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