当山羊纵跃过陡峭的山崖、蝎子爬过雪地伺机出击时……一辆红色的奔驰GLA SUV在岩石块当中破土而出，由此开始了它征服自然险景和机械洞穴的险途。奔驰GLA 这支名为《新羊年，心无畏》的开年作品，是我们回顾几乎是千篇一律的温情贺岁片里，在故事和制作上最独树一帜的作品。它纯粹的CG视觉场景具有史诗般的磅礴气势，再加上张弛有致的快节奏，让我们感叹原来贺岁片其实可以很吊很过瘾。
广告片要面向年青人市场，所以在脚本的创作时需要尽量加进很多刺激的元素。本片的创意公司—— 晶橙广告的两位首脑人员，张校硕和侯宇身兼了创意和导演两个重大职责。侯宇在接受我们采访的时候说，故事是比较简单，始于风雪交加的户外，历经冰冷机械工厂然后止于美好夕阳的黄昏。 但是要具体定义环境时，这个需要开点脑洞的难题似乎没有难到侯宇，他本人就是动作片、科幻和魔幻电影的忠实粉。“我喜欢想像力丰富的电影，像《星际迷航》和《魔戒》，这些是让我怎么想都想不到的题材和情节。” 可能是记忆的碎片在作祟，汽车驶进工厂内的那高耸的大门怎么比较容易让人想起《魔戒：双塔奇兵》的圣盔谷要塞？
侯宇还告诉SHP＋，在整个制作过程中他们遇到大的挑战就是“时间”：“片子必须在春节年前上线，要不就没有意思了。制作周期很短。我们实景是两天的棚拍，其余的全是在一个月半的后期制作中完成。” 后期的MORE（墨极）公司就更加任重而道远了。它早早就参加到实拍当中，据MORE VFX的报道：”一开始我们就预计到由于拍摄场地天气镜头等因素，不能完全使用实拍素材。所以我们在最开始的动态预览中尽可能地发挥三维镜头的好处，标准好三维相机的关键数据，以便现场拍摄有准确的参考依据。”
已经是第四次与奔驰合作的MORE公司还透露，“整体画面的设计上希望呈献更电影化的视觉效果，所以在一开始就跟客户争取画面比例彩电影宽银幕来制作，气氛影调也更偏向电影色彩。在细节处理上加入了很多镜头光晕，胶片颗粒的效果，使影片更加真实。”
很难想像这个霸气外露的片子前后花了居然不到两个月的时间，虽然整体看起来很完整，但侯宇却认为还不够好：“如果给我们多一个月的时间，片子会显得更加精致，尤其是机械的洞穴内，因为机械复杂的外表需要更多的运行计算时间来精细所有的细节，现在的有些画面我看来还是不满意的。” 虽然片子还不完美，但敢于在这么短时间内扛下这么大的项目，且完成得可圈可点，SHP+更相信这条片子对于晶橙和MORE、侯宇和张校硕来说，都是一个非常大胆而“无畏”的羊年开端。
Making-of 花絮片：
CREDITS
客户 Client: 奔驰 Mercedes Benz GLA SUV
代理商 Agency: 晶橙广告 Orange Advertising
制作公司: 橙丁影视 Orange Film
创意 Creatives: 侯宇(Sky Ho) 张校硕 (Nicky Zhang)
制作 Producer：雷震
导演 Director: 侯宇(Sky Ho) 张校硕 (Nicky Zhang)
文案 Copy: 张校硕 (Nicky Zhang)
摄影 DOP: 韩峰
美术 Art: 蔡林宏 屈伸
剪辑 Editor: 侯宇(Sky Ho)
后期视觉：Visual Effects: MORE
Goats clamber over precipitous mountain cliffs, and a scorpion crawls in front of the camera. The scene is set for a red Mercedes GLA SUV to blast free of a block of solid rock and begin its race through the natural landscape and into a mechanical cavern, which looks like the bowels of a Transformer. Yet even the ostensibly natural environments in this commercial are illusory — the live action for the spot was shot over just two days inside a studio. The rest of the visuals were generated digitally over the following six weeks with the help of visual effects post production house More.
The video was conceived by creative agency Orange and directed by Sky Ho in response to a clear brief from the client: a story beginning outdoors, entering a factory, and then returning outside to witness the sunset. Ho’s favorite movies are fantasy epics such as Interstellar and The Lord of the Rings, so unsurprisingly this is a blockbuster commercial with elaborate action sequences. It also explains the appearance of towering gates reminiscent of the Helm’s Deep fortress in Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers.
Scene previz, 在开拍当中的动态预览 （Picture source from MoreVFX. 图片来源MOREVFX）
This is the fourth time MORE has worked on a project for Mercedes Benz. Because the GLA SUV is targeted towards young Chinese, the car is seen overcoming obstacles — racing up a conveyor belt, dodging rocks and switching transmissions to power over dirt and ice — to show the fearlessness of the GLA driver.
Visually, to create a more cinematic look, the film uses a movie screen aspect ratio and is enriched with added flares and graininess. It was a great challenge for the whole team to complete such an ambitious project in such a short time, Ho says. The artists communicated with their supervisor via WeChat, letting the boss know immediately after each frame was finished.
Ho told us that the film would have looked far more refined, especially the machinery inside the cavern, had one more month been spent in production. However, the ad needed to be finished promptly in time for Chinese New Year, as it was conceived for the holiday. The title of the spot is “新羊年, 心无畏”, meaning “A New Sheep Year, a Fearless Heart.”
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