Rushes post new Offspring 'Hit That' promo

Rushes have completed post on the promo for 'Hit That', a new release from the band Offspring.
The promo opens with the main character, a teenage boy, who has finally had enough of the devastation caused by his enormous dog. After enlisting the help of the local vet, he follows the trail of broken flowerpots, knocked over dustbins, half eaten legs, fallen lampposts and general destruction, determined to find his dog and curb his rampant behaviour once and for all.
Rushes Producer Vittorio Giannini said: "Directors John Williams' and David Lea's treatment for 'Hit That' was extremely ambitious, integrating live action, practical masks and 3D facial features. The shoot and post issues were numerous; predominantly revolving around the marrying together live action and 3D elements, as well as scene extensions and matte painting features."
Both directors have a strong postproduction background, which meant they understood many of the problem areas and worked well with the post team to find solutions. The 3D animation and additional sections were created by Passion Pictures, with additional tracking information supplied by Realise. The compositing, telecine and some matte painting were completed at Rushes.
The ultimate aim was to create a world where part real, part animated characters live. Combining reality and cartoon elements to achieve a very unique look, essentially with the characters, but also in their environment with cityscapes, building replacements and sky replacements.
Mask tests were done at an early stage, as these had to be modelled and built. This formed a large part of the numerous post meetings between directors, Passion and Rushes. Just the eyes and mouths were CG, with the exception of the dog, which wouldn't wear the mask made for it. The decision to build the dog's head totally in 3D was taken to allow a greater amount of control on the shoot, this added an extra amount of work in the tracking and modelling side, but helped with the end result allowing the dog to really live at the end.
Giannini continued: "Duncan Malcolm from Rushes attended the shoot along with Paul from Realise, together overseeing the practicality of the task to come. With such a strong post team anything was going to be possible, but the delivery schedule was always tight and it became quite a challenge to balance the needs of each post department and the directors vision with the time we had to complete the video. An efficient 'pipeline' had to be set-up between facilities to co-ordinate all the separate elements at Rushes.
"We took over 200 digital stills, which were used in post for textures and matte painting elements, along with cityscape stills and building elements. Even with every trick in play, the video still involved a huge amount of work from Passion¹s top animators, additional post by the directors and a strong team at Rushes, using all resources available, working right up to the deadline date. The end result is absolutely worth the effort, a unique piece of work from two very talented young directors. Rushes are very proud to be part of this amazing project."
(GB)