New York ad agency Grey recently called on Nice Shoes Creative Studio to devise a spot to showcase 3M’s Filtrete Air Filters’ removal of indoor air particles. The challenge for Nice Shoes was to shoot actual air particles (visible to the naked eye) to make people aware of how much dust, allergens and bacteria are contained in the air that people breathe in every day.
Director Harry Dorrington shot the spot in Vancouver, capturing actual air particles with a high-speed camera, as it was important that real particles be used during the live-action scenes.
These on-set particles were also sampled to build an animated 3D demonstration of Filtrete’s capabilities, which was then augmented by a CG particle system to create more depth.
Upon returning to New York for postproduction, Dorrington collaborated with Grey at every step, from editorial and VFX, to the final color grade with colorist Chris Ryan.
“Nice Shoes has been an invaluable postproduction partner to Grey over the years, so the approach to do this spot from end to end, by shooting with Harry was a perfect solution for this type of spot,” said Adam Seely, VP, executive producer at Grey NY. “Harry was there from treatment, to pre-production and supervised every step of the way through postproduction. It’s a much better way of working with a spot that relied on integrated graphics and demo work in addition to getting the humanity of the live action and have it all come together into one cohesive piece.”
“Grey knew exactly what they wanted from this spot when we first met. They presented a direction that required a realistic and elegant approach,” said Dorrington. “With everything at our disposal here, I was able to show them pre vis and motion tests, take that and show them how this spot was going to look before I even shot it.”
