With a wink to Pixar’s groundbreaking 1986 short film Luxo Jr., the VFX team at The Mill in Paris and Bangalore create a curious CCTV camera character for this Peugeot E-308 spot directed by Mark Jenkinson at Movie Magic.

Michael Girod, CG supervisor at The Mill: “Our mission was to tell a love story between the camera and the new Peugeot. We treated it like a short animated film with a sympathetic story including 32 shots to rig and a unique and endearing character to create from scratch. A pleasure for a CG enthusiast!

“Very quickly our inspiration turned to Pixar classics that spoke to us. We created several CG asset mock-ups to validate the modeling, rigging, textures, and shading. We wanted a friendly, emotive camera with a slightly weathered look without it looking dirty or obsolete. We managed to give the camera life and personality without creating a cartoony asset.

“During the shoot, the idea of printing the camera model in 3D quickly became obvious and enabled us to work more efficiently. Added to this work on the camera were many environmental details that served the script, such as rain, water on the camera, reflections, etc.”

Watch the making-of video:
 

 

 
Client: Peugeot

Agency: Open Agency

Production: Movie Magic
Director: Mark Jenkinson

VFX: The Mill Paris
EP: Fabrice Damolini
VFX Producer: Stéphanie Mollet
VFX Supervisor: Alexis Baillia
CG Supervisor: Mickael Girod
Editing: Maxime Didelot
Grading: Philip Hambi
Modeling/Environment: Jaspreet Kay Dua, Tytouan Botte, Nicolas Du That Co
Generalist: Guillaume Dadaglio
Rigging: Marine Sisnaki, Alexandre Sauthier
Animator: Alban lelièvre, Geoffroy Barbet Massin, Ludovic Martin, Hervé Anceau
FX/fur: Pierre Carcedo
Lighting: Valentin Lesueur, François-Xavier Gonnet, Balthazar Bourguignon, Tytouan Botte Compositing : Ugo pierantoni, Fabrice Fernandez, Jordan Recoquillon, Killian Roy
Flame: Alexis Baillia
VFX Coordinator: Milan Vicet, Mathilde Cohen Selmon
Assistant: Julie Rigaud, Chloé Charrier, Felix Fléchet, Naomie Dumas, Pauline Royo, Antoine Zimer, Maité Tamain
VFX support: The Mill Bangalore Associate Production Manager :
Production Coordinator: Raman Dhode, Srinivas Bandi, Nividita Dakua, Rushikesh Shelar
Compositing Supervisor: Venkata Siva Kumar Mannepalli
Compositing Lead: Rajesh S
Compositing Artist: Pavan Gurhalkar, Ragesh Ramchandran, Gopinathan Sekhar, Sudeep Bandi
Asset Lead: Nishant Kumar
Rigging Lead: Garlapati Yeswant
Lighting Supervisor: Aritra Kumar Sarkar
Lighting Artist: Trinath Sarkar, Romika Tiwari, Karan Patel, Sourabh Soni
MMRA Supervisor: Elangovan Ganeshan
MMRA Lead: Smijumon Viswanathan, Avaneetharan Karuppasamy
MMRA Artist: Puppala Vinod Kumar, Anirudh Krishna Kurve, Tirupati Bhavani Shankar Derangula, Upasana Choudhary, Swapnil Bharat Nerkar, Yallamraju Venkata Raja Chandra, Praveenkumar Palani,
Asif Mohammad, Paras Pareshkumar Shah, Typhan Rai, Chetan Balasaheb Kadam, Vijay Bapu Chavan
Prep Supervisor: Sugumar S
Prep Lead: Kiran Veeraswarapu, Sachin Ranaware
Prep Artist: Ritesh Patil, Sikandar Shaikh, Anuj Pathania, Prashant Kamble, Abhishek Deswal, Sagar
Gawande, Bruno Roosewelt, Jagadeesh Dasari, Utkarsh Indis, Sagar Dasgaonkar
Roto Supervisor: Sivakumar S
Roto Lead: Rohit Charde, Moumita Ganesh Pratihar
Roto Artist: Rahul Jagtap, Laxman Nathuram Bodere, Nitin Yashwant Thorat, Sudhir Balaram Jadhav, Ahamadulla Khan, Hrushikesh Kadu, Shrikant Jadhav, Sudev S, Tanmay Bera, Aditya Shrikant, Salunkhe, Rakesh Gharti, Sekh Sahangir
Digital VFX Producer: Kahina Lamblin
Grading: Loic Lavaux
Motion: Franck Maillet