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| Could you supply a bit of background on how and when Bug was started? |
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"Bug was founded in 1995. In the beginning, we mostly did projects for the shipping and oil industry in Norway. However, our main goal was to make motion graphics and animation for broadcast and film. In 2000, Bug had grown to 5 employees. We still did some industrial animation but, as more and more agencies and broadcasters spotted our potential, our work load increased including some very exciting jobs. Bug was bought by Unique Promotions (a digital cinema advertising company) in 2001 but the name "Bug" was kept because of our good reputation in the market. Today, we have 11 dedicated employees, 10 freelancers and still growing."
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| What kind of work does Bug do? |
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"Bug's main focus is animated commercials and main titles for TV and cinema."
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| What is your type of customer at Bug? |
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"Bug works for all kinds of customers. We've done projects for community clients and both national and international corporations, ranging from local furniture shops and hairdressers to Nestle and McDonald's. Our focus is to make high quality productions for all of our customers no matter the size of the company."
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| Why do you think you were chosen to work on the One Call campaign? |
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"We had done one commercial for this company before but they wanted something new. Together we collaborated and came up with new ideas to pitch; showing frustrated lemmings dealing with loose cables."
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| What was the outline of the specific project? Who was the client? What were the requirements? |
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"One Call is a Norwegian telecommunications company that focuses on broadband and mobile phones. In this particular case, we were responsible for creating both the look and feel for the commercial. This was a broadband campaign that was based on selling an 'all-in-one' (VoIP/Broadband) solution for phones."
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| What were some of the biggest challenges you faced on this project and how did you overcome them? How did Fusion help in this regard? |
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"Some of the biggest challenges on the project were actually to keep it funny and not overly gruesome. Luckily, the client loved the idea from the beginning and gave us a lot of freedom. Keeping this in mind, we had to restrain ourselves from overdoing the violence/graphic stuff. Fusion helped us on these shots by adding or removing some of the 3D blood. In some cases we used Fusion's powerful particle system for secondary blood. We also rendered some of the backgrounds with OpenEXR and used auxiliary channels to change color, relight objects and complete touch-ups. This was all possible and very quick thanks to Fusion's flexibility."
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| Which artists from your facility worked on the shot? What particular features were essential in getting their work done? |
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"All together, three animators and one AD did all of the modeling and scene texturing. I completed all of the compositing in Fusion, consisting of rendering, shader, lights, and effects. The option of compositing in 32bit and using OpenEXR files was a huge benefit for us since we did all of our renders in mental ray at 32bit. We relied on Fusion's particles for background/ambient animation, secondary smoke, sparks, and some extra rain. Along with helping in all of these aspects, the ability to do a lot of the lighting and color correction in post really saved a lot of time."
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| Why did you choose Fusion to accomplish this shot? |
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"We chose Fusion mostly for its tight integration when working with rendered files from 3D applications, especially using auxiliary channels for tweaks and hacks. We also went with Fusion because it works fluently in 32bit and has an extensively useful toolset. We would render everything in layers, the backgrounds, foregrounds, character and miscellaneous moving objects. There were several passes for each of the layers that needed to be composited seamlessly together. In that way, we could really finalize the mood and colors early on and have quick turnarounds if there were changes."
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| What specific tools were used and why? How did Fusion fit into the overall production pipeline? |
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"We used 3ds Max for modeling, mental ray for rendering, Fusion for compositing and nailing the look, and After Effects for the text and titling. In 3ds Max, we used several different plug-ins, such as CAT, pyrocluster and Ornatrix. In Fusion, we used ReelSmart Motion Blur to do the motion blur on the characters."
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| How deadline driven was this project and how did Fusion comply and assist in this? |
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"The deadline for this project was tight and, since we completed the animation for the spot, we weren't left with much time. Luckily, the compositing and the rendering were really smooth and we actually ended up being done one day before the deadline! It's a first for us."
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| What can we expect from you in the future? |
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"Tons and tons of cool new stuff. We try to push our imagination and level of creativity on each project. Hopefully in the near future, you will get to see us blow up a Santa lemming."
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| What was the most rewarding effect that you feel you pulled off? |
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"Our client was very pleased; the lemming spot was an instant success with the pre-determined target market and the massive response that we received from the CG community. We're all quite happy with the way it turned out."
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| In what ways do you feel Fusion helped in the timely delivery of your projects for Broadcast? |
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"Its speed, flexibility and customer support really makes Fusion stand out from the crowd. Whenever we have a tough task, we fire up Fusion."
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All images courtesy of Bug.