Could "Take it to the RED" be the next Heinz slogan? We think so.
In this commercial we wanted to give the illusion that the viewer was the one sitting at the table and reaching in to take a bite of their "Heinz" Burger.
We tried to make every frame of this video count. We created many detailed and eye catching effects. It was important for us to acheive this very dynamic in-depth look. We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed creating it.
- Behind the Scenes -
I'm an Engineer and learning about special effects. George has a kitesurfing video website called KiteFlix.com. This is our first "commercial" and we aspire to make it a career. We really wanted to make the next great Heinz ketchup commercial.
We tried to be as original as possible without forgetting about the other judging criteria.
We decided to create a mouth watering delicious hamburger to elicit the desire and motivation for a viewer to buy Heinz ketchup. Each ingredient of the burger was carefully selected, prepared, grilled, and filmed.
The burger is completely real but each layer was extracted and separated in post production and tweeked in After Effects and Cinema 4D. The shoot took one day. Post production took about (3) weeks.
The main character was the Heinz Tasty Meter. Modeled after a real tachometer and real tomato, this 3D element served as a visual connection between Heinz Ketchup and the max RPM of an automobile engine or "redline". We figured that since there's such a huge number of race car fans they would appreciate and relate to the "Take it to the RED" slogan. Not to mention that it's a potentially catchy slogan as well.
Since we wanted to emphasize a racing theme, we used a white placemat that we carefully masked off in a checkboard pattern. One can of black spray paint later gave us a great looking checkered flag. The light tree in the background added a bit of dragster style racing. This 3D element includes many details such as the power cord and lens guard. If you look really close, you'll see the light's intensity fluctuate from the tomato's rumbling engine.
The clear glass plate also played an important role since it allowed us to keep the Heinz label on screen for the majority of the clip.
The "ketchup pour" was shot separately against a green screen. This gave us some compositing freedom to give the illusion that the Heinz ketchup itself was building the burger.
One of our favorite parts of this commercial is the dynamic cheese melting sequence. Try to figure out how we did that? There was no trick photography or special effects. Actually, we got the idea to use a blowdryer to melt the cheese as we rolled tape. The melting effect improved by speeding up this sequence in post production.
The burger grab sequence was by far the hardest portion of the actual filming. George carefully positioned himself underneath the table just in front of the camera's tripod. He then made it look like his hands and arms were reaching in from a viewer perspective to naturally grab the burger with both hands and raise to the bottom portion of the camera lens. That doesn't sound too hard does it? Realize though that he wasn't able to see the burger when he grabbed for it. Not to mention that he had to reach behind and above his head while underneath the table and precisely place the burger at the lower lens position. This was a one take sequence that had to be correct the first time. Otherwise, we would've had to reshoot the entire burger build sequence all over again. Needless-to-say, George did it on the first take. The eye closing effect was added to emphasize the overwhelming taste of the Heinz Burger. This eye closing portion also gave for a well needed transition between the two scenes of this "burger grab" sequence. The return sequence shows a huge bite out of the burger where only seconds ago, it was a full size burger. I actually took the burger from George (he still remained underneath the table) and I proceeded to eat away at this giant burger. After a decent amount was eatin, I handed it back to George where we ended the previous sequence, underneath the camera lens. He placed it back on the plate to complete the shot. By-the-way, that was a great tasting Heinz Burger.
We were quite pleased with how appealing this whole video turned out.
We certainly feel that we took this theme to its fullest potential.
We used Adobe After Effects for the compositing and Cinema 4D for 3D animation elements.
Written, Produced and Directed by:
George Saunders & Roger MacDonald
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Great video! I'm hooked. Outstanding job! My vote's with you.
8570Q 4 years ago
Thanks for the nice comment. It took over 300 hours to create would you believe.
CheetahExpress 4 years ago
Wow, thanks for the heads up guy. I can believe it took 300. Looks more like it took 3,000.
J.C.
jaredcicon 4 years ago
I remember when we first counted the days when we started, we had 44 days to complete this thing. We finished with 2 days left.
CheetahExpress 4 years ago
I came by to give you five stars just because of the good will you ae spreading on the Heinz 'main' page, then I find your spot and WOW. You got it goin' on man. Good for you compassion and competency. Good luck in the weeks to come.
J.C.
jaredcicon 4 years ago
Thanks, that means a lot. I hope we both get to see our videos up soon. I just received some emails from the Heinz Customer Rep. Basically, it says that we'll have to wait (possibly 2 weeks) for all of the thousands of entries that have been entered since a few days ago.
CheetahExpress 4 years ago