Aiming to “evoke a feeling of growth and rebirth”, director Shane Griffin and the team at Tendril merge live-action, CG, and virtual production into an opulent relaunch film for the Mercedes-Benz GLC thru Merkley+Partners.

Shane Griffin: “When we were approached by Merkely about this spot, the pitch deadline was aggressive, so my initial instinct was: let’s figure out a unique palette, and ground the car in a realistic environment. From there, we can dive in tighter and this palette and world can inform all our macro CG elements.

“We used a combination of CG, photography, and AI to create the key visual for the pitch, but then we thought, how are we going to find this incredible location, with a perfect sunset, beautiful atmospheric hills, and infinite asphalt!?

“In the spot, the car forms in 30 seconds, and anyone who’s ever shot against the sunset knows you’ve one chance and one chance only to get your shot, so we needed an approach that would give us consistent and controllable lighting – enter the virtual production stage.
 

“We used a combination of CG, photography, and AI to create the key visual for the pitch, but then we thought, how are we going to find this incredible location, with a perfect sunset, beautiful atmospheric hills, and infinite asphalt!?”

 
“The majority of the interior car shots were handled on the VP stage for that reason, it allowed us to spend the whole day capturing without fear of the sun going down. Our environment was modeled up in Unreal Engine and used as a backplate on the stage.

“Where possible, we shot a live-action reference plate for the effects shots, which would eventually become partially or completely CG (with the exception of the explosion shot at the beginning, which I created in Embergen specifically for the director’s cut).

“From a CG production standpoint, there were several difficult effects to R&D in a short amount of time, so we made the decision to use Houdini to simulate and render the spot. The formation of the car’s exoskeleton, and some of the liquid screen effects were a blend between a VDB and Pyro methods. The interior stitching and cloth were handled with vellum, and the composite was handled in Nuke.”
 
 

 
Client: Mercedes Benz USA

Agency: Merkley+Partners

Production: Tendril
Creative Director: Patrick Coffey
Director: Shane Griffin
Executive Producer: Ivelle Jargalyn
Producer: Jelena Sibalija
Production Coordinator: Cody McFarland
Tech Lead: Tyrel Scott
Animation Lead: Will Sharkey
3D Design: Arnis Vitols, Bureau Klaus Alman, Benjamin Luthold, Christian Hecht, Danil Krivoruchko, Rafael Eifler
UI Design: Rafael Cezar
Storyboard: Iain Car
Asset/Model Prep: Bureau Klaus Alman, Tyrel Scott, Flavio Dinis,
Animation: Arnis Vitols, Bureau Klaus Alman, Benjamin Luthold, Christian Hecht, Tyrel Scott, Marcelo Souza, Will Sharkey
Light/Render: Arnis Vitols, Brad Husband, Bureau Klaus Alman, Christian Hecht, Marcelo Souza, Tyrel Scott, Yeseong Kim
Comp: Astrid Cardenas, Brad Husband, Corey Larson

Live Action Production: New Friend Content
Producer: Trevor Allen
Production Supervisor: Marcella Taylor
Assistant Production Supervisor: Quinn McLean
Director of Photography: Paul Theodoroff

Editorial: Outsider Editorial
Editor: Chris Murphy
Executive Producer: Kristina Anzlinger
Sr. Producer: Kayan Choi
Assistant Editor: Nathan Olszewicki

Color: Studio Feather
Colorist: Ana Escorse
Color Assist: Ebi Agbeyegbe
Executive Producer: Chantelle Blagrove

Sound Design: Cypher