All 'Paths' lead Rushes to latest Lloyds TSB campaign

‘Paths’ for Lloyds TSB Mobile Banking, a highly stylised and striking commercial that features individuals walking across black paths, leading the famous Lloyds Bank “Black Horse” was post produced at Rushes.
The commercial emphasises that fact and that the customer is the one in control and taking the lead. The voice-over lists the many beneficial services offered to account holders by the bank.
Rushes Head of VFX, Paul Hannaford said “We were very excited to be involved in this new campaign for Lloyds TSB from its infancy.
"A miniature model of the set was made, which Charlie [Stebbings - Director] and the team were able to light and then scrutinise to determine all the camera angles and moves that would be required for the all important stage of compositing. Once the decisions were finalised, Charlie then filmed a motion control pass of the opening shot so that we could pre-build all the necessary paths in 3D. We were able to use the camera data from this pass, along with the lens information and camera angle to ensure that all the plates shot for the scene married up perfectly.”
The challenge of matching the lighting and creating the shininess of the paths came down to Rushes 3D Animator Craig Travis.
Craig said: “We had lots of references supplied, but we wanted to see how far we could really push the look of these paths. Inferno was used to construct the reflections that were required to sit the people and horses into the environment. Charlie was quite adamant that the reflections should be true to life and he actually shot the talent against several pieces of black perspex as a reference.”
Paul Hannaford, the leader of the Rushes inferno project team - Emir Hasham, Claire Pollock, Matt Jackson - said: “We needed to work a little bit of magic in Inferno so that the reflections appeared straight down. In order to achieve this look each person and horse had to be matted from their original environment. We then isolated each leg and re-tracked them to match the original plate, which created perfect reflections."
Hannaford said that creatives, Chis Hodgkiss and Pip Bishop, were "delighted with the look of the final film and we were able to achieve a real sense of depth and believability to their vision.”
‘Paths’ for Lloyds TSB Mobile Banking was post-produced at Rushes for agency RKCR/Y&R. Rushes Producer was Angela Lucantoni.
Produced by Park Village and directed by Charlie Stebbings, the film editor was John Mayes @ Marshall Street.
(SP)