Stingray Showdown

The Mill collaborated with Commonwealth and MJZ to bring this hollywood action movie concept to roaring life, injecting a polished feel to the fast paced car chase in downtown Los Angeles.

Creative Director, Ben Smith: "It was such an exciting project in so many ways. A great script, great director, and a huge production for a really cool new car."

Ben continues about the design "The ray and the car are in a chase sequence, so the design and language of movement of the ray was very important. The design evolved from a more organic creature that took cues from real manta and sting rays, to a more technologically based craft. Nicolai wanted it to feel like it was something DARPA would create, 20 years from now, so we looked at a lot of sci-fi for inspiration as well as bleeding edge military tech like stealth cloaking.

We incorporated a lot of articulating flight surfaces in to the design that gave physical believability to its motion. Seeing the ray react and adjust these controls during the chase really helped make it feel intelligent and dangerous.

2D Lead, Kyle Cody "Every aspect of this commercial was epic. The shoot was 4 long night shoots with an A-List crew, with helicopters, pyrotechnics, special effects and extraordinary stunt driving. 

There was also a number of shots recreated in a 3D nuke system completely due to the complexity of the visual effects. This is every Sci-Fi film mixed into one epic 90 second Spot, and was a great team effort and a huge undertaking for the sheer volume of Hollywood visual effects in one commercial."

- The Mill

Date
November, 2013

Role
Lead Compositor + VFX Supervisor

Director
Nicolai Fuglsig

Agency
Commonwealth