Best of Blacksmith: 9 Incredible VFX Spots of 2022

As the year draws to a close, Blacksmith take a look back over the work that defined 2022. 

Apple - The Greatest

“We worked with Kim Gehrig and Apple to finish the spot “The Greatest”.  It was a two minute spot with over 70 shots, where almost all of the shots were augmented in some way. Kim did such a wonderful job accentuating the natural beauty of all of the talent which made our work relatively easy.  Our job was ultimately invisible VFX - making minor enhancements to help emphasise the product's functionality.  While this meant there weren’t massive VFX overhauls, we made sure our work looked integrated into the docu-style footage and was unobtrusive. The stars of the commercial were ultimately the subjects and the impressive accessibility of the products, therefore our work couldn’t distract from the emotional intent. It was satisfying to see artist's reactions to the different product functions featured in the spot - some people didn’t realise some of these features even existed. I found that the piece was a powerful conversation starter, and it was lovely to have artists that are typically not emotionally connected to commercial work, have a meaningful response and share personal stories regarding accessibility.” Hannah Wilk - Flame Lead

NBA 2K - Feel The Moment

“Blacksmith's role on this project was to elevate and enhance the in-camera shots in the beginning of the sequence, create the FX for the cracking driveway and to fully build a CG basketball stadium with CG crowds. We worked with the director, Terence Neale and the production team closely to come up with practical solutions as well as creatively figure out challenges. I really enjoyed creating the stadium and the crowd look because it takes so many small details and great complexity to establish an overall feeling that you don't necessarily want to look at but it needs to be there to "feel" right for the viewer.” Tuna Unalan - VFX Supervisor, 3D Lead

“It was our second time using the new crowd features from Houdini 19, so it was fun figuring out how we could improve on what we learned from the previous crowd jobs. New things we figured out were adding cloth simulations to some of the agents more efficiently, whereas it was much more cumbersome previously.” Cathy Phan  - CG FX Artist

Apple - Share the Joy

“Blacksmith's main role was VFX supervision and execution; creative directing the CG snow FX simulations, and compositing them in situ. As with most projects these days, we had a short amount of time to make magic happen. We worked closely with our edit partners in order to get some shots locked early, and worked diligently in the asset prep and CG FX R+D phases to get a head start in tandem with the shoot. Quick CG asset prep and a genius CG FX team to R+D the look and feel of the snow freezing/poofing made the project as successful and impressive as it is. The photorealistic snow-splosions timed with the elegant choreography of the talent make for a veritable feast for the eyes.” Ashley Goodwin - Senior VFX Producer

“Working on this project was a unique experience to me from a CG generalist perspective. Some shots I would go with the traditional method of the modelling pipeline and with other shots I would focus more on the shape and volume of the objects when modelling, making sure it's useful for the FX artists. This was also my first time lighting the effects; or in this case the snow and ice chunks, which was awesome. To me it's the little things that build team bonding and good working habits.” Nick Owoyemi - CG Generalist 

“Many of the effects we created involved some complicated interactions with the talent and were shot at 500 fps slow motion on a Phantom, so our CG snow setup had to be flexible enough to work in super slow motion, but also be able to scale for objects of different sizes, so that our skateboard and semi-truck could react differently when 'poofed'. While the job was tricky, the track chosen to accompany the visuals always got us smiling whenever we watched it down, it's a banger!” Ben Kwok - VFX Supervisor, 2D Lead

Hippo - Horsemen

“Blacksmith's role was to bring the visual effects to life that were in line with the director and clients vision. It was truly a smooth and fun process, and I think the work really shows that as well. It is very rare that I do a job where I love every single visual effect shot and don't want to change much about it. This one is special. I probably had the most back and forth on the shot where we see the eerie cloud for the first time, that has gone through many iterations to find the right visual language. I think the comedy element in this spot works really well and it is what makes it interesting for me. The cuts between complete chaos into cosy Sunday afternoon shots just work really well. Especially when you combine that with some badass visual effects where we are allowed to cause some havoc in town.” Tuna Unalan - VFX Supervisor, 3D Lead 

Delta - Odyssey, Directors Cut

“For Delta's Odyssey we created several unique effects to punctuate some of the more surreal moments in the spot. We carved faces into mountains, developed a snake-like apparition within a reflection and allowed our cameras to pass through a few plane windows. Shooting on a real plane is always a strange experience and the rules are different for each plane and airport, so problems need to be solved quickly, creatively and ... on the fly. I'm not sorry. This job was a great experience all around - our team, agency and director were all wonderful to work with. The shoot sprawled all over Argentina and we experienced some really incredible locations and food.” Ben Kwok - VFX Supervisor, 2D Lead

“We used concept artists to create a variety of designs for each creature and we ran those designs with the director first and finalised the look with the agency. We then moved this design into CG modelling. Olivier handled the Poseidon character in-house and we used a world class organic creature modeller for the Scylla (Paul Liaw who designed dinosaurs for a few of the Jurassic Park movies). The Poseidon character was intended to be a stature embedded into a mountainside so his design was totally location specific. I learned a lot about organic creature modelling and rigging!” Paul O’Beirne - Senior VFX Producer 

Delta - Mettle

“Blacksmith supervised the VFX for Delta Mettle on set and did the post production VFX work and also helped come up with various methods involving work both in production and post production, to make a lot of difficult transitions possible. One of the most interesting aspects of this work was definitely the crazy transitions, especially the opening shot. Lots of on set prepping, tracking, CG simulations and altering 3D/2D spaces were involved in all the transition work.” Yebin Ahn - Nuke Compositor  

Call Of Duty - Modern Warfare II "Ultimate Team"

“Blacksmith enhanced and modified the job to make it feel more gritty, intense and real. I had to pay extra attention to the constantly changing exposures of long shots when compositing. Finding a sweet spot of making stitch points between plates natural / not so exaggerated and experimenting with different animations and elements. It was challenging but fun. I love seeing a well executed live action trailer of COD, it works really nicely. It certainly makes people sense different vibes and moody feelings rather than seeing a gameplay trailer. As for the spot, there are more hidden stitches in the spot to make it look like a single take, other than the one obvious one! I enjoyed playing around with adding the grittiness along with enhancing and compositing explosions, etc. In advertisements I usually work to get rid of the grittiness, not the other way around.” Yebin Ahn - Nuke Compositor 

"I'll never forget being on set the day they were shooting the end scene. About half of those explosions were done practically and it was one of the most fun setups I've seen on a shoot. We shot four or five takes and each time everyone on set had to pay close attention to dodge pieces of turf falling out of the sky from where the explosions had blasted the ground. It was truly an impressive and fun production!" Perry Tate - Head of Production

VW - Diamonds

“Blacksmith worked on the VFX in post production. There was lots of problem solving with making a realistic CG stadium environment/crowds and smoothing out different types of transitions in 2D. I liked tying the shots together to make them feel like they're all sitting in this reminiscent and dreamy world. My favourite moment in the spot is when Pulisic goes through the closet and ends up at a stadium. I had a lot of fun setting up an entirely different environment from the original footage and playing around with stadium light interactions.” Yebin Ahn - Nuke Compositor 

Mercedes - Shapes

“It is not often that we have the opportunity to be this heavily involved with a job. We had a strong history of trust built over multiple years and projects with the client and agency. On top of doing the visual effects for this project, we were also the directors, editors, DP, and creative directors. One of the challenges was to figure out the look on these hero characters without making them feel too detailed or photorealistic but keeping them in this abstract world where they aren't supposed to be the main character. We spent some time exploring different techniques in lighting to figure out the right balance on how much we want to read into these characters without making it feel like they are black cut outs. I think the most interesting thing about this project is the minimal and abstract visuals. We get used to seeing many fancy visual effects thrown in our face very often, so it was nice to take a step back and work with one or two simple elements.” Tuna Unalan - VFX Supervisor, 3D Lead