Kila

 

Follow Alessandra Kila into a world of hypnotic machines that enthrall through their perpetual movement. Working closely with our London studio, a triptych of full CGI videos evolved, each featuring a piece of Chanel jewellery functioning like an entrancing device: a necklace oscillates like a pendulum, a ring repeats the pattern of a spinning machine and a bracelet echoes the circular movements of a gyroscope.

How we made it:

Starting with a moodboard of references drawn from architecture, fashion, textures and art,  Alessandra Kila created a world with a highly  curated and very distinct slant on Art Deco.

The jewellery was recreated in CGI from the  original pieces, with great attention paid to the texturing of surfaces and the properties of the precious stones. Detail is everything…

For the animations Alessandra and our 3D artist Anna Toropova tested and observed the movements in real life before imitating them on screen. For instance, repeatedly dropping and filming a pearl or a ring, then replicating its motion in CGI.

At times that meant working frame by frame to achieve the most realistic flow. Clay renders below show the careful, precise progress of  the work.

The simplified set design and colours subtly harmonise with the Art Deco style of the jewellery pieces.

The sets are particularly inspired by ideas around vitrines and the display of precious objects.

Glitchy psychedelic interruptions jolt the viewer from their reverie, creating dramatic dissonances.

Initial tests show wild experimentation for colours that have just the right qualities.

The final colour grading and sound design pull all the pieces together – blending these two aesthetic worlds.

 

View all three pieces together on our website.

 

Director: Alessandra Kila
Concept, Look Development: Alessandra Kila
Full CGI Motion and Stills: Recom Farmhouse
Editor: Zoe Alexandrou
Music Composer and Sound Designer: Manuel Pinheiro
VFX: Alessandra Kila
Compositing: Felix Baesch / Recom Farmhouse
Modelling: Tanguy Koutouan / Recom Farmhouse
Texturing and Shading: Joe Carney / Recom Farmhouse
Animatics and Lighting: Anna Toropova / Recom Farmhouse
Color Grading: Christoph Bolten / Recom Farmhouse
Still Retouching: Aljaz Bezjak, Maria Luisa Calosso / Recom Farmhouse

Making of: Audi Q8 with Ben Stockley

Audi Q8, photographer Ben Stockley, retouching by Recom Farmhouse

Dark matters in this dramatic Audi campaign. We created still images in a huge variety of media formats, and also animated cinemagraphs.

From the early bidding stages onwards, our London team was heavily involved in the technical realisation of both still and moving imagery. This was some of the most intense post-production work we’ve been involved with and we are all very proud of the final results with their unique mix of realism and epic style, inspired by movie posters.

The biggest challenge in these shots was that the usual process was reversed. Normally, a car is shot on a location that is as physically similar as possible to the final backplate, and the original plan was photograph the car on the site. However as the Q8 is a completely new Audi model, with only a handful of prototype cars in the world, there wasn’t one available for the shoot in Scotland. So for these images, the backplates had to come first. Ben Stockley started out by capturing cityscapes in Scotland and London which we used to make initial compositions.

With the backplates shot, post artist Pepê Alram joined the photographer and art director Raymond Chan to shoot the cars in the studio with the initial background compositions projected onto giant screens. We fine-tuned the process together through constant experimentation with everything from the size of the car to the colour palettes. We refined the look tirelessly, with on-set input from Christoph Bolten, head of Recom Farmhouse London,  until we had completely realistic reflections in the sheet metal and had captured the filmic quality we were after.

In our London studio, post artists Kate Brown and Pepê Alram worked alongside Ben & Raymond to meticulously piece the puzzle together by merging studio and background shots. CGI elements replaced outdated model parts, we added a wet road, layers of rain, lens flares and other foreground elements. The reflections were eventually reduced for a more subtle and natural feel, retaining the perfect placement that we worked on so carefully.

The still images: 

Audi Q8, photographer Ben Stockley, retouching by Recom Farmhouse

 

Audi Q8, photographer Ben Stockley, retouching by Recom Farmhouse

 

Audi Q8, photographer Ben Stockley, retouching by Recom Farmhouse

At all points of the process, we had considered how these images would work with their added motion elements. The final piece of work was to fine tune the looping animations and bring three atmospheric cinemagraphs to life – a rainy night, lightning flickering around a foggy bridge, and a sparkling cityscape under racing clouds.

The Cinemagraphs

Behind The Scenes

See how the layers build up to create the ambience of a cool and rainy city evening in our making-of here:

In Situ:

The campaign is currently on display on digital billboards across the UK.

Client: Audi

Agency: BBH

Photographer: Ben Stockley

Art Director: Raymond Chan

Copywriter: Simon Cenamor

Post Artists: Kate Brown, Pepê Alram, Riikka Eiro, Aljaz Bezjak, Maria Luisa Calosso, Nuria Segura

Animation: Aljaz Bezjak

Agency Producers: Adam Overton, Aine Donovan

Photographer’s Agent: Siobhan Squire

 

Making Of “Jaguar” – painting sunshine with Marc Trautmann

How to bring the sunshine when the weather just will not co-operate?  This is how we do it:

Marc Trautmann took the new compact crossover E-Pace on a week long shoot to the streets of London for its latest campaign. The brief called for a sunny, late afternoon atmosphere, but the weather refused to cooperate. This didn’t stop our post artist Pepê Alram from using his mad sunshine painting skills, and together the team transformed a gloomy day into a pleasant, bustling afternoon in the city.

See the series on our site here.

Client: Jaguar Land Rover
Agency: Spark 44
Photographer: Marc Trautmann
Creative Director: Nick Hearne
Art Director: Samuel Hennessy
Post Artists: Pepê Alram, Aljaž Bezjak / Recom Farmhouse
Photographer’s Agent: Patrick Casey

The making of: A TWIN PEAKS STORY

Twin_Peaks editorial retouched by Recom Farmhouse

What a great concept photographers Wilcox – Johansson together with super creative retoucher Kate Booker had for this fashion editorial published on I Love You magazine. Wilcox-Johansson shot the Twin Peaks inspired series mimicking the poses and style of soap operas and American dramas (which David Lynch was also making references to). The “Twin Peaks” theme was reinforced in post-production by Kate, who was amazing in creating different colour moods and effects, which very subtly enhanced the concept. Read more

The making of: FORD MONDEO

Ford Mondeo
Ford Mondeo

As it’s often impossible to show the amount of work and detailing that goes into an image, by posting the result on our website, I am starting a new section in the blog called 100%. Here we would like to post all those images which can be best appreciated in all their details when enlarged. I thought to post some close-ups of the Ford Mondeo campaign which we realised together with Damien de Blinkk for Ogilvy. This was a couple of years ago, but I am still very fond of looking at some of the qualities that only start to show when zooming in all the way. Read more