The central idea that Cramer-Krasselt set out was one of ‘helping hands.’ How the hands of Landmark Credit Union would help make banking easy for their customers by interacting with and motivating various scenarios to tell the customer stories. In order to realize this idea it was important to really think about how the hands would interact with the world, create transitions between moments, and most importantly do all of that in a way that was achievable for an actor to perform on set.The motions needed to feel effortless and natural while performing actions that created moments of magic, but importantly not sleight of hand. The look of the world was also an important consideration.

Though the result feels quite straightforward there are actually more than a few considerations that go into a ‘matter of fact’ look. In order to reason through the framing, camera angle, lensing, and performances to figure out what was filmable and what looked right we began with a simplified tabletop setup in the studio. This allowed us to explore how an actor would need to position themselves and their hands relative to the camera while performing the various moves and the tone or look that different camera setups would impart. Our CD spent quite a while crouched beneath a DSLR pretending to move miniature objects around on a ping-pong table.

VFX work needs planning. The more that can be figured out ahead of time before shooting the smoother every step of the project will be. While this may feel a little constraining it actually just moves the creative thinking up front and allows the back end of the project to focus more about execution and nuance. Instead of ‘figuring it out in post’ we emphasized ‘figuring it out in previz.’ 

While this approach in some ways inverted the typical commercial process it created an opportunity to invite our client into the exploration process with us early in an effort to essentially ‘lock’ the edit before ever shooting a single frame on set.

By beginning the editorial process right away using previz material we were able to answer questions about timing, pacing, and even confirm the script length with CK. By getting to see their script against a moving picture early the agency creatives were able to adjust where needed and even begin thinking about ideal VO reads early on.

The raw material for these early edits took the form of lower fidelity 3D animations based on a combination of hand drawn storyboards and test shots filmed in the Sarofsky studio, playing out the more complex hand choreography. Having these pieces to work with was instrumental in figuring out the timings for pieces that would need to fit together precisely in the end and for testing out transitions that had just the right amount of magic while also working with the timing of the script.

Having these edits in hand before the shoot allowed us to be extremely efficient with filming and fit a lot of shots into two days of shooting. Directing the talent on set was aided immensely by the ability to show them the exact choreography and timing for their actions in any given shot and the stand-in objects that our propmaster was able to create to the specifications of our previz gave them something to really interact with.