Francois Rousselet and The Mill: BBC Music “God Only Knows”

It took Riff Raff director Francois Rousselet and the Red Bee Media team a full year to shoot the 26 music stars who join Brian Wilson for a grand version of The Beach Boys’ classic “God Only Knows” in this spot to launch BBC Music.

The supporting VFX work from The Mill includes the crystal particle system around Stevie Wonder, Lorde’s CG wings, butterflies sitting on Elton John, Kylie Minogue’s CG bubbles, matte paintings, Jamie Cullum flying through CG clouds, compositing a tiger on Brian Wilson’s piano the CG feather landing on his keyboard.

The Mill’s 2D Lead Zoe Cassey-Hayes: “Due to the scale of this project, it required the input of almost every department at The Mill, using a huge array of software including Houdini, Maya, Nuke, Flame, Photoshop, and Hiero to bring it to fruition.”

Agency: Karmarama
Production Company: Red Bee Media
Director: Francois Rousselet (Riff Raff)

Post-Production / VFX Company: The Mill
Executive Producer: Gemma Humphries
Production Assistant: Clare Melia
Shoot Supervisor: Hugo Guerra
3D Cloud Lead: Adam Droy
2D Lead Artists: Zoe Casey-Hayes, Hugo Guerra
2D Artists: Alex Candlish, Richard McKeand, Grant Connor, Gary Driver, Siro Valente, Kirti Dave, Justin Gros-Desir, Anne-Sofie Tholander, Jeanette Eiternes, Eleanor Risdon, Gianluca Di Marco
3D Artists: Adam Droy, Yoann Gouraud, Christos Pariaros, Michael Balthazart, Margaux Huneau, Luke Tickner, Adam Dewhirst, Vasilis Pazionis, Philip Maddock, Fabrice Le Nezet, Jules Janaud, Daniel Kmet, Emmanuel Strixner, Ashley Reemul, Hugo Jackson, Giancomo Cavalletti
Matte Painting: Can Y Sanalan, Sullivan Richard, German Casado
Colourist: Mick Vincent
Executive Producer: Luke Colson

Editing Company: Final Cut
Editor: Amanda James

Immediate Byte