The Mill Pushes Boundaries of Liquid Simulation in Spectacular New Sky Q Ad

Sky will break new ground with a visually spectacular advertising campaign for the launch of Sky Q, the next generation home entertainment system.  The campaign is the biggest and most ambitious in Sky’s 27 year history and will roll out in the UK and Ireland from 12 February 2016. 

An arresting campaign, produced by creative agency Brothers & Sisters, will make use of futuristic 60-second spots.  The ads illustrate how the family of advanced Sky Q products connect wirelessly to create an ecosystem that makes TV viewing seamless - known as Fluid Viewing.   The result sees dramatic content like Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron exploding from one screen and embarking on an epic journey around the home in the form of droplets, before vividly splashing and reforming onto the next screen.  The ads play out to the soulful, live soundtrack of “I’ve Gotta Be Me” by Sammy Davis Jr.

The ads, beautifully shot by award-winning director Johnny Green, involved a Mill team of 52 VFX artists who pushed the boundaries of liquid simulation technology over twelve months, crafting a series of bespoke liquid droplets that are seen exploding out of the screen. Each liquid pixel was fully crafted in CG to create something truly beautiful and memorable, using a range of techniques created specifically for this project; bringing to life over 4000 individual simulations all full of individual personality and pace.

In order to create water droplets with real depth and consistency, the team created their own fluid system allowing them to dial in dynamism and life to the liquids. Each droplet was made from an inner and outer shell. The inner membrane contained the imagery from the original TV screen, whilst the outer acted as a magnifying lens to distort and exaggerate the vivid colours within each frame and provide a reflective surface for the filmed environment.

Francois Roisin, Lead 3D Artist and Joint Creative Director on Sky Q comments, “Working on Sky was a real opportunity to push The Mill’s fluid simulation to the next level. We had to carefully direct, tame and animate each drop of liquid in order to bring the textured fluid to life, as well as develop a number of techniques in-house to apply the screen-like texture onto these fluids and craft a beautiful colour palette for the spot. The CG liquid is the hero of this commercial, and crafting a journey with such a volatile element as fluids, whilst also retaining a natural motion, was a real tour de force.” 

Dan Williams, Creative Director at The Mill and Lead 2D Artist commented, “None of us had seen liquid behave or look like this before and required a giant leap of faith for all involved, including Johnny, Brothers and Sisters, The Mill and Sky. It was the kind of brief that we thrive on as it produces the most rewarding and innovative results. What we've done with these droplets is take something incredibly complex to create and choreograph, and imbued it with simplicity, elegance and meaning. There's drama and beauty in every little corner of this film.”

The campaign will be delivered across multiple media channels including TV, radio, cinema and print, as well as detailed use of digital and social channels. The digital execution includes a number of firsts for both Sky and the industry in terms of its innovative use of ad sequencing including digital outdoor, new formats such as Twitter Moments and Facebook Canvas Ads, as well as pioneering display techniques which maximise the impact of the creative on mobile and tablet devices.