Mill Races Through Time with New York Life

11th March 2005 - Insurers, New York Life, hold longevity and integrity in the fact that their fundamental policy has not changed in over a century and a half. To illustrate this heritage, ‘Policy’ races through 160 years in 30 seconds, showing an office environment that modernizes with every frame. We start with a rustic wooden desk and end with a sleek glass table, with all manner of time-specific office paraphernalia taking stage in between. Of course, throughout this race through time, one item remains constant – New York Life’s trusted policy. The spot was an intense post production project, requiring nearly a year’s worth of input from The Mill New York.

The commercial revolves around an environment that changes with every frame, but simultaneously remains locked. Clearly, to pull off this kind of trick requires meticulous planning, so extensive pre-visualization was executed prior to shooting. A four week pre-viz was necessary to plan out the motion control and integrate key story points. Production design sketches were used to build a computer model of the set, around which the cg camera motion was then built. Mill programmer Rick Walia developed an interface between XSI and the kuper motion control software which allowed the previz moves to be exported directly to the motion control rig.

Not only were many animatics a necessary feature of pre-production, but tests on various film stocks were also needed to achieve various looks to authentically represented differing decades. Harris Savides (DOP) and Jeff Preiss (director) also helped by developing a shooting technique which accurately simulated a three strip technicolor shooting process. Because of the nature of the commercial – shooting still life – they used the motion control moves to shoot filtered colourpasses which were then combined in flame for an authentic technicolor look.

The story relies on having to cycle through objects from various eras, so the art department sourced hundreds of props. 3D artist, Douglas Luka, spent four days shooting and cataloging all the props, which were then put through The Mill’s photogrammetry pipeline to model and texture all the props using the images for geometrical accuracy and texture.

All footage was shot using a motion control to move around the desk. The desk was kept clear so that countless objects – modeled, textured, lit and animated in 3d – could be added in post. The hero “policy” in the commercial was also modeled and tracked in 3d so that it would stand out more in situ. Originally the plan was to use a single desk throughout, but Director, Jeff Preiss, wanted to emphasize the story point that the environment was in continuous flux while the hero object, ie – the policy, was the only thing that remained constant. This posed a challenge for the VFX supervisor, because the desks were of different height and dimensions, thus they required great care when lining them up.

Interestingly, when the commercial pulls out of the office window to reveal the old New York Life building, The Mill NY gave the iconic skyscraper a ‘face-lift’. Photogrammetry techniques were used to improve the accuracy of the New York Life building itself. Advances in digital photography proved to be a great benefit when sourcing textures for the building. The resolution of the textures was far higher than previously possible, meaning the team could preserve the natural lighting present on the day in the textures themselves.

Product - New York Life / Title - Policy / Father & Son / Agency - Berlin Cameron/Red Cell / Creatives - Jason Peterson & Ewen Cameron / Exec Producer - Dane Johnson / Prod Co - Epoch Films / Director - Jeff Preiss / Exec Producer - Doug Halbert / Film Editors - Day for Night / Editor - Brandon Boudreaux / Facility House - The Mill / Producer - Wendy Garfinkle / Telecine Artist - Fergus McCall / Flame Lead - Dirk Greene, Ben Turner / Flame Assist - Phil Crowe, David Parker, Jamie Scott, Richard de Carteret, Tara DeMarco, Jeanette Williford, Mark Payne / VFX Sup - Aron Hjartarson / VFX Sup Assist - Doug Luka / 3D Lead - Aron Hjartarson, Yann Mabille / 3D Assist: - Jimmy Kiddell, Arlene Persaud, Doug Luka, Wyatt Saverese, Sam Kim, Rick Walia / Airdate - January 2005 (Policy) / February 2005 (Father & Son) / Kit - flame, combustion, xsi

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