Ford “Built Smarter” is our latest spot created at Hatch Studios Ltd., directed by Larissa Ulisko. It is the second spot for Ford belonging to a campaign set of several.

It features the Ford Escape open like a book into a graphic and abstract landscape environment in which we see the vehicle performing dynamic precision maneuvers while showcasing its various distinct features.

In case you hadn’t guessed by now, the voice read was done by Kiefer Sutherland.

This project required even more problem solving than the previous one in order to bring Larissa’s graphic vision to life in 3D. The environment had to be continually represented in technical form, while at the same time constructing and deconstructing itself around the vehicle, only this time with the added complexity of organic elements. Not only did all geometric objects have to grow and shrink, but so did their line-treated counterparts, all of which were rendered with the help of the FinalToon line tracer plugin.

The lighting and rendering of the Ford Escape had to remain photorealistic while still producing a dramatic contrast between its light, metallic sage color and the warm, dark-colored landscape environment. As a result, a specialized car paint shader was developed to reproduce the vehicle paint more accurately while still being able to maintain this contrast.

This spot was modeled and animated with 3dsmax 8.0. VRay 1.5 RC3 was used for the lighting and rendering. After Effects was used for compositing, color treatment and graphics. FinalToon was used for the technical line rendering and the project was on-lined on an Inferno.