Let your imagination fly. Let it soar higher than ever. There are no limits. That’s the newest proposition of the all-new Roadrunner.
Taking the extra mile in post-production, the new Roadrunner shows you just what it can do. A tree suddenly sprouting from the ground, growing into a thousand-year old oak. A robotic spider-like creature creating mayhem in the city. As men in gas masks battle it out with the robotic monster, buildings explode. Windows shatter into smithereens. A man jumps from a building and falls a hundred storeys below.
Power Unleashed on Film
And everything is as real as it can get. Those are the powerful images that jumped at us the first time we viewed Power Unleashed at Roadrunner’s re-launch bash. The film co-conceptualized and created by Roadrunner’s core team and director Sid Maderazo.
“It was such a high to be tapped by an esteemed post-house and be given an opportunity to work with Dave Yu and the rest of the guys. Everyone in the team excels in his craft, “ said Sid.
“And the best part was being given a freehand to do anything I want. This time, I was not limited to the usual 30-seconder board with mandates on equity, product windows and benefit shots. We were able to simulate everything with photo-realistic effects.”
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Pushing the boundaries of visual effects, Power Unleashed was a collaborative effort of the core team headed by award-winning visual effects specialist Dave Yu, who is noted for his work on the Lovapalooza TVC. According to Sid, they got carried away and the intended 45-seconder stretched into a two-minute phenomenon.
“The film is based on this premise: what is power if you don’t know how to control it? Inspired by video games, it revolves around a boy who tries to impress a girl through his super power. However, he fails miserably as he had yet to learn how to take full control of it.”
Mean Machines And Then Some
Of course, change also means upgrades. In terms of equipment, Roadrunner has invested in new machines and systems. The first one is a state-of-the-art 3D Motion Capture system called Motion Analysis.
The first and only production house in the Philippines with a MoCap studio, Roadrunner now has an edge in more complex computer graphics executions. Used in Hollywood and the video game industry, the Mocap is a 12-camera set-up that allows artists to capture human and animal motions to render them as computer graphics or CG. Think Andy Serkis, in “Lord of the Rings”. Using a similar system, he was filmed with wires on his face to enable CG artists to turn him into Gollum.
Next is the 3D scanner. It is a system that scans small to medium sized objects to make a replica in 3D. Aside from getting the exact proportions and dimensions of the scanned item, this allows artists and editors to manipulate or animate the object and do “magic tricks” with them. It is this very same technology that creates “digital doubles” in movies, where a scanned item or even a face can be multiplied, pasted and manipulated on screen.
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Roadrunner’s film scanner has been upgraded to a DataMill that can do both SD and HD linear video and log data output. Their da Vinci Renaissance 888 has been replaced with a da Vinci Resolve for better color correction. Aside from the fact that it is resolution-independent, the Resolve also features multiple channels of color processing and in-context grading.
Roadrunner operations manager Mao Callejo also specifies, “With its HD (high-definition) capability, it can do 10 bit 2048 x 1556 real-time playback and is more flexible in terms of inputting and outputting data.”
One-Stop Post House
According to Manet Dayrit, managing director, “the all-new Roadrunner is a one-stop post house. Now, we can do soundtracks as well. We now have an audio suite complete with the standard Protools machine for audio-mixing and a recording booth. Ronald de Asis heads the sound department and we’ve got Francis Reyes of The Dawn and Diego Mapa of Pedicab to complete the team.”
Games or Massage While You Wait
The upgrades though do not end at technical power. The editing rooms and waiting areas have virtually become fun zones. Sure to be a major draw for agency creatives, clients, production people and freelancers are the WII, iPod docks and reflexologists which make the Roadrunner experience a totally novel post-production experience. A satellite office with wifi, a fax machine, flat screen monitor and meeting space will surely make things more convenient for freelancers.
So think “Lord of the Rings”, “Star Wars” or “Transformers”. Get a move on with those CG-loaded boards, and experience the power of the all-new Roadrunner.
