Fourteen years ago, when I was the Motion Design Director and Partner at Outpost Pictures a little gem of a project crossed our desk. Like so many of my generation Indiana Jones was our ultimate hero. This seemed like just the right opportunity to pretend for a few weeks to build a Jonesy-type world for one of our favorite clients, Southern Living at Home. We pitched the concept for their annual meeting to Gary Wright, SLAH’s fearless Marketing leader, at Southern Living at Home. He leaped at the opportunity to don the fedora and crack the whip! In order to showcase Gary as the world traveler he was we built multiple locations from the Pyramids of Egypt to somewhere lost in the Himalayas, and eventually going over the falls in the heart of the Amazon jungle.
This project was such a treat! We used nearly every technique available at the time including leaf blowers, CG mosquitoes, and even reconstructing the waterfalls scene by building a 3D comp out of one large photo. We didn’t use salt for the falls. We incorporated particle sims from one of my preset packs I built for Red Giant’s Trapcode Particular earlier that year. It really brought the falls to life.
Let’s take a deep dive into building out the Indiana Jones-inspired alternate reality for Southern Living At Home’s Gary Wright and the Trek for the Ultimate Trip!
Gary brought his inner Indy to the stage, never breaking character while fleeing from the natives.
Above: extensive environment work placed Gary right in the middle of the action-packed scenes. Particle sims and animated fractal textures were employed for Gary’s breath, wind gusts, and his frosty breath. Below: For the waterfalls reveal this scene was stitched together with 3D cards set up to face the camera. Trapcode Particular was used for the waterfalls, mosquitoes, and birds.
