Warner Brothers Discovery
Concepting
Live Action
Design & Animation
Discovery's Shark Week, and Sherwin-Williams share a world of beautiful color palettes, making them a co-branded match made in heaven! Of course, it is a match that has been happening for many years, so our first challenge was finding a new twist to make this an exciting custom integration.
Our friends at WB Discovery knew we were up to the challenge but gave us a couple of thought starters, including finding a spin on the well-known paint chip series of Sherwin Williams commercials. The paint chip campaign is legendary in motion design circles, and initially, the client directed us to find the "Shark Week" version. However, as we explored, our design lead found a way to bring Shark Week into Sherwin-William's world instead of the other way around.
The result? A dazzling ocean-inspired palette painted onto the viewer's wall. This caused the daughter of the Sherwin-Williams client to opine: "This should be a movie!" - Juliet. We couldn't have said it better ourselves!
VP Branded Entertainment
Michael Eisenbaum
Writer/Producer - Branded Entertainment
Tina Cherrillo
Executive Producer
Kate Swift
Producer
Katie Mariani
Executive Creative Director
Ed Rhine
Director Live Action - Senior Creative Director
Brian Eloe
Art Direction - Conceptual Development
Jessica Libby
Editorial - DP & Lighting
Alex Miller
Design, Animation & Compositing
Jess Libby
Instead of keeping the entire spot underwater, we pitched cleverly, bringing the vibrant ocean colors alive on your walls. This concept shows how the brilliant colors found in the shark’s lair can be the inspiration for your color flair.
Utilizing the technique of match motion and angles plus brush and roller strokes, we imagined moving to and from beautiful ocean scenes to a canvas in someone’s home. Shapes and silhouettes of sharks and sea life will move in the paint before/after we see those same creatures in full color underwater. The result is fun CG-enhanced moments that present viewers with a clear link between the vibrant colors of the Shark Week world and their next painting project at home.
When the time came to execute this concept, we looked at our playground to find the best toys to play with. While the style frames were done with a CG roller, we imagined shooting that element for heightened painting authenticity. Our office space is the perfect place to set up an element insert shoot, so we got out our rollers, rolled up the sleeves, and started slinging paint. What made this approach especially effective was being able to share the raw footage with our motion designer, who pulled rough keys and quick comped to make sure our roller strokes were getting the job done.
Once the roller shoot was completed, it was time for the VFX fun to begin. And there were lots of little nuances that needed attention. When it comes to VFX, the devil is in the details. All the selected shark shots were rotoscoped, but the coral catshark required special attention because of the foreground kelp in the shot. Something about the movement of the roto-mask just didn't feel right, so our lead motion designer leaned into her cell-animation chops and meticulously hand-traced the movement... including "the blink."
Before you ask... Yes! Sharks have eyelids, but it's used more for protecting the eye than blinking. That is one of our favorite positive side effects of working with the variety of brands we do- All the exciting factoids we pick up along the way.
