Jägermeister

Jägermeister – Never stop hunting – Tattoos

PFX is all about challenges and this project for Jägermeister was full of them. We decided to team up with Qubix, a young studio specialising in game development and interactive solutions. Thanks to this collaboration, we were able to come up with video-mapping technology, allowing us to project moving tattoos on the actors’ skin in real-time during their performance on set. The developers from Qubix designed a sophisticated prototype which made this small miracle possible. This demanding technique was complemented by classical postproduction processes in order to meet the client’s requirements and tight deadlines.

Ondřej – Head developer at Qubix

During the test phase, we used Kinect for tracking the actor’s body in real-time. We hooked up the system to a LED projector and projected tattoos on the figurant’s skin. The goal was to create the effect of moving tattoos with the sleekest and most realistic results. In the end, we only used this technology in a couple of shots due to time constraints – though I have to say, it was worth it.

Since the spot is about Czech tattoo-artist, Michael Boček, we took the motifs which frequently appear in his artwork and transformed them to be postproduction friendly.

The artist’s trademark are deer, so we played with this idea a lot and animated these animals as much as possible.

Our graphic designers also came up with all the abstract tattoos which appear in the spot. We used 3D technology and then applied 2D layers on top. This helped us create motion that was more fluid and also saved us a lot of time since the project was running on a very tight schedule.

Honza – VFX supervisor

We collaborated with Kaspen and the Wolfberg duo in the director’s chair. It’s always a pleasure to work with them thanks to their approach, which is fortunately far from rigid. The shoot itself was very tough, especially due to the cold weather. I really felt sorry for the actors, who had to be half naked the whole day. They didn’t even get any extra heat from the lights since we only used one LED light for the whole set.

The lighting setup was a huge challenge for us in postproduction because we had to work with a lot of compression and a lot of noise. Radek, our colorist, did a great job and managed to deliver a great output, as did the rest of the team. This is our biggest edge over small studios – our team. We know how to efficiently delegate tasks, so we are able to work simultaneously and therefore quickly. This allows us to focus our energy on achieving good results rather than desperately struggling to meet tight deadlines.

Lukáš – Producer

We are really proud of the result. We worked hard for three weeks and met all the challenges this project faced us with. We pushed our limits, but this kind of work cannot be done any other way. Because, like Jägermeister, we never stop hunting.