Turkish Airlines’ sponsorship of the Manchester United team features some famous faces alongside a plane you wouldn’t think is actually CGI. The ad, which has launched across Europe was produced by TJ in collaboration with DEPOfilm and is running in conjunction with a 30sec TV commercial. The line-up of players includes: Ryan Giggs, Edwin Van Der Sar, Anderson, Ji-Sung Park and Dimitar Berbatov. 

The campaign required photo-real integration of a CGI environment with a photographic shoot of time-starved celebrity footballers. It saw us implement all of our in-house skills in photography, CGI and retouch bringing the concept to life with a complete virtual environment.

The brief required the inside of the plane to be built entirely in CGI, with the players to be photographed and later integrated into the scene. The agency’s vision was clean, friendly and natural maximizing the realism and enhancing the chemistry between the players. The initial layout came from the agency, DEPOfilm, Turkey, a sketch of the five players in the first class cabin of the plane- two of them standing playing with a football, Anderson and Berbatov, on the interactive games console, Park, and Giggs getting served a meal whilst Van Der Sar sat back with his feet up.

Due to time and budget constraints, as well as space to perform the shoot, it was decided that the airplane set would be created in CGI. This gave us the maximum flexibility needed to get a great shot of the plane and the players doing various activities whilst showcasing the products available on a Turkish Airline flight. 

The scene setups were created using detailed blueprints provided by the client. The team had to factor in a medium format camera which would be used on set when the 3D scenes were being built. At this stage client sign-off was crucial in regard to the general proportions and composition of the shot. Once approved, we were then able to get into detailed modeling which enabled us to create highly detailed and accurate 3D models.

After agreeing on the best possible technical route to achieve the airplane shot we got to work on the initial CGI scene set-up which would need to be completed and signed-off by the client before the shoot. This allowed for a detailed camera, lens and scene measurements for our commissioned photographer, LJ Hopkinson, and for our Creative Lead, Josh, to prep the shoot and setup the players to match the scene setup exactly. 

Having handled the complete production meant the team could organize and allocate resources efficiently whilst maintaining quality and providing the flexibility to push the creative aspects that would have otherwise been restricted. Planning was crucial prior to the shoot. Armed with the scene setups, we were able to spend a day before the actual shoot organizing the set with a pre-light shoot. This allowed us to provide detailed camera, lens and scene measurements - everything could be mapped out in the studio with masking tape.

In the final milestone stages of production, once the shoot had taken place, additional textures and lighting was added by the CG department. This is the part of the project where the environment really starts to come together and we get to explore the aesthetics of the shot, lighting, integration with the photography and shaders. This is where the final renders were passed on to retouch and everything could come together as one final composition.

The colour grade and the overall feel to the image was the final stage of the process. The image needed to look friendly and modern, but ultimately realistic. Using atmospheric and ZDepth renders as masks for lighting adjustments we were able to create accurate light passes through he windows, tonal variations and defocusing which gave realistic depth to the image.