Guinness: World

Project overview by The Mill:

The Mill Brings Guinness ‘World’ to Life

The Mill, AMV BBDO and Knucklehead have collaborated on ‘World’ the epic and eagerly anticipated new spot for Guinness directed by Johnny Green. The ad made its debut in HD on Sky Sports 2.

The 90 second spot looks at how a pint of Guinness comes to life when poured. The ad opens with a man striking a match and lighting a rocket as a voiceover whispers, “It’s time to bring this place to life.” The rocket explodes into the night sky sending out sparks of light and a plume of smoke that look reminiscent of the famous “surge and settle” motion that typifies the pouring of a pint Guinness. There begins an exhilarating and global journey as a group of men bring life to a barren landscape across mountains, the sea bed and even icy snowscapes. Men are seen cracking open the ground sending gallons of water cascading; underwater, workers break open a vent, releasing hundreds of fish, whilst back on land; men drag grass and turf to cover the craggy ground. An elaborate pully-system even sees trees raised from the snow.

The Mill met with AMV BBDO’s Yvonne Chalkley, Senior TV Producer and Paul Brazier, Executive Creative Director, along with director Johnny Green during pre-production to review the storyboards and discuss each complex scene. Shot on location in Canada, New Zealand, Fiji and the UK,The Mill’s shoot supervisors Russell Tickner and Michael Gibson were on-set throughout to advise how best to execute these elements of the shoot to achieve the desired effects.

Once the material was back in the UK, The Mill was in constant contact with the agency team, led by Yvonne, the director and editor throughout the editing process. Due to the huge amount of material filmed, the editing process was lengthy and complex. With tight deadlines to meet and an extensive visual effects brief to fulfil, it was necessary for The Mill to work in parallel while the edit progressed – beginning work on the shots that required visual effects as soon as all were certain that they would make it in to the final version of the ad. Even during the shoot process, The Mill had begun modelling various CG elements such as the fish and clouds to get ahead of the game.

Rich Roberts, Lead 2D on the spot comments, “The role of the 2D Team, myself, Barnsley and Pete Rypstra, was to work closely with director Johnny Green and Paul Brazier to produce the world they had imagined. It was crucial to retain the feel of the shoot and through collaboration with Johnny and Paul, attempted to produce effects which appeared epic in scale but maintained reality. The wide variety of effects required working closely with both CG and the matte painting departments within The Mill to produce a consistent and seamless vision.”

Lucy Reid, The Mill’s VFX producer, added, “It is always a privilege and a thrill to be involved in the advertising campaign of an eagerly anticipated brand ad such as Guinness, whom The Mill has worked with on a number of their now iconic ads. We are delighted with the final commercial – a truly epic and global spot.”

Credits:

Agency: AMV BBDO
Creatives: Paul Brazier
Producer: Yvonne Chalkley
Production Company: Knucklehead
Director: Johnny Green
DP: Joost Van Gelder, Wally Pfister
Producer: Tim Katz, Fergus Brown
Editing Company: The Quarry
Editor: Ted Guard
Post Production: The Mill
Producer: Lucy Reid, Ben Stallard
Colourist: Aubrey Woodiwiss, Adam Scott
Shoot Supervisors: Russell Tickner, Michael Gibson
Lead 2D: Rich Roberts
Lead Flame: Rich Roberts, Barnsley, Pete Rypstra
Flame Assist: Gareth Brannan
Lead 3D: Russell Tickner, Jordi Bares
3D: Teemu Eramaa, James Spillman, Andy Nicholas, Rick Thiele, Adrien St. Girons, Laurent Makowski, Ed Shires, Tom Blake, Andy Guest, Aidan Gibbons, Sergio Xisto, Suraj Odedra, Jules Janaud, Francois Roisin
Matte painting: Dave Gibbons, Lee Matthews
Kit: Maya, XSI, Baselight, Flame

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