Time Sculpture
Encyclopedia
Time Sculpture is a British television and cinema advertisement
launched in 2008 to promote Toshiba
's high-definition television
upscaling technology in the United Kingdom. The piece, which comprised a series of short sequences of movements composited into a single sixty-second continuous loop, is the first in the "Projects" line of commercials, created by advertising agency
Grey London
with the intention of breaking a world record
with each successive element. Time Sculpture holds the Guinness World Record
for the greatest number of moving image cameras in a composite shot.
Production of Time Sculpture was handled by London-based production company
Hungry Man, and was directed by Mitch Stratten. Post-production was handled by The Mill
. It premiered on British television on 10 November 2008. Time Sculpture was moderately successful, garnering several awards from the advertising and television industries, including a Clio Award
and a London International Award. The next advertisement in the "Projects" series, Space Chair
, followed in 2009, and broke the world record for the highest television commercial shot in high-definition.
in a circle around the looping actors as the music ("Air War
" by Crystal Castles
) rises. The woman at the centre throws her cards up and out, and a man throws his hat into the air. Both begin looping again, as other actors begin interacting with the skateboard and chair. The "flag" and "skateboard" men each pick up one of the dropped balls as a voiceover begins, which states: "When what we watch constantly redefines itself, shouldn't how we watch it do the same?" The piece closes with the Toshiba logo, a motto ("Leading Innovation") and a link to the company's upscaling website.
engaged in the high definition optical disc format war
, in which it supported the HD DVD
format. In 2007, Toshiba made the decision to consolidate its European advertising ventures with a single advertising agency
, where previously it had split its £25,000,000 marketing budget between Lowe
, Saatchi & Saatchi
, Grey Global Group
, and Young & Rubicam
. In June 2007, Grey won the account with a pitch based around emphasising Toshiba's history in research and development, pushing the company's image as an "innovator in the field". The first television and cinema commercial from the partnership, Light, lighter, aired in January 2008, to a lukewarm reception.
The middling results of the campaign caused Grey to reevaluate its approach, leading to a new "Projects" campaign, which would see advertisements "pushing the boundaries of what was possible." The aim of "Projects" would be to achieve a new world record
with each instalment. To this end, Grey London re-examined several proposals presented to them in the past which had been abandoned as unworkable. For the first piece of "Projects", the team eventually settled upon a concept which had been proposed by director Mitch Stratten at production company
Hungry Man. The idea was to take the "bullet time
" technology pioneered by the Wachowski brothers in the feature film The Matrix
, which used a circular rig to create an apparent camera movement during a frozen moment in time, and to extend this through the replacement of still photography with high-definition video. The director thought of the title, "Timesculpture", on the way to Grey London with his producer, where they then presented the project.
jobs ever undertaken by a production company of Hungry Man's size. Once the technique was settled upon as the direction for the first project in the new campaign, several scripts were put together by creative teams
at Grey London. These were written specifically focusing on the proposed technique, looking to make it eye-catching enough to stand out in a commercial break. The team were restricted from using computer-generated imagery
, and stunt
work would be kept to a minimum to maintain focus on the technique. Eventually, a simple treatment
was assembled. The piece would be set in an art school
to, according to creative director Andy Amadeo, "showcase creativity [...] at its rawest." Timings of simple "dance-like" movements from several actors were choreographed using computer mock-ups of the space in Pinewood Studios
which would be dressed as a set for Time Sculpture.
It took over a month and a half to assemble the engineering team who would work on creating the custom camera rig. The rig which supported 200 Gigashot high-definition video cameras requisitioned from Toshiba, was 1.8 m-high and weighed over half a tonne. It was constructed in two halves, each covering 180 degrees of the inward view of a 14 m circular space in the centre of the set. Once the rig itself was assembled, it took a team of four technicians three days to set the focus and alignment on all 200 cameras, and set them all to be activated from a single remote control
using technology devised by UK consultant Richard "Q" Glover.
of data, took post-production
company The Mill
over two weeks to process, running 24 hours a day. In addition, the director designed a custom Edit Decision List
and editing application to manage the vast amount of footage in the edit room. Independent programmers where commissioned to create this software, for use by editing company The Whitehouse. The initial editing pass by editor Christophe Williams pared the film down to around 30 hours. The remaining data was passed back to The Mill
, who began working on compositing the films frame-by-frame using Flame. While on set, each half of the rig had been given one run individually to create a blank background. This allowed The Mill to paint out the rig in each of the 2,500,000 frames. While minimal CGI work was needed on Time Sculpture, minor modifications to details such as lighting were made using software including Baselight, Floctane, Smoke
, and Autodesk Softimage.
ITV1
, Channel 4
and on the satellite television channel
Sky One
. The full version aired for one week on terrestrial television, and for three weeks on Sky One, supported by 30-second cuts on Channel 4
, Five, Sky, ITV1
, and ITV4
through 17 November, followed by 20-second cuts on the same channels. This was accompanied by in-store retail promotions
and by an online presence. In all, around £3,000,000 was spent on media purchases.
While it proved fairly popular with consumers, attracting over 500,000 views on video sharing website
YouTube
in its first week, reactions to the commercial from critics was mixed. Many comparisons were made with other "bullet time" works such as The Matrix, and criticisms were leveled that the piece lacked a "big idea". However, others were more complimentary; Noel Bussey of Campaign magazine commented: "Brave, interesting and expertly realised, this is a breath of fresh air, and a call to arms from an agency that has struggled with having a reputation for not doing interesting creative." The publication later went on to name it one of the top ten advertisements of 2008. This was not the last honour Time Sculpture would receive from the advertising industry; over the next few months it received honours from at the D&AD Awards, the Clio Awards
, and the Midsummer Awards. In 2009, it was recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records for having used the highest number of moving image cameras in a composite shot.
Following the success of Time Sculpture, Grey London and Toshiba decided to continue the "Projects" campaign and, in 2009, collaborated with Hungry Man again to create a follow-up, titled Space Chair
. This time, the team attempted to break the world altitude record for a high-definition commercial.
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
launched in 2008 to promote Toshiba
Toshiba
is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
's high-definition television
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
upscaling technology in the United Kingdom. The piece, which comprised a series of short sequences of movements composited into a single sixty-second continuous loop, is the first in the "Projects" line of commercials, created by advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
Grey London
Grey London
Grey London is one of the UK's largest communications agencies with clients including Samsung, P&G, GlaxoSmithKline, Allianz, the British Heart Foundation, Ryvita, Dairy Crest and Toshiba...
with the intention of breaking a world record
World record
A world record is usually the best global performance ever recorded and verified in a specific skill or sport. The book Guinness World Records collates and publishes notable records of all types, from first and best to worst human achievements, to extremes in the natural world and beyond...
with each successive element. Time Sculpture holds the Guinness World Record
Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...
for the greatest number of moving image cameras in a composite shot.
Production of Time Sculpture was handled by London-based production company
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
Hungry Man, and was directed by Mitch Stratten. Post-production was handled by The Mill
The Mill (post-production)
The Mill is a post-production and visual effects company launched in 1990 with offices in London, New York and Los Angeles.The Mill's Film special effects subsidiary, Mill Film, won an Oscar for its work on the film Gladiator. The Mill was the first UK-based post-production company to set up...
. It premiered on British television on 10 November 2008. Time Sculpture was moderately successful, garnering several awards from the advertising and television industries, including a Clio Award
Clio Awards
The Clio Awards are annual awards bestowed to reward innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design and communication. The categories include work in nearly all types of media, and the judges are advertising professionals from around the world....
and a London International Award. The next advertisement in the "Projects" series, Space Chair
Space Chair
Space Chair is a British television and cinema advertisement launched by Toshiba in 2009 to promote its Regza SD LCD televisions. The 60-second piece, following the launch of an armchair into near space attached to a weather balloon, is the second in the "Projects" campaign, following on from Time...
, followed in 2009, and broke the world record for the highest television commercial shot in high-definition.
Sequence
Time Sculpture opens in an undecorated art studio. On the floor is a skateboard and a chair. A man and a woman walk into frame from left and right, respectively. The man begins doing push-ups while the woman, holding a set of black cards, walks to the centre and spins around. The film begins reversing and playing over and over, as other actors begin walking into frame, each interacting with a prop. A pair of men bounce balls off of the floor, then walk away, leaving the balls bouncing in their absence. Another begins waving a red flag under one of the balls, as a pair of others throw cans of paint onto the floor. The actions of each of the actors remaining on screen begin to loop. The camera starts trackingTracking shot
In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken...
in a circle around the looping actors as the music ("Air War
Air War
"Air War" is a single by Crystal Castles. It was released on 17 December 2007 on London UK's Trouble Records as 7" vinyl. An earlier version of the song was released in July 2006 as the B-Side to "Alice Practice" on London UK's Merok Records. The lyrics are from the James Joyce book Ulysses...
" by Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles (band)
Crystal Castles are an experimental electronic band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, consisting of producer Ethan Kath and lyricist and vocalist Alice Glass. Crystal Castles are known for their chaotic live shows and their lo-fi home productions. The duo released many limited EPs between 2006 and...
) rises. The woman at the centre throws her cards up and out, and a man throws his hat into the air. Both begin looping again, as other actors begin interacting with the skateboard and chair. The "flag" and "skateboard" men each pick up one of the dropped balls as a voiceover begins, which states: "When what we watch constantly redefines itself, shouldn't how we watch it do the same?" The piece closes with the Toshiba logo, a motto ("Leading Innovation") and a link to the company's upscaling website.
Background
The second half of the 2000s saw electronics conglomerate ToshibaToshiba
is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
engaged in the high definition optical disc format war
High definition optical disc format war
A format war took place between the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD optical disc standards for storing high definition video and audio.These standards emerged between 2000 and 2002 and attracted both the mutual and exclusive support of major consumer electronics manufacturers, personal computer...
, in which it supported the HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
format. In 2007, Toshiba made the decision to consolidate its European advertising ventures with a single advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
, where previously it had split its £25,000,000 marketing budget between Lowe
Lowe
Lowe is a common surname in English. See List of people with surname Lowe.Lowe may also refer to:- Other uses :* Lowe Alpine, an American outdoor equipment manufacturer and supplier* Löwe Automobil, a German car-part manufacturer...
, Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi is a global advertising agency network with 140 offices in 80 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in London in 1970 but now headquartered in New York. The parent company of the agency group was known as Saatchi & Saatchi PLC from 1976 to 1994, was listed on the London...
, Grey Global Group
Grey Global Group
Grey Group is a global advertising and marketing agency, whose slogan is providing solutions - with headquarters in New York City, and 432 offices in 96 countries, operating in 154 cities — organized into four geographical units: North America; Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin...
, and Young & Rubicam
Young & Rubicam
Y&R is a marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting.-History:...
. In June 2007, Grey won the account with a pitch based around emphasising Toshiba's history in research and development, pushing the company's image as an "innovator in the field". The first television and cinema commercial from the partnership, Light, lighter, aired in January 2008, to a lukewarm reception.
The middling results of the campaign caused Grey to reevaluate its approach, leading to a new "Projects" campaign, which would see advertisements "pushing the boundaries of what was possible." The aim of "Projects" would be to achieve a new world record
World record
A world record is usually the best global performance ever recorded and verified in a specific skill or sport. The book Guinness World Records collates and publishes notable records of all types, from first and best to worst human achievements, to extremes in the natural world and beyond...
with each instalment. To this end, Grey London re-examined several proposals presented to them in the past which had been abandoned as unworkable. For the first piece of "Projects", the team eventually settled upon a concept which had been proposed by director Mitch Stratten at production company
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
Hungry Man. The idea was to take the "bullet time
Bullet time
Bullet time is a special and visual effect that refers to a digitally enhanced simulation of variable-speed photography used in films, broadcast advertisements, and video games...
" technology pioneered by the Wachowski brothers in the feature film The Matrix
The Matrix
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
, which used a circular rig to create an apparent camera movement during a frozen moment in time, and to extend this through the replacement of still photography with high-definition video. The director thought of the title, "Timesculpture", on the way to Grey London with his producer, where they then presented the project.
Production
The idea had originally been set aside for a singular reason: it represented a quantity of data unprecedented in a television commercial, and would be one of the biggest visual effectsVisual effects
Visual effects are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot. Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, costly, or...
jobs ever undertaken by a production company of Hungry Man's size. Once the technique was settled upon as the direction for the first project in the new campaign, several scripts were put together by creative teams
Creative Director
A creative director is a position often found within the graphic design, film, music, fashion, advertising, media or entertainment industries, but may be useful in other creative organizations such as web development and software development firms as well....
at Grey London. These were written specifically focusing on the proposed technique, looking to make it eye-catching enough to stand out in a commercial break. The team were restricted from using computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
, and stunt
Stunt
A stunt is an unusual and difficult physical feat, or any act requiring a special skill, performed for artistic purposes in TV, theatre, or cinema...
work would be kept to a minimum to maintain focus on the technique. Eventually, a simple treatment
Film treatment
A film treatment is a piece of prose, typically the step between scene cards and the first draft of a screenplay for a motion picture, television program, or radio play. It is generally longer and more detailed than an outline , and it may include details of directorial style that an outline omits...
was assembled. The piece would be set in an art school
Art school
Art school is a general term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. The term applies to institutions with elementary, secondary, post-secondary or undergraduate, or graduate or...
to, according to creative director Andy Amadeo, "showcase creativity [...] at its rawest." Timings of simple "dance-like" movements from several actors were choreographed using computer mock-ups of the space in Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...
which would be dressed as a set for Time Sculpture.
It took over a month and a half to assemble the engineering team who would work on creating the custom camera rig. The rig which supported 200 Gigashot high-definition video cameras requisitioned from Toshiba, was 1.8 m-high and weighed over half a tonne. It was constructed in two halves, each covering 180 degrees of the inward view of a 14 m circular space in the centre of the set. Once the rig itself was assembled, it took a team of four technicians three days to set the focus and alignment on all 200 cameras, and set them all to be activated from a single remote control
Remote control
A remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the television device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance.The remote control is usually contracted to remote...
using technology devised by UK consultant Richard "Q" Glover.
Post-production
Each of the fourteen actors in Time Sculpture performed their choreography separately, recorded from all angles by the 200 cameras. The resulting 110 hours of film, representing around 20 TbTerabyte
The terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 1012 in the International System of Units , and therefore 1 terabyte is , or 1 trillion bytes, or 1000 gigabytes. 1 terabyte in binary prefixes is 0.9095 tebibytes, or 931.32 gibibytes...
of data, took post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
company The Mill
The Mill (post-production)
The Mill is a post-production and visual effects company launched in 1990 with offices in London, New York and Los Angeles.The Mill's Film special effects subsidiary, Mill Film, won an Oscar for its work on the film Gladiator. The Mill was the first UK-based post-production company to set up...
over two weeks to process, running 24 hours a day. In addition, the director designed a custom Edit Decision List
Edit decision list
An edit decision list or EDL used in the post-production process of film editing and video editing. The list contains an ordered list of reel and timecode data representing where each video clip can be obtained in order to conform the final cut....
and editing application to manage the vast amount of footage in the edit room. Independent programmers where commissioned to create this software, for use by editing company The Whitehouse. The initial editing pass by editor Christophe Williams pared the film down to around 30 hours. The remaining data was passed back to The Mill
The Mill (post-production)
The Mill is a post-production and visual effects company launched in 1990 with offices in London, New York and Los Angeles.The Mill's Film special effects subsidiary, Mill Film, won an Oscar for its work on the film Gladiator. The Mill was the first UK-based post-production company to set up...
, who began working on compositing the films frame-by-frame using Flame. While on set, each half of the rig had been given one run individually to create a blank background. This allowed The Mill to paint out the rig in each of the 2,500,000 frames. While minimal CGI work was needed on Time Sculpture, minor modifications to details such as lighting were made using software including Baselight, Floctane, Smoke
Smoke (software)
Autodesk Smoke is a professional grade online editing and finishing system for visual media aimed at television production.Originally sold on SGI hardware, it was later ported as a turnkey solution on Linux, Autodesk now offers Smoke as a software only option for Mac OSX as of December 2009.----...
, and Autodesk Softimage.
Release and reception
The final 60-second cut of Time Sculpture premiered on 10 November 2008, on terrestrial television channelsTerrestrial television
Terrestrial television is a mode of television broadcasting which does not involve satellite transmission or cables — typically using radio waves through transmitting and receiving antennas or television antenna aerials...
ITV1
ITV1
ITV1 is a generic brand that is used by twelve franchises of the British ITV Network in the English regions, Wales, southern Scotland , the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their...
, Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
and on the satellite television channel
Satellite television
Satellite television is television programming delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an...
Sky One
Sky One
Sky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...
. The full version aired for one week on terrestrial television, and for three weeks on Sky One, supported by 30-second cuts on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, Five, Sky, ITV1
ITV1
ITV1 is a generic brand that is used by twelve franchises of the British ITV Network in the English regions, Wales, southern Scotland , the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their...
, and ITV4
ITV4
ITV4 is a British television station which was launched on 1 November 2005. It is owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc, and is part of the ITV network. The channel has a male-oriented line-up, including sport, cop shows and US comedies and dramas, as well as classic ITV action...
through 17 November, followed by 20-second cuts on the same channels. This was accompanied by in-store retail promotions
Point of sale
Point of sale or checkout is the location where a transaction occurs...
and by an online presence. In all, around £3,000,000 was spent on media purchases.
While it proved fairly popular with consumers, attracting over 500,000 views on video sharing website
Video hosting service
A video hosting service allows individuals to upload video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view this video...
YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
in its first week, reactions to the commercial from critics was mixed. Many comparisons were made with other "bullet time" works such as The Matrix, and criticisms were leveled that the piece lacked a "big idea". However, others were more complimentary; Noel Bussey of Campaign magazine commented: "Brave, interesting and expertly realised, this is a breath of fresh air, and a call to arms from an agency that has struggled with having a reputation for not doing interesting creative." The publication later went on to name it one of the top ten advertisements of 2008. This was not the last honour Time Sculpture would receive from the advertising industry; over the next few months it received honours from at the D&AD Awards, the Clio Awards
Clio Awards
The Clio Awards are annual awards bestowed to reward innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design and communication. The categories include work in nearly all types of media, and the judges are advertising professionals from around the world....
, and the Midsummer Awards. In 2009, it was recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records for having used the highest number of moving image cameras in a composite shot.
Following the success of Time Sculpture, Grey London and Toshiba decided to continue the "Projects" campaign and, in 2009, collaborated with Hungry Man again to create a follow-up, titled Space Chair
Space Chair
Space Chair is a British television and cinema advertisement launched by Toshiba in 2009 to promote its Regza SD LCD televisions. The 60-second piece, following the launch of an armchair into near space attached to a weather balloon, is the second in the "Projects" campaign, following on from Time...
. This time, the team attempted to break the world altitude record for a high-definition commercial.
External links
- Time Sculpture, via director Mitch Stratten's website.