Extreme by Nature
Extreme by Nature aims to portray speed and excitement without the use of any moving parts. All of the still frames used in the ad are also 3D printed from a polymer material, meaning there’s no real ice or snow at any point.
The animation begins with a basic ice cube in the middle of the shot. The ice cube slowly cracks, frame-by-frame, to reveal a speed skater who then morphs into a slider, a skier, a snowboarder, and eventually a figure skater. Finally, the ad culminates in a sequence of ‘ice sculptures’ depicting the various sports that are set to feature at the games.
Simon described the creation of the film as a huge challenge, especially when it came to the camerawork for the 3D printed snow scenes. To get the viewer to feel like the motion was actually real, the team leveraged a mix of printed action and camera movements.
He explains, “We started to think about cameras differently: some of their motion would be directly ‘printed’, and some would be actual movement of the control rig.”