German post and VFX house ACHT backs up English director Joshua Vii as he takes a bee’s eye view in this mix of motion-control and CG exploring the exterior and interior of the new Škoda Kodiaq crossover SUV.

Produced through Film Deluxe GmbH for agency FCB London to air in Czechia and the UK, the film was shot in Prague and finshed at ACHT on what the director calls “the tightest of post production schedules.”

Joshua Vii: “Rarely does a camera have a reason to move in the manner we do in this film. Usually it’s a purely stylistic choice, but here we had an opportunity to embody the point of view of a small bumble bee, adding a narrative touch to each camera move as the bee discovers and explores Škoda’s latest SUV.

“It was a very technical piece to pull off, combining seamless CGI together with precisely designed motion control shots, some of which were taken directly from FBX files output and mimicked from cinema 4D, while other shots were handcrafted on set due to needing to adapt the path of the camera to the geometry of the set and car.
 

“In order to pull this off, every shot in the film was intricately pre-visualized, beginning by flying an iPhone around my own car to get a sense of where we wanted to be on our journey.”

 
“It was important to have the right post production partner for this and ACHT Studio really pulled off the impossible with our time frame of just 2.5 weeks to edit, grade, animate, light and render CGI, composite, and compose the sound design and music.

“In order to pull this off, every shot in the film was intricately pre-visualized, beginning by flying an iPhone around my own car to get a sense of where we wanted to be on our journey, and then crafting the curves and pace of the camera in Cinema 4D which were then handed over to ACHT to be perfected and embedded into their workflow.

“It meant that before we shot the film we had a good sense of the edit and pace, and allowed us to overlay mattes of the car interior when shooting the exterior plates which would be composited afterwards.

“ACHT did an incredible job bringing everything together and were amazing partners throughout the process, with a true creative understanding of what would help to elevate the film, from bumps and creases in the interior leather, to refining the design of our bumble bee.

“FCB London oversaw the creative of the project and brought a solid creative vision of the piece, backing us through a complex process to create a bold visual piece.”

Watch the making-of video:
 

 
 

 
Client: Škoda Auto

Agency: FCB London

Production Film Deluxe GmbH
Director: Joshua Vii
DoP: Matías Penachino

Post/VFX: ACHT
EP: Nadine Chodan
Producer: Bertram Schlooss
Visual Director CGI: Valentin Grünberg
VFX Set-Supervision: Karsten Falk, Valentin Grünberg
VFX Super: Axel Klostermann
Editor: Vlad Yakunnin
CGI bumblebee shading/lighting: Frederik Rieckher
3D: Frederik Rieckher, Valentin Grünberg, Martin Lundmark, Lukas Stemmler, Christian Gräfe
Compositor: Axel Klostermann, Sebastian Locker, Barbara Richter, Sascha Wolf
Match move: Johannes Weiß

Music/sound design: King Lear