An MPC LA team led by Creative Director Paul O'Shea and Head of 3D Andy Boyd recently collaborated with 180LA and RESET Director Garth Davis on an out-of-this-world spot introducing Sony’s 4K Ultra High Definition TV. The spot showcases the amazing image quality of the Sony 4K with a visual journey through Davis’ imagination, where a parade of wonders unfurls across the ocean horizon: a frantic crowd in the dress of another century climb ladders into the sky, a fleet of Elizabethan battleships shrouded in cannon fire, a UFO descending from the sky.

Creating footage to show off the 4K’s advanced technology means working at resolutions double that required by most feature films. MPC had to create a whole new VFX pipeline for the spot to handle the larger frame sizes and increased color depth. Machines were upgraded for the exponentially faster memory requirements and the render farm expanded to manage the increased demands on computing time. They also brought in new Houdini and V-Ray software capacity. “Creating the first 4K TV spot was a little like doing our first HD spots several years ago, where the workflows were overwhelming at first” states Boyd, who was undertaking his first project with MPC. “But now that we have our workflow established and have upgraded all of our hardware, we’ve broken in the new system and are set up to take the industry lead in Quad HD technology.”

MPC harnessed the full force of its VFX resources for this spot, whilst utilizing its experience on feature films. Some of the assets were practical, such as an almost-to-scale house interior that floats over Davis as he sits meditatively on a chair at sea, while others were software based, such as an armada of ancient galleon ships. MPC added an endlessly unfurling universe of smoke, cloud and water assets.The studio’s concept artists created and built the ship developing the look using lightning-fast and interactive V-Ray RT.