Case Study

Porsche premiered their first Super Bowl commercial in 23 years at Super Bowl LIV with “The Heist,” a truly cinematic, edge-of-your-seat multi-car chase through Germany, directed by Hungry Man’s award magnet Wayne McClammy. Carbon’s long-standing collaboration with Porsche, via creative agency Cramer-Krasselt, provided an opportunity not to be missed; filming on location at the Porsche museum in Stuttgart, Germany, surrounded by vintage Porsche cars … for an epic two and a half minute cinema-release and a coveted Superbowl spot. To top it off, as enthusiasts have been quick to notice online, the film even features an Easter egg teaser for a brand new addition to the range.

Our VFX team were highly involved from the outset, discussing the technical considerations for the trickier shots with Wayne during pre-pro, right through to the time sensitive delivery, just in time for the big game. Carbon were on location in Germany, providing shoot supervision for the grueling 9-day shoot, covering a wide variety of technical setups across diverse locations.

Back at the studios, we dived straight into an aggressive schedule dictated by a very definite, very public deadline. Carbon hit the ground running, working closely with senior Whitehouse editor Adam Marshall to isolate key VFX shots, and began the tracking, roto and clean-up tasks before cuts were even locked. Our team of senior artists worked tirelessly across our 3 locations, providing CGI, compositing, matte paintings, sky replacements and green screen comps to 75 shots in just 3 weeks. Wayne was involved throughout the entire post process, and we worked hand-in-hand until the final title designs and color grade were applied to the multitude of TV, cinema, and social deliveries.

Always striving to push the boundaries of the tech available, Carbon successfully implemented a cutting-edge pre-color grade process using FilmLights’ BLG Flame workflow. This enabled our comp and CG teams to work on camera-original footage while seamlessly running their VFX updates through Julien Biard’s color grade, when needed for client review. All departments were afforded the utmost flexibility to adjust comps, FX and color grade throughout our pipeline without losing the dynamic range of the original film. Carbon’s supervising Flame artist, Michael Sarabia, says: “Under normal circumstances, only locking edit 6 days before of a major VFX film delivery would be a challenge for every subsequent post process, but this workflow allowed us to absorb changes almost up to the finish line, with minimal impact.”

It was an absolute pleasure to work with Wayne and Cramer-Krasselt on this thrilling film.

Check it out on Adweek & AdAge.