Mesmerising New Chemical Brothers Promo is an Absolute Visual Treat

The Mill collaborated with award winning directing duo Dom & Nic to bring Chemical Brothers’ brand new video ‘Wide Open’ to life.      

The enthralling promo uses a range of highly technical visual effects techniques, which are perfectly paired with the organic flow and movement of professional dancer Sonoya Mizuno; to produce a captivating story that perfectly entwines with the iconic Chemical Brothers sound, featuring Beck. 

Inspired by procedural cellular structures, with an aim to mix the mechanical and organic, we see the protagonist gradually turn into a fully 3D printed structure as she dances around the studio.

The Mill’s VFX team worked closely with Dom & Nic to achieve this effect by extensively and meticulously tracking the dancer’s movements in order to replace her limbs and eventually her whole torso, with a lattice of 3D mesh. 

Photogrammetry scanning was used to create a fully CG model of the dancer’s body including photo real textures. CG clothing was also built in Marvellous Designer and then rendered in Arnold.

Head of 3D David Fleet comments, “The sheer complexity of this project is what made it unique. The amount of camera and body tracking alone was a huge challenge, as well as consistently seamlessly lighting one shot as long as this. We created clean plates for seven thousand frames entailing a huge amount of traditional hand painted comp work. To lighten the load, the team created a bespoke tool specifically for this project, which automatically scanned our footage for clean parts of the set, projecting them onto the areas that the dancer occupied. We scanned the entire set using Lidar technology to give us an accurate 3D model of the entire environment, enabling us to track the camera as closely as possible."

The Mill’s ECD Neil Davies comments, “The opportunity to work with Dom & Nic, The Chemical Brothers, Beck, Sonoya Mizuno and Wayne McGregor was a very exciting proposition. Not only was this a break-through project for The Mill; one of extreme technical complexity and precision, but it’s simply a real piece of art. As the viewer, you are lost in the dancer’s movement as the mechanical and physical blend into one. The final film is simple yet complex, and utterly mesmerising.”

Full Credits

Production Company: Outsider 

Director: Dominic Hawley & Nic Goffey 

Executive Producer: John Madsen 

Director of Photography: Steve Chivers 

Steadicam Operator: Rick Woollard 

Sound Design: Tony Rapaccioli 

Costume Designer: Tara Stift 

Hair and Make Up: Fiona Fellows 

Production Manager: Steve Elgar 

First Assistant Director: Ben Gill 

For Random Dance: Rebecca Marshal & Ellie Douglas-Allan 

Focus Puller: Ross Naylor 

Clapper Loader: Stephanie Kennedy 

DIT: Paul Swann 

Video Playback: Tony Booth 

Grip Trainee: Warren Wiseman 

Runner: Daniel Osei 

Runner: Ana Freire De Andrade 

Runner: Billy Goffey

Editing Company: Whitehouse 

Editor: Ed Cheeseman 

VFX & Design 

VFX & Design: The Mill 

Executive Producer: Misha Stanford-Harris 

Production Coordinator: Tess Miles 

Shoot Supervisor: Neil Davies & Suraj ‘Sid’ Harrington-Odedra 

Executive Creative Director: Neil Davies 

Animation Lead: Jorge Montiel & Ian Potsos

Rigging: Andreas Graichen 

2D Lead Artist: Fergal Hendrick 

3D Lead Artist: David Fleet & Suraj ‘Sid’ Harrington-Odedra 

2D Artists: Joe Courtis, Brad Wood, Sole Martin, Lucas Carracedo, Jeanette Eiternes, George Cressey, Warren Gebhardt, Stefan Susemihl, Rebecca Clay 

3D Artists: Andreas Graichen, Ian Potsos, Marta Carbonell, Ashley Reemul, Alberto Lara, Matthew Kavanagh, Sauce Vilas, Jasmine Ghoreishi, Sherin Mahboob, Philippe Moine 

Tracking & Matchmove: Peregrine McCafferty (Peanut FX), Amelie Guyot (Peanut FX), Philip Maddock 

Modeling & Texture: Marta Carbonell 

Lighting & Rendering Assist: Yoann Gouraud 

Shoot Assist: Margaux Huneau 

Motion Tracking & Supervision: Peanut VFX - Peregrine McCafferty and Amélie Guyot  

Body Scanning: FBFX Digital - Jack Rothwell 

Rotoscoping & Clean up: Trace VFX & GelaroGrace 

Scanning: Duncan Lees (Efficacy 4D) 

Motion Capture: Ivo Slivkov (Timeaware) 

Colour 

Colour: The Mill 

Colourist: David Ludlam 

Colour Assist: Oisin O'Driscoll, Brendan Buckingham