Santa Monica, CA: Taking BMW to the edge and beyond, The Syndicate (www.Syndicate.tv) steered the automaker through extensive vfx, telecine and online for a quartet of new spots from Publicis, directed by HSI's Michael Haussman.

Two commercials, "Precipice" and "Photocopy," were especially effects heavy. In "Precipice" viewers see how a BMW Series 3's self-drying brakes save the driver from a frightening road hazard. In "Photocopy" audiences observe that cars that try to duplicate a BMW Series 5 pale in comparison.

The Syndicate was especially challenged by "Precipice," which was reconceived to showcase the car's self-drying brakes just two days before the scheduled shoot. "We were locked into a location, a high road in the Angeles National Forest above the tree line, where there's nothing but open skies," notes vfx supervisor Ben Grossmann. "The new concept had to use that location and the car but sell the story of the brakes in what's actually a sunny and dry environment.

Thanks to The Syndicate's vfx wizardry, the Publicis creatives were able to storyboard the new spot with a fierce rainstorm over the mountain road. A man behind the wheel of a BMW Series 5 is engaged in some power driving until he rounds a hairpin turn and immediately reacts to what's ahead. The car's self-drying brakes bring the vehicle to a controlled halt at what appears to be a crack in the road. But when the camera pulls back viewers see that the road had been washed out by a giant rock slide moments before. The intelligent brake system is "an idea that's arrived not a moment to soon," says the voiceover

Grossmann was determined to capture as many effects as possible practically. "It's hard to simulate and calculate raindrops splashing on a car and a car interacting with rain, so we had a rain-tower array over a controlled stretch of mountain road," he explains. "The driver drove back and forth to get a lot of the close rain coverage we needed."

Grossmann took to a helicopter, outfitted with a Spacecam mount, to lens the car's dramatic running footage. When a stray cloud crept over the mountainside Grossmann quickly grabbed his digital camera to capture it to help the set the scene in the new opening shot that was crafted back at The Syndicate.

"We digitally chopped out the mountain, lowered it and extended the ridge line," Grossmann says. "We replaced the sky with a series of clouds, added lightning from the thunderhead, and created the falling rain with Particular, a particle system built in After Effects, which we helped develop and which I used in 'Sin City.' Joshua LaCross, composited all the elements in After Effects 7."

Because the car's headlights were not on during the running footage, The Syndicate did a 3D camera match to digitally add the lights, added highlight reflections on the wet road and enhanced the water spray from the car. The Syndicate also added digital rain on top of the practical rain to increase the storm's density, replaced what had been a clear, blown-out sky, and comped in violent storm clouds. When a rain tower was visible in a shot, photos of trees were tracked in to cover the crane, and more rain was added.

With the timetable to execute the spot trimmed in half to just three weeks, Grossmann opted to use motor, beta software from Imagineer Systems, which enabled The Syndicate to significantly speed the rotoscoping process. Based on an advanced method of predictive rotoscoping, motor is "extremely fast and efficient," Grossmann reports. He tested a 100-frame shot whose hand rotoscoping required setting 88 key frames; motor required just four. Hand rotoscoping the sequence took one day while motor zipped through it in four minutes

"motor made an enormous difference" to the spot's turnaround, Grossmann stresses. "When we wanted to turn the headlights on or make a bumper brighter, motor operator Tim LeDoux could turn on motor and match it in a matter of minutes."

For the concluding shot of the crumbled road, the BMW was parked along the cliffside in broad sunlight. The helicopter rose over the road with its Spacecam focused on the rear bumper then pulling back. The Syndicate teamed with the production designer and director on a concept painting for the washed-out road. Then a high-resolution matte painting of the breathtaking shot was created in Photoshop and projected onto geometry in Maya by Digital Artist Alp Altiner.

"We did a full camera move on top adding digital highlights, rain, falling rocks and dust rising from the bottom of the gorge," Grossmann points out.

The Syndicate colorist Beau Leon made the film transfer for "Precipice" and the DaVinci color grading, toning the car body a cold blue. Les Umberger Senior Flame Artist did the final shot-to-shot conform and clean-up in Discreet Flame.

"Photocopy" features practical and digital effects. The spot depicts a BWM 5 Series traveling down a country road and entering a covered bridge. "At BMW we build the ultimate driving machine," says the voiceover. "While other car companies may try to duplicate it, the original is always better than the copy."

Suddenly the scanning motion and light effects of a photocopy machine sweep along the side of the covered bridge and viewers see a degraded photocopy of the car emerge and hit the road. Then the real BMW 5 Series exits the bridge and overtakes the copy, leaving it far behind.

The spot was shot on location at the Disney Ranch where production design built out the sides of a real bridge crowned by a roof. Once again Grossmann was aboard for helicopter aerials of the running footage.

Grossmann took a practical approach to the scanning effects on the bridge. "We made eight passes for the bridge effects," he recalls. "We mounted a giant light rig on a series of dolly tracks inside the bridge and had grips push it back and forth. Later Les Umberger enhanced these practical effects in Flame, combining passes, retiming them for a faster scan, and adding light flares."

Two real cars emerged from the bridge, one covered with tracking marks to facilitate 3D work, and the hero car.

"Eddie Robison Digital Artisit textured, lit and rendered in Lightwave multiple passes of the photocopy car built from a 3D car model, then we faxed and photocopied the renders to ourselves until they were very degraded," Grossmann explains. "Eddie painted the textures back on the car in 3D, the CG car was dropped on top of the real car and match moved perfectly."

The whole process was extremely complex and required degrading some parts of the car more than others, swapping out parts of the car for those of other carmakers, and going back and forth between 3D and compositing "to get the aesthetic just right," Grossmann reports. "We didn't simply use a degraded BWM."

For the overtake-and-pass sequence, the CG car was similarly dropped on top of the real, track-marked car and match moved.

Grossmann tapped Eyeon's Fusion for compositing throughout the spot. Senior Flame Artisit Les Umberger performed final clean up and polishing in Flame.

The Syndicate (1207 Fourth Street, Santa Monica, CA), (www.Syndicate.tv), a division of the ComputerCafe Group (Santa Maria, CA), is a 45-person VFX and telecine studio specializing in all aspects of final picture delivery, compositing and CGI for commercials and music videos. The company combines CaféFX's award-winning CGI and VFX studio with The Syndicate's three veteran partners: telecine artist Beau Leon, LA; executive producer Ken Solomon; and director of new business Leslie Sorrentino.