Lola Soho Create CCTV Idents For Brand Energies, Beijing

Lola have created some fantastic idents for CCTV last year so it was no surprise when they were approached again by Brand Energies in Beijing, to create more. The brief was to create a 30 second sequence which begins as a medium close-up on a waterfall, slowly the camera pulls back to reveal the waterfall tumbling down the side of a large, cubic mountain and into a winding river. The camera pulls out further and we discover that the mountain is situated within beautiful scenery located within (and typical of) the Guilin area of China. The camera continues to pull back until it bursts up through the clouds and finally out into space to reveal the edge of the Earth as the sun breaks the horizon in a glorious sunrise - and it is now that the Earth is revealed to be a cube too, revolving slowly in space.

Lola were faced with many technical challenges along the way but the biggest challenge was the Guilin landscape.

Head of 3D Tim Zaccheo speaks about what he found most challenging - "The hero mountain needed to be cubic in shape which immediately puts you on the back foot - it's much harder to make something believable if it has an unnatural shape to begin with. Add to that the peculiarly "Alien" look of Guilin itself, which required the addition of not just a winding river, but dozens of fields and thousands upon thousands of trees. All this even before the addition of a 600ft waterfall. The waterfall was solved using Softimage's ICE particle system, combining almost 3 million particles with judiciously placed live action elements. This then had to be combined with the Terragen landscape, including the addition of shadows, reflections and additional mist elements, such that the two knit together seamlessly."