Powerful storytelling in real-time

CARS.com 2024 Cars of the Year

Cars.com was looking for a way to enhance one their largest projects of the year, the Cars of the Year campaign.

Floyd + Co worked with the in-house creative team and director on studio selection, VAD, and on set supervision, and animation.

After testing multiple concepts through pre-visualization, we worked with them to design and 3D digital environment that was brand color specific and would work with all 6 vehicles. The whole suite of videos was filmed over a week.

This whole process allowed them to combine their existing running footage with new dynamic content and interviews to create a bold, on-brand experience that is cars of the year.

BigFoot Coffee

This Bigfoot Coffee TV at was a spec shoot for a fictional coffee company, meant to demonstrate the advantages of using virtual production to tell a story that would be difficult or impossible using traditional techniques.

  • Multiple Locations within the same shoot day

  • Time savings on set: the whole shoot was 6 hours

  • Animated creature

  • All shot in-camera, the only post was edit, color grade and sound

  • True 1:1 Hybrid Shooting, Stills and Motion

Live Compositing

Working with an LED wall and additional render node, we are able to create composite shot with real-time previews in-studio.

In this case, we created a CG helicopter around our pilot.

  • True what-you-see-is-what-you-get workflow

  • Potential cost savings

  • Expands creative possibilities

Automotive Process Shots

Most automotive shoots are done with 2D playback, but this proof of concept was filmed with a full 3D Unreal Engine environment. This allows for several advantages:

  • Custom animation of the car’s motion

  • Full control over time of day

  • Full control over “events” such as birds, or simulated crashes

  • The ability to create photo-real cinematics (in-engine shots) that directly match the action of the in-camera footage as shot in studio.

  • Fully rigged + animatable CG digital doubles of vehicles

Repurposing Existing Assets

Photographer and Director, Ross Floyd traveled the country in 2023 building a library of stills and motion that could be used for traditional advertising media and channels, with the idea that it could also be repurposed for virtual production.

  • 2D playback is the simplest way to use existing assets

  • Requires less complexity

  • Works when the are are minimal camera moves

  • Works well with one subject