A reel of work produced exclusively in 2021! We traveled extensively last year; virtually to South Africa, Argentina and Bali and actually got on planes to shoot in Portland, Maine and Jamaica.

As the Luminar team has said to us, “Watching our proactive safety in action is kinda boring…because it just looks like a car stopping right on time, every time.” But, if you stretch and stop that time to show exactly what is happening within MILLISECONDS, without any human interaction, then it’s a whole different story. We built two distinct 3D worlds to show key auto safety scenarios: one in the suburbs at 25mph and another on a freeway at 65mph. It turns out, there’s a lot of intelligent technology that kicks in “under the hood” of a Luminar enabled vehicle that allows it to avoid unexpected and dangerous driving situations. Through Bhakti Patel’s twilight aesthetic, we also emphasize that, unlike camera based proactive systems (hello, Tesla), Lidar works day and night, rain or shine. 

One of the tricks for this project was to build a reliable stereoscopic process that works with a 3D renderer that would provide fast previews and give us the stylized (yet somewhat photoreal) look that we were going for. For this, we chose Redshift but, unlike the standard renderer in Cinema 4D, Redshift does not have a built in stereoscopic setup. So, our animators custom designed a two-camera rig (using Xpresso) that could be hand-animated with total control over the areas of convergence and zero parallax. 

For example, here are some process shots from Devin Earthman’s rig.

These 2k resolution files for both left and right eye are hot off the presses and projecting within Luminar’s stereoscopic theater at CES as you read this newsletter. 

Here’s a COVID safe way to see the show floor:

¡Buenas! We wrapped up our third case study film for Stellar, this time focused on the work of Vibrant. We worked with local crews in Brooklyn, NY and Buenos Aires, Argentina to capture the magic. Jump into the film to learn how the Stellar blockchain and the Vibrant app allow people in Argentina to beat inflation and save more money.

Toy tech is getting pretty slick too! Hasbro asked us to help explain their new Hero ID platform, so we flew their PJ Masks characters around in 3D space to show parents that it’s smarter than meets the eye.

6 months in the making, we are proud to present this comedic film we made for our new client, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The process was big fun from start to finish; many months of writing, 3 shoot days with a stellar cast and crew and then our talented editor digging through endless footage to find the right beats … this 2+ minutes of fun recently landed on the front page of HPE.com. Not only did we get to utilize neglected words like ‘ponderous’ and ‘unwieldy’, as well as provide a faster travel option for restrooms on even floors, but also answer the age-old question: “Where’s Oscar?”

Vectorize made its debut on Illustrator on iPad at #AdobeMAX 2021. How easy is it to turn any image into a vector? Ask Clarice Cho who makes stunning work. We loved working with her and her pup Klaus~! And special thanks to our amazing DP Zach Jopling!

By now you’ve probably seen the Billie Eilish x Adobe campaign. We’ve had a blast partnering with the Adobe studio (i.e. Adobe x Skycar) creating Billie-branded downloadable assets plus a tutorial series. Drawing inspiration from Billie’s style and her “Create What’s True to You” commercial spot, you can learn how to do some of the same movie magic here.

And more tutorials on the way, stay tuned!

 

Netflix + Adobe – the #TheGreatUntold campaign invited young filmmakers to submit an original trailer for a chance to make their short films with actual Netflix directors and creators. 

In order to increase interest and engagement in the campaign, we partnered with both Adobe and Netflix to choose content and shape creative topics to share with the audience. 

Our first task was to survey and propose series content from Netflix that we thought would offer inspiring material for these young filmmakers to learn from. We winnowed our original list of 16 shows down to four: Mindhunter, Queen Sono, Waffles & Mochi, and Last Chance U.

We offered how-to’s for editorial, motion graphics, audio, illustrated animations, as well as color grading to help make their submissions really sing.

As is often the case these days, we had to plan and design for all social pushes (#alltheaspectratios) which resulted in a whopping 64 final deliverables! We especially loved digging into the Netflix shows to make the tutorials – in each case we highlighted some of the qualities of the shows or documentary film. So much great content!

 

Adobe x Netflix Tutorials – Set the mood like Mindhunter

 

Adobe x Netflix Tutorials – Make impactful titles like Last Chance U

 

Adobe x Netflix Tutorials – Create animations like Waffles + Mochi

 

Adobe x Netflix Tutorials – Turn up the drama like Queen Sono

Challenge

With the pandemic still limiting in-person conferences, Google wanted to build a rich remote experience that brought dimension and a little of the unexpected to their annual Marketing Livestream. With a theme of “Step Into The Ad,” they specifically aimed to reveal a bit more of what’s behind their advertising platform.

Approach

Google brought Skycar Creative in to develop hybrid live-action/graphic assets that both integrated with and broke free from their conference portal. We shot Google employees on custom-built greenscreen sets that would give the illusion of a 2D aesthetic but provide some fun and unexpected dimension to the experience. 

The Shoot (under strict, Google approved, COVID protocols)

In a quick turn, we had to design and build a flexible system for mimicking physical “containers” within which the Googlers were standing/sitting/interacting. We also needed to rig a bicycle that could be transformed into a 5 person tandem in post. To ensure that we’d get what we need in production, we brought in the killer Art Dept team: Dave Dougherty and Aaron Young. They built out a beautiful modular greenscreen structure that would allow us to create squares, rectangles, and circles of various shapes on set while enabling us to pull a nice key and preserve realistic shadows. As you can see from the pics – we rigged an actual Google campus bike so that each person could pedal in place (with wind!). Then we got isolated shots of all moving bicycle parts (for comping in later) by suspending it from speed-rail while Dave gave them a consistent spin with a cordless drill.

Post Production

With some of the Google team on site for the shoot, we were able to bring super clean (and approved!) shots back to the shop for post. The green footage keyed beautifully and the bicycle required some minor 3D modeling to sell the illusion of the multi-tandem. Since we had pre-designed the bike linkage, it was just a matter of seaming together the actual footage from the shoot day.

Take a look at the finished bike:

For the intro video, we just needed to composite a simple 3D door into the keyed greenscreen footage. Since we were pulling true shadows from the footage, we mimicked the lighting setup in the 3D project so that the shadows on the door acted the same as those of our hosts. 

Take a look at the results:

One of the last significant unprotected wetland areas in San Francisco Bay is at risk of being lost to development. Developers are seeking to import over 100,000 truckloads of fill to construct 469 “executive houses” atop 500-acres of baylands in the City of Newark called “Newark Area 4” that has long been recommended by Bay scientists and climate experts for protection, restoration and inclusion in the Don Edwards SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Skycar Creative is proud to have produced the video for the campaign and to join with over a dozen conservation and climate organizations in supporting the Save Newark Wetlands campaign in seeking to stop this development — and instead secure the permanent protection, restoration and inclusion of Newark Area 4 in the Don Edwards SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Watch this newly-released 4-minute video featuring prominent Bay scientists and climate adaptation experts, and then take action by signing this new petition calling for the permanent protection of Newark Area 4.