Shots to showcase Wicked Pixels' new Design Indaba commercial

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Stunning new work has emerged from Wicked Pixels with the completion of the DI12 TV and print campaign. The commercial, directed by Wicked's Craig Wessels features on the latest shots reel. Livio Tronchin, Creative Director, The Jupiter Drawing Room CT, describes the work as “definitely the best commercial that has been created for the Indaba to date”, which is rewarding for Wicked as they had to decline the opportunity last year.

The focus at this year's Design Indaba is less on the 'rock stars' of design; instead the Indaba celebrates ordinary people out there doing extraordinary things. It glorifies their work, placing it on the same pedestal as a world-renowned artist or scientist. The public will see first-hand how the ideas of ordinary individuals are changing our world for the better.

The aim is to inspire everyone to harness their unique creativity to solve problems they face in their lives. This is the key to a sustainable future. People must continually ask themselves: "What can my creativity do?"

The creative team from Jupiter CT wanted to be revolutionary in their execution and investigated a model-making process called rapid prototyping. Using this process, a real, life-size bust was created of each artist. But before the rapid prototyping could commence, each inventor had to have their faces laser scanned by the digital team at Wicked Pixels, who then used this data to create the exacting 3D model of each artist.

Wicked Pixels then knuckled down to the arduous task creating the entirely digital TVC, under the direction of Wicked's Craig Wessels and CD, Andrew Shaw. The hero's face was this time modelled, not scanned, by the Wicked artists, who also developed a number of shaders to give it the final matte finish. A special type of wire-frame mesh was then applied to the face. Each facet of the mesh was extracted and separated from the face, then extruded to give it weight and perspective. This process enabled Wicked to achieve a highly unique look.

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Before the Wicked team set out to work on the animation, time was spent in research and development to formulate a method that, first and foremost, had the visual impact that they desired. The artists spent a month keyframe animating every individual block. This was necessary in order to gain the control needed to achieve a much higher degree of design and craft of the animation.

The end result is 'Bombshells', the story of Azmeraw Zeleke, a man in Ethiopia who uses old bombshells and turns them into coffee percolator machines. The TVC arrests the viewer with its imagery and inspires one with its story. The audience is taken on a visual journey into a fantastical realm; the world that is his thought process. This is true for all the work in the campaign. A singular message arises that everyone is capable of genius, so what can you (the audience) do?

Check out the spot here.