New York Times Features Psyop for Earth Day

“Despite the fact that so many Americans are hyper-concerned about the environment and are eager to recycle household items and pick up litter, there remains a total disconnect when it comes to flicking cigarette butts onto our streets and into our waterways,” explains Dr. Cheryl Healton, DrPH, President and CEO of Legacy. The campaign urges viewers to ‘Rethink Butts’ and take a new perspective on this environmental issue.

 

“We set out to reposition cigarette butts from merely an unsightly form of litter to what they actually are — toxic waste,” said Butler Brothers Director of Creativity, Marty Butler. 

 

Psyop drew inspiration from a variety of ecological disasters, including the recent toxic sludge tsunami in Hungary, as well as abandoned oil rigs and factories.

 

"From the initial pitch style frames, we increased the scale of the factory by five times,” commented Psyop Creative Director, David Chontos. “This increased the level of detail across the entire design, which led to a tremendous amount of additional texture painting and modelling."

 

Modelling and animation for the PSA was completed in Maya, while all the liquid effects were simulated using RealFlow.  The spot was rendered using Arnold in Maya, and compositing was carried out in Nuke and Flame.