Verizon Droid - Stealth - (2009) :30 (USA)

I hope this aired while the Leonid meteor shower was active lighting up the sky. Asylum's VFX team in collaboration with mcgarry bowen and MJZ's Rupert Sanders created this spot launching Verizon's highly anticipated Droid smartphone. The: 60 features CG environments that showcase Asylum's incomparable expertise in creating realistic FX, that even frighten the horses acting in the ad (well done). It begins with a squadron of stealth bombers thundering through a cloud-filled sky and launching a salvo of small pods toward earth, much like that meteor shower, and people see the pods as they flame their way down to earth. The pods explode into the ground - an effect achieved with a combination of live action and Flame composite. The contraptions survive in one piece, and when the live-action pod spins open, a shimmering CGI backdrop outlines the glowing Droid phone, also done in CGI.

Asylum packaged all of this footage into a custom interface that controlled the comp process and guaranteed a consistent look from shot to shot. They created an additional custom UI tool in Nuke to create the lens flare and lighting effects that incorporate realistic camera motion, reflections, and light leaks. Previsualization was built as a combination of 3D animation and reference footage taken from multiple sources.

Client: Verizon

Spots Title: Stealth

Air Date: November 2009

Agency: mcgarrybowen, New York

Executive Creative Director: Mark Koelfgen

Executive Creative Director: Warren Eakins

Copywriter: Tiffany Smith

Art Director: Michael Cannova

Head of Broadcast Production: Rosanne Horn

Production Company: MJZ, Los Angeles

Director: Rupert Sanders

Executive Producer: Eric Stern

Director of Photography: Alwin Kuchler

Line Producer: Laurie Boccaccio

Editorial Company: Spot Welders

Editor: Neil Smith

Post/Effects: Asylum

Visual Effects Supervisor: Robert Moggach

Executive Producer: Michael Pardee

Producer: Jason Cohon

Coordinator: Diana Cheng

CG Producer: Jeff Werner

CG Supervisor: Jens Zalzala

Compositing Lead: Miles Essmiller

Lead Modeler: Greg Stuhl

Music: Q Department

Sound Designer: Brian Emrich

Sound Design Company: Trinitite Studios

Mix: Lime

Mixer: Loren Silber