Directors’ Treatment // Kirk Kelley & Mark Gustafson

INTRODUCTION

This spot is a brilliant amalgam of the bizarre. To create the most impact and delight of the contrasting environments, we’ll push hard on that juxtaposition of worlds. Starting with the live action, a humdrum and mundane setting, so when our eyeballs jump ship and dive headlong into VRV, the ENERGY and EXCITEMENT of those worlds EXPLODE off the screen. So many things to look at, that you need to watch the spot multiple times to take it all in…just like all the programming possibilities on VRV.

IMAGINARY WORLD

Let’s start at the beginning…the VRV Basecamp. Full of portals to new experiences, Basecamp should feel vast and crammed with endless fun house possibilities. As you can see in our concepting, we explored a few different approaches to Basecamp as it drives the approach to the rest of the worlds.

After Basecamp, we enter a series of vast worlds that are mysterious and beckoning to be explored. They are playful and unique, but with a cohesive feel that links the journey and punctuates the focus. These worlds will be chocked full of cues to the content they encompass, with elements from the highlighted portals showcased in interesting ways.

Another area we explored was an idea that featured an iris motif. We’re liking the idea of the iris–regardless of the style of room—as it becomes an organic transitional element embedded across the portals, creating  “gates” from one genre to the next. And as we’re continually jumping from one genre to the next, this gives us the bridge between channels that we need to shortcut the return to Basecamp. Plus, the idea of embedding an iris into a spot about eyeballs is just too great to ignore.

Regardless of whether we settle on the idea of the iris, we need that link between worlds that tie them together…but also allows us to see and anticipate the “jump” of our Eyeballs from one world to the next without going back to Basecamp each time. We should also note that all these worlds are full-on CG extravaganzas featuring foreground elements that ground us in the scene and textural eye-candy throughout the background to add interest. These layered elements combine to provide hints at both the depth of the VRV experience and added interest in repeat viewings as the viewer attempts to find all the hidden gems and treasures in the CG environments. 

Many of these elements in our worlds will incorporate the IP in various ways. In some cases it will be easy to use video clips of IP playing out...places like the portals in basecamp or screens in the environments like on the city street where it can play out as the content on video billboards. The Fantasy World is perhaps the one place we will need to be more creative to fit the IP into the world because screens don’t really fit into the environment as easily. In this world I imagine several options we can incorporate. For instance, cutting out specific characters (like Colin Morgan from Merlin with his hand stretched out, for instance) that appears to look like a 3D hologram or creating iconic loops so they can appear to play out in flames. Another way to build content in this area is to create sculptures that could be in the background...a dragon for instance. If we can’t get rights to specific IP for these sorts of sculpts we could create our own dragon…to represent the genre instead. This could also play well in Outer Space where spaceships or worlds appear in the background…something like the Ori Mothership or the USS Deadalus are pretty iconic and would stand out. Again, this is just the beginning of the conversation of how to showcase the IP once we know exactly what we can use.