Aero Film Director Sam O'Hare Dazzles with CG Storytelling for Tesla

Sam O'Hare, director at Rocket Film and creative director of our partner company, Parachute VFX, made a splash in October with his CG tour de force for Tesla. The 100% cg spot-- yes every frame is cg, nothing was shot-- was shared on Twitter by the head of Ted Talks as well as Telsa Motorcars. 2 months later, it's had over 200K views on Vimeo and was noted by AdWeek, Fast Company and several car blogs.

It's been noted again in this article in AdWeek written by Nick Childs, CCO of Initiative Media. Nick not only is impressed by craft as well as the care for the brand and storytelling. Form and function. Strategy and creative. Sam came to this project to create something in a complete CG world as a show piece for the reel, but he also wanted to stay true to creating a great spot, which is something that could only be created for that brand.

Find out more about the backstory of how this video came to be HERE.

Aero spreads Holiday magic with Wells Fargo

Always nice to have the family together at the holiday. We at Aero took this to a whole news level with the holiday spot we produced along side DDB-LA for Wells Fargo. Klaus Obermeyer was the director and brought on fellow Aero director Sam O'Hare for his VFX expertise (with the help from his crew at Aero Studios--which is being rebranded as Parachute in 2014!.. more on that later), and Aero alumni Bob Jenkis for the edit.

We do not condone snowmen smoking. It was just bubbles. We swear.

As you can imagine, it's not that snowy in Southern California in October... or really anywhere in the world. It's that sweet spot of entering spring in the Southern Hemisphere and still too autumnal in the Northern. So... With a mix of practical FX and movie magic, the winter landscape was born! We did a break down to show what was shot and what was CGI. Klaus oversaw the production from start to finish with Sam creating the pre-visualization with him and finishing all the VFX.

Nom nom nom nom nom. 

The shoot took place over one night and one day and the VFX took 4 weeks. There were a few late nights...

Sam O'Hare and Jesse Holmes (VFX lead) catch a nap. Totes adorbs. 

You can excuse the snoozy-ness when you consider this is what they'd been doing...

 Before...

 After!

 Kinda sad...

Magical!! and he got a new hat. Thanks, CGI. 

Other credits include Siggy at Company3 LA did the color grade; Jeff at Eleven Sound was the sound designer and mixer; HUM music scored the beautiful track.

Fun tidbits from the shoot... The dog was AMAZING. Her name is Jules and everyone wanted to take her home. The kids are really that cute. There were 28 horses in this production, and they were treated better than most people. And they really do like carrots... a lot.

From all of us at Aero Film, have a very happy holiday and we wish you the best in 2014!!!