Old Spice has released a follow-up to their hit commercial “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” once again starring Isaiah “That Young Man Fills Me With Hope” Mustafa. This one is called Questions and it’s every bit as hilarious:
It’s a worthy sequel! The same clever, escalating scene transformations, but faster and more outlandish compared to the first one. It also looks like this outlandishness came at the cost of more digital enhancements. While the ad still adheres to the “all in one take” philosophy, I spot several tell-tale signs of post-production manipulation. Here’s my early, (utterly un-researched) analysis of how it’s all put together:
Phase 1
The initial beach vista is revealed to be a flat backdrop, but I don’t think it was actually printed on the panels as they get pulled apart. Instead the panels were painted a flat chromakey-able color with tracking markers and the beach image was placed on them in post.
Why? Because the cloud patterns in the real sky match exactly the ones on the flats at the moment they are pulled apart. That’s a key part of the whole illusion. Now, it’s possible that the real sky in the deep background was instead replaced to match the flats, but this wouldn’t be very practical, whereas chroma-keying the beach vista helps with the additional task of getting rid of any unwanted shadows the actor may cast onto the flats.
Phase 2
Once the panels are pulled apart, the actor appears to walk on a spinning log in the water, then marches across the water surface like Jesus. Hmm… Well, there are simple ways to physically create the illusion of walking on water and maybe even the log-walking, but there is a very obvious clue against this: watch carefully as he walks from the log scene in to the kitchen scene. The surface of the water is “parallaxing” from the change in the angle in a strange way. To me this indicates that a digital patchwork of water was used to mask the real foreground.
This real foreground probably consisted of a pedestal that approximated the shape of the log (and even spun in a safe, controlled way for the actor). This was surrounded by a solid platform which was also painted in a keyable color and was reflective. Such an arrangement would make it possible to replace the whole foreground with “fake” water and a digitally animated log while using the reflections to simulate ones that would appear if the actor was actually over water.
Phase 3
Nothing suspiciously extraordinary happens in the kitchen that could not have been done live on set. However there are some interesting reflections in the window ;)
Phase 4
As he does a SWAN DIVE off the waterfall, I’m sure we all recognize the familiar movements of a person suspended on a flying rig. This would mean that from the very start of the commercial, the actor was sporting 2 cables which extended from his shorts, up behind his torso and were digitally erased throughout the entire shot!
Phase 5
Here in the grand finale everything is probably once again real and physical (apart from the removal of the flying rig cables). But what’s this?… Did you notice he’s wearing jeans and boots at the end? Here I’m stumped. Well, not so much stumped as I just don’t have enough data to draw a solid conclusion from the YouTube video alone. I see 2 likely possibilities:
- Digital – The jeans and boots are composited into the image in post.
- Physical – The jeans and boots are really there, but not as real clothes. Instead they are sculpted over the bike in the exact pose you see them, as a kind of half-mold, facing the camera. When the actor lands in the hot tub, he moves himself into position, putting his legs and feet exactly into the mold so as to appear that he’s wearing it.
I can only imagine the kind of noise the breakaway hot tub really made as it exploded open to reveal the motorcycle. Incidentally, the handling of the audio in the commercial is also interesting to consider. I doubt the actor was forced to preform the lines every time, shouting over the electric saw, the waterfall and the exploding tub. Instead I think the entire monologue was pre-recorded in the studio and then played back (very loudly) during filming for the actor to lip-sync to, as would be done on a music video. The audio track might have even contained additional audio cues to help the actor and the special effects crew execute actions at precise moments.
As I mentioned, this entire explanation is not based on any inside knowledge from the production. These are really my own deductions from observing the finished commercial. But in time, as the special effects secrets are hopefully revealed by the filmmakers, I’m curious to find out how much of it I got right! :D
I could tell it was major green screen when I starred at his pecks and they never moved an inch.
Thanks for the break down El Capitan!
Yeah those are cool commercials and I love trying to figure out how those things are done. This was done very well but then again I still love those commercials where Michael Vick throws the football completely out of the stadium and even I can do that kind of easy trick now :) (no – I can’t throw a ball out of a stadium…well you know what I mean)
Great article, though i don’t agree on some points.
i think at the first phase the background is keyed and the log is a real mechanism, as well as the foreground water, as you can see by the way the foreground moves faster to the right as the bg.
The little jitter at the beginning of the drop at the front 2 Hot tub “walls” tells me that that might be CG. the water is in that case probably a mixture of Realflow and real water. maybe a smaller box of water or something.
But that’s just my little take on it…
Interesting Article CD!
the first one (with the horse) is way much cooler, and they used little CG.. this is one is full of CG :) thanks for the breakdown el kapitan!
I’m by no means any authority on video editing but I did notice that when he steps off the log and drops the can, he’s already taken a step forwards, but the splash is right next to the log, seems a bit further back than it should be.
they tell you how this commercial is made except for the jeans part! so you don’t have to sit there and guess!
Doesn’t his behind look very big and odd(e.g. picture number 3)
Cool breakdown!
I’ll throw down 2 cents on a 3rd theory for Phase 5: As he lands in the tub the splash of water which comes up to cover his face look like a perfect point to mask a cut. So I’m willing to put money there’s a cut in there to him sitting in a real hottub already wearing his jeans.
PS Notice hard key edges around the trees during the swan dive, and the mountains growing in size as he enters the kitchen.
I disagree on the pants. His shorts look awfully bulky during the swan dive. I think there’s a quick change trick here, seen in some magic shows. His hand moves oddly when he is in the tub, probably removing his belt and adjusting his “shorts” so that the outer layer of them drops down to cover his legs and give the appearance of pants. The shoes were already there, nailed to the floor, and he simply slid his feet into them.
The shorts are bulky because the harness for suspending the actor is concealed in them. I doubt there’s a “quick change” mechanism capable of producing jeans from shorts that would realistically cover legs so completely and also deploy underwater. If the shoes and bike can be there, why can’t the “half-jeans” be there as well?
I notice that the walls of the hot tub disappear shortly after they collapse.
It seems to me that the entire hot tub is digital and there is a cut at the point he hits the ground. and a second shot with him changed and on the motorcycle was shot and a digital hot tub was overlayed.