Working with Toronto prodco Impossible Studios, director/CD Alon Isocianu and Reactiv weave together live-action with delicate floral VFX in a striking piece for the Canadian Cancer Society that he calls “a real labor of love for a great cause.”

Alon Isocianu: “To promote Daffodil Month for cancer awareness, Reactiv was tasked with bringing to life the daffodil in a way that felt both organic and wondrous. There’s something profoundly exciting about the idea of visualizing hope, we knew that the flower needed to be hauntingly beautiful for this to work.

“We explored the idea of using time-lapse photography (either captured or stock) and compositing that into live-action shots, however if you’ve ever seen time-lapse of flowers blooming you’ve likely noticed how jittery and jumpy it looks. We also looked into using some AI-assisted workflows but the technology isn’t there yet, and wouldn’t have yielded results that were editable and modifiable.
 

“There’s something profoundly exciting about the idea of visualizing hope, we knew that the flower needed to be hauntingly beautiful for this to work.”

 
“Instead we pushed ahead with a fully 3D CG approach. After a few rounds of R&D/LookDev we settled on a simulated daffodil animation generated in Houdini. We were then able to create variations of this procedural flower that we could distribute along different geometry.

“On set we 3D scanned the various set design elements and props, as well as the talent’s hands. We used that 3D data to create geometry that the animated daffodils could grow out of as well as interact with (cast shadows onto, reflect onto, and be occluded by).

“In some shots we opted to swap entire practical elements with CG, such as fully replacing the tabletop and pill-bottles in the cancer-treatment scene. This was done to further create realistic interactions between the flowers and the props.”

Watch the VFX breakdown reel:
 

 
 

 
Client: Canadian Cancer Society

Production: Impossible Studios
Director: Alon Isocianu
EPs: Jenna Edwards, Marco D’Angelo
DP: Matt Barkley
Producer: Adrian Cheung
Production Designer: Karlyn Koeser
Storyboard Artist: Dave Franciosa

VFX/post: Reactiv
Creative Director: Alon Isocianu
Producer/EP: Anna Junger
CG Daffodil design & Look Dev: José Molfino
CG Animation/Lighting: Ben Carmeli
Matchmove: Edward Habib
Additional 3D Animation/Lighting: Alon Isocianu
Compositor & Online/Finishing: Jacob Doforno

Editorial: Outsider Editorial
Editor: Calum Moore
Assistant Editor: Riangelo Melaria
EP: Kayan Choi
Producer: Madison Paquin

Color Grading: Fort York VFX
Senior Colorist: Jason Zukowski
Color Assistant: Jose Torres
Producer: Julie Neff
Executive Producer: Pallavi Joshi-Firby

Audio: Eggplant Music & Sound
Chief Audio Engineer: Nathan Handy
Executive Producer: Jamie Pennock
Producer: Laura Merrett