Levi's Trademark - Surreal 70s commercial

Some nice effects for 1977!
budzossays...

This is my favourite piece of advertising. There is no CGI on display. Abel and Associates only used computers to figure out angles and control camera moves. I love how they've wrapped people in textureless grey body suits in order to simulate shaded computer models.

PS everyone who failed to upvote this when it was in the queue should be ashamed of their self. Makes me question the wisdom of this crowd.

HenningKOsays...

We'll get there, Budzos, if it takes another 6 months.

PS: You don't think that last sequence with the bubbles and rainbow road are CGI?

PPS: If you haven't noticed before... watch the "guys by the park" prancing around, they're really hilarious.

budzossays...

Haha, yeah.

No the stuff at the end is not CG. There are a few layers of effects. The bubbles are airbrushed, each on their own cel so that they overlap organically (the transulcent paint increases opacity with layers). The rainbow looks hand animated to me. The glowing sparks that look like CG particle systems are hand-animated backlit gels. The jeans are stop motion animated and then hand-masked if not blue-screened (which would require using white or black jeans and then re-tinting them).

^these are all guesses, but there is no CG I can tell ya that!

Croccydilesays...

This was on a very old Discovery Channel documentary about early CGI, the part with the flying Levis logos at the end is CGI.

Robert Able and his team used high resolution vector monitors with colour filters and multiple passes for that and other CGI they did at the time (along with the sequence that was in TRON). "Solid" graphics were simply lots and lots vectors since it was film scanned and not realtime, which would have been impossible on systems back then.

Send this Article to a Friend



Separate multiple emails with a comma (,); limit 5 recipients






Your email has been sent successfully!

Manage this Video in Your Playlists




notify when someone comments
X

This website uses cookies.

This website uses cookies to improve user experience. By using this website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

I agree
  
Learn More