Thor - Socials

Time Vanishes but your whites won’t in this new social campaign from Havas.

Having completed the VFX on the new Vanish TVC for Havas on 'Love Your Whites For Longer' it was great to work on these Cinemagraphs for social media for RB.

The brief was to create a vintage photograph where only the bright whites of the dress were preserved, while the rest of the image was subject to decades of wear and tear. We were to physically show the picture fading through distortion but also to add in moving elements such as layers of rain and smoke to align with the TV campaign.

The key image was shot on set way back before lockdown, concurrent with the live action phantom footage, so we had that raw image supplied. However, what Lead Flame Artist Ben Robards needed for the technique he had in mind was “an authentic texture that I could apply to that photograph to age it, of course there are plenty of stock textures that I could have used, but at that stage we didn't know what aspect ratio/s we'd be finishing, and I wanted a consistent look between them.

So, the solution I came up with was to create my own aged and creased paper textures in the different social aspect ratios. This is where working from home really came into its own. I found the best photo paper I had, cut it to 1x1, 4x5 and 9x16 ratios and went next door to the kitchen to artificially age it. I used the old tricks of tea and coffee to stain the paper, occasionally adding tears and creases before finally drying it in the oven. At each stage I took stills on my DSLR - importantly I lit them from different angles to emphasize different reliefs of the creases. It was then a case of compiling all those images in Flame and using them to add the paper stains and texture creases to the source image, as well as displacement and bump maps.

In order to get the final transition from the psychedelic seventies grade to the faded and damaged image, I simply animated the displacements and used paint reveals and morphs between the different paper textures. As it turns out, this recipe was a much easier process to achieve at home than it ever would have been in the company offices!”

Credits

Project name: Love Your Whites For Longer
HKX companies involved: Havas London

Client: Reckitt Benckiser
Category Manager - Ruxandra Ionescu Brand Manager - Alexia Theocharis Marketing Executive – Will Salt

RB Global Executive Creative Director & Creative Partner: Elliot Harris Creative Partner: Rob Potts
Copywriter: Diogo Abrantes
Art director: Chico Barrera

Managing Partner: Ainhoa Wadsworth Business Director: Carolyn Young
Account Director: James Johnstone
Senior Account Manager: Ciaran Macwhite

Head of Strategy (RB): Chantelle Begley
Group Strategy Director: Becky Taylor-Wilkinson
Strategist: Oliver Stogdale

Executive Agency Producers: Louise Bonnar, Charlotte Lawrence
Agency producers (film): Adam Henderson & Anya Williams

Post-production
Absolute Lead Flame Artist: Ben Robards
Post Producer: Jenna Le Noury

Soundtrack composer: Nick Rapaccioli
Track Name: "Love Your Whites"
Narrator: Annie Hulley
Audio post-production: Tom Lane, Creative Outpost

Media agency: ZenithOptimedia