Week One

gracieszymanski04
Sep 8, 2024
4 min read

Updated: Nov 11, 2024

It's the first week of the Mill collaboration class! I am part of The Sopranos group including Min, Alice, Aaron, and Drew. We are the only group of five in the class which is exciting since it gives us another person to make our ad as best as possible. My role in this group is lighter and shader. I believe everyone in my group is very detail oriented which is why I believe we will all work together very nicely.

The prompt we were given from the Mill was food and beverage. During our first day of ideation, we tossed around a few different food groups but landed on ice cream. I brought up the brand Talenti, a gelato brand I often see in the store. I brought this brand up because I thought the aesthetic of the brand could be used in a great ad.

When discussing flavors, the group voted and decided to use the Salted Caramel Truffle flavor. We all knew we wanted to do one of their layered flavors so that we could add in a CG shot of the each layer making up the pint of gelato. Our reasoning for choosing this layer was due to the pleasing color palette as well as the dulce de leche filling that would make for a cool FX shot.

Here's a further look into the ideation process! Logs arranged from newest to oldest.

9/16/24

After professor feedback, we've tweaking a few things with our idea. We've rearranged the shot order in order to convey the story better. The layer shot now will appear inside of the fridge before the main actress takes a bite of the gelato. Alice but together a fantastic revised previs video below.

In addition, I've done some more research into finding a model for our CG Talenti pint and found this fantastic 3D scan of a Talenti pint online.

https://www.printables.com/model/270937-talenti-gelato-pint-container

If I run into issues with this model, I also found a 3D scan of just the lid here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6643128

9/14/24

Previs

The Sopranos met up on Saturday, 9/14 at Min's house to shoot some previs shots. We will be using Min's apartment for actual shooting due to the aesthetic and colors of her kitchen fitting our mood board and ad aesthetic. For the previs shots, I acted as our main character. For the actual ad, I am recruiting my roommate, Laney Voyles, who is a performing arts major to be the main actress. This allows for much better acting and allows me to do my main job, lighting, a lot better. After shooting, I put together our storyboard with stills from our previs.

Lighting and Shading

My role for this project is lighter and shader. We are using Houdini to do our project so I will be doing the lighting and shading in Houdini. We'll be taking HDRI's on shoot day with a 360 camera. I have also prepared to use a light integration kit on filming day to match the CG element lighting as close as possible.

Shaders/textures I'll be creating:

Brown Talenti pint lid
Clear plastic for empty Talenti pint
Caramel gelato
Vanilla gelato
Caramel
Chocolate cookie
Chocolate caramel truffles

For shaders, I found a YouTube video to start with that works in blender to make realistic procedural ice cream shaders.

Furthermore, Min and Aaron have begun putting together some FX previs for us of the liquid and solid gelato layer swirls.

9/12/24

Our Story

My teammate Alice pitched the initial idea for our story during our second class. After group discussion and refinement, we came up with the following story. We wanted to ensure we conveyed an ad that went well with Talent's core valued: Authenticity, Quality, Innovation, Craftsmanship

Story: A girl is sitting working on a laptop and is visibly bored and frustrated. She starts daydreaming of salted caramels, chocolates, and gelato and becomes instantly happier. Her daydream comes to life and literally swirls around her head before shooting off towards the fridge. The girl finally gets the gelato she has been dreaming of from the fridge and enjoys a bite. Cut to the gelato layers filling a pint one by one to emphasize the quality of each layer coming together for a perfect pint.

9/11/24

Reference and Inspiration

My favorite tool I use to gather inspiration is Pinterest, so I immediately headed there and started creating a board for inspiration for myself and my team once we landed on Talenti. We're heading towards a classy Italian aesthetic as reflected in my inspiration board.

https://pin.it/9FWbaNYcO

I also put together a color pallet for the overall ad including browns and creams that reflect the real colors of the gelato along with some blues often seen in Talenti ads that pair well with brown.

We will also be drawing on inspiration from the previous Talenti commercials as well as other chocolate/ice cream commercials. Credit to Min for finding these ads to use!

"Talenti Raise the Jar- Salted Caramel Truffle Layers: 15"