Spiriva "Third Wheel"

For The Mill’s latest spot, created in collaboration with Juice Pharma, the VFX team crafted a 100% CGI bear.

The cuddly grizzly was meticulously modelled from scratch before being rigged, animated, then rendered with photo-real quality. The Mill’s Rigging team created proprietary muscle and skin simulation techniques, working in close conjunction with the FX and Simulations team on fur collisions and wind simulations. This ensured that movement of, and interactions with the bear’s fur were are realistic as possible. 

The animation team then breathed life into the digital creature, giving it a great deal of character and unique personality. The bear was seamlessly integrated into the live action plates through both 2D and 3D lighting and rendering. Using photographic references, the team were able to accurately re-created the lighting seen on-set, further integrating the bear into the scene and cementing its realism.

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CREDITS 

Agency: Juice Pharma Worldwide
Producer: Lisa Kaplan
Creative Director: Annie Foster, Justin Rubin
SVP Group Client Services: Andrei Lombardi
Account Director: Kelley Connors 
Director of Production: Michael Kaminsky

Production Company: Backyard Productions Director: Jesper Ohlsson
Executive Producer: Kris Mathur
Producer: Karen Chen
Director of Photography: Mihai Malaimare
Head of Production: Emily Malito
Prod Supervisor: Stephanie Marshall

Editing Company: Final Cut
Editor: Adam Rudd
Edit Assist: Penny Ensley

VFX & Design: The Mill
Executive Producer: Rachael Trillo
Producer: Luis Martin
Production Coordinator: Sophie Mitchell
Shoot Supervisor: Andres Eguiguren, Matt Longwell
2D Lead Artist: Kshitij Khanna
3D Lead Artists: Andres Eguiguren, Olivier Varteressian
2D Artists: Molly Intersimone, James Cudahy, Ari Garber, Vi Nguyen, Rob Meade, Ben Kwok 
3D Artists: Kevin Ives, Johnathan McCoy, Aton Lerin, Navdeep Singh, Jimmy Gass, Alex Allain, John Wilson, Jackie Liao, Todd Akita, Yong Chan Kim, Ren Hsien-Hsu  Design: Sally Reynolds, Bobby Ushiro