A Hat Trick of Awards for SquareZero !

In a really great 2 weeks for SquareZero, we picked up 3 Awards!
SquareZero won 1st place in the corporate category with our 12min hologram show for the launch of Speedo's LZR racer swimsuit. The piece which chronicles the history of Speedo right up to the present day, was brought to life with stunning 3D effects. The sequence culminated in a holographic reveal of swimmer Michael Phelps who appeared alongside the live athletes who were present at the event.
We were also awarded joint 3rd place in the same category with 2 of our other pieces, Agfa Drupa and Toyota Auris (which previously also won an IVCA LIVECOM Award for innovation). The Musion Academy Media Awards, awarding cutting-edge creations in holographic art was held on 15th of November in London at the Old Cinema of the Polytechnic Institute at University of Westminster, the place of origin of the peppers ghost technology.

Frank Sinatra

We also scooped a Highly commended prize at Livecom 2009 for our Frank Sinatra Hologram. Details in blog entry below...

and ...

also scooped a Highly commended prize for our holographic piece for the launch of a flight simulator.The piece launched a new state of the art piece of apparatus, demonstrating its complex structure and unique technology, through 3d animation. The hologram was shown as a prelude to the unveiling of the finished model, as part of a day long event, attended by the International aviation and the defense community.

Astra ... and action!

The brief was to create a 360 degree Virtual Reality Experience for the launch of the new Astra and an interactive film in which the user would become part of the actual piece.The overall creative took its lead from aspirational movie Oceans 11.

In the first part, he user puts on the VR goggles and becomes the star of the scene as they complete the stunt for the film. A groundbreaking piece of VR was filmed at Millbrook Proving ground with a stunt driving setup and a 360 rig. A combination of live action, animation, editing, grading, sound design all combined to make this a really wow piece.

For the trailer, another intensive shoot took place over 2 long days all around London. and was edited and graded in a stylistic way to fit in with the above the line campaign. Sitting in a pod, the user gets their picture taken and these are automatically comped into the trailer at specific points so that they essentially become the star of the show.


Astra won the 2010 IVCA Gold award.
Read a detailed overall article about this experiential campaign here.
For some technical information behind the process see my blog.

CGI snowscape for Bocelli

Look out for Andrea Bocelli's My Christmas commercial.

The piece starts off with Bocelli performing in a stately room. A camera fly through a cgi snowglobe resting on his white baby grand piano transports the viewer to a winter wonderland. Andrea then performs in an entirely cgi created snowscape.

The live action aspect was produced by Love Commercial Prod Co. The CGI and compositing is by SquareZero ltd.

Director Najma Bhatti at SquareZero
Producers: Andy Thackery & Louise Gagen at Love
DOP: Will Bex
Post Producer: Vicky Godfrey at SquareZero
Post Production: SquareZero
Editor: Nathan Perry Greene at Cut and Run

Frankie goes to Hadley Wood

SquareZero were commissioned to create a top secret, 3d hologram of a Frank Sinatra performance.

The brief was to bring Frank Sinatra back for one night only to perform at the 50th birthday party of entertainment mogul Simon Cowell.

Carefully selected black and white footage of Frank Sinatra’s head singing Pennies From Heaven was cleared for use by Franks Estate.

A Frank Sinatra body double, was then shot singing the same song and performing the exact same body movements. The two pieces of footage were expertly composited by the SquareZero team and the black and white footage of Frank colourised also, to match.

**Due to the clearance of the footage for this one night private party, we regret that we are unable to post any of the footage/images online.

Beautiful People

Square Zero created a title sequence for the BBC comedy about Simon Doonan (Samuel Barnett), a window dresser in a New York department store.


How it was done: Directors Olly Tyler and Jonson Jewell used live action, green screen and 2d compositing to create a store front sequence in which series characters are made to look like store mannequins and props that have been speedily put in place by Barnett.

iD3, an Interactive Film

iD3 is an interactive Film, featured on the Doritos website for 6 months in 2009. Upset TV, specialists in interactive entertainment, have written, directed and created the adventure, with Rehab Studios responsible for the interactive production. AMV BBDO have provided digital planning and consultancy. SquareZero were called upon to grade, chroma key and track shots. The promotion is being supported with outdoor and online media; and a heavyweight PR campaign.

See more here

Bosch garden tools in pop out 3d

We recently finished a 3d autostereoscopic promo for Bosch garden tools. Autostereoscopic is a pop out 3d effect which does not require special glasses to see, giving a real tangible feeling of depth and realism to our animations. The special Philips screen was installed at a hotel lobby for a european meeting of Bosch representatives. The content featured a fly through of lawns and hedges and up into space where we see the garden products themselves, orbiting 3d branded elements of the powertool range.

Transport system for major world heritage site

SquareZero are currently working on a 3D-marketing animation for proposed transport design, for a large inner city. 
This prestigious project could have a global impact for its millions of annual visitors.
We were excited to be approached at such an early conceptual stage, and be asked to use our 3D and animation skills
to visualise the workings and the feasibility of the planned development.
Unfortunately we can't reveal anymore on this one...but we'll keep you posted

Sunny Days music video for Kid British

SquareZero have just completed the music video for Sunny days -
The uber catchy release from the hotly tipped Manchester band Kid British.

The video features singer Adio waking up broken hearted after being dumped by his girlfriend. He gets up and puts on a fake smiley head in a bid to bravely face the world. His fellow band members are oblivious to his unhappiness throughout the video
and only respond and react to his smiling foam-headed features.

The fun video was shot in one day in locations around Hackney, East london.

Look out for the single released end of April!

director Najma Bhatti,
producer Vicky Godfrey
designer Sarah Klan



Russian Dolls

CYBERDOLLS are coming to Russian clubs and hologram stages soon ! The virtual DJ Ursula and his dancers Sandy and Karla are beaming in and grooving about to six shagadelic dance tracks in our new presentation for Musion Eyeliner stage productions. Heelllooo Babyyy !! 

This was a co-production where motion capture and the characters were sent by MotionMechanics in Russia. We then did all of the animated stage lighting using 3d and 2d processes. We rendered all twenty-six minutes of 3d and  Special effects using our render farm which runs Qube software. The special effects added by us were created in AfterEffects, Shake and Particle Illusion. Most of the SquareZero team were working on the project to turn around the large quantity of HD work in just several weeks.

The finished content resembles the famous Gorillaz live shows and may well be sold alongside Eyeliner foils to nightclubs and events companies. Hologramix are the reseller of Musion Eyeliner in Russia but seperate investors commissioned the content. 

UsoDaze at number 2 in 3d charts

Our pop promo UsoDaze has been in the number 2 slot on Philips WOWvx 3d homepage for several months now. We reversioned a section of the pop promo by Jason Keeler for the 3d screen and it really pops out well. The community website features movies from Philips partners around the world who have been making content for the innovative screen technology. We are waiting for our WOWvx showreel to appear on the site and shortly we will also be adding our graphics for the gambling and games market.