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John Lewis & Partners: The Boy And The Piano, VFX Breakdown

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For 2018, MPC teamed up with adam&eveDDB and John Lewis once again to work on their latest highly-anticipated Christmas commercial. Today, the VFX house release two exclusive behind the scenes breakdowns for ‘The Boy and the Piano’. The two films show how they recreated one of the most recognisable faces in the world, Sir Elton John, and two of the surroundings for his performances.
Starting with the celebrated musician as he is today, ‘The Boy and The Piano’ swiftly turns back the clock, chronicling some of the most spectacular moments of Sir Elton John’s career - bringing audiences through US theatres, TV Pop shows, and a sold-out arena. No stock footage was used in the film and each of Elton’s iconic past performances were created in VFX by the team at MPC. Using the very latest software and a large collection of photographic and film references, MPC were able to recreate models of Sir Elton John, throughout his life, in extreme detail. During the shoot, actors were made up with specialist prosthetics to create a base for the team to work with. The team then performed scans of the actors, photographing their skin and making busts of each person. In order to create the skin from the blend of the scans taken of the actors with the CG model of Sir Elton John, various passes were created. Additional props and details such as CG glasses, and hair patches helped enhance the filmed material and the CG head.
Credits Other credits

Business Director: Sam Brown

Account Managers: Skye Stoppani

Cinematographer: Chayse Irvin

Production Manager: Rachael Donson

Production Designer: Robin Brown

Editor: Sam Rice-Edwards @ The Assembly Rooms

Post Production Company: MPC

Colourist: Jean-Clément Soret

VFX Supervisor: Kamen Markov

Roto: Mahendra Natha Reddy (Roto Lead @ MPC Bangalore). Gokula Krishnan, Kishan Katrimal, Manoj Rajiv, Manu PS, Narendar Kumar, Sudev, Partha Pratim Chakraborty (Roto Team @ MPC Bangalore)

VFX Coordinator: Georgia Cook

Line Producer: Neela Kumuda P (MPC Bangalore)

Assets Artists: Manjunath Ramakrishnaiah, SelvaKumar K, Deepali Negi, Craig Savio Padua (Asset team @ MPC Bangalore)

Compositing Lead: Pratyush Paruchuri @ MPC Bangalore

Comp: Shaik Abdul Adil, Dilshad Alam, Uday Veerepalli, Aitor Arroyo Matchmove lead Ganesh Kumar S (Comp Team @ MPC Bangalore)

Prep: Ragesh Ramachandran (Prep Lead @ MPC Bangalore). Bruno Roosewelt, Kajal Pandya, Priyanka Dey, Rajesh S, Joshi John (Prep Team @ MPC Bangalore)

Asset Supervisor: Pritesh Kotian (Asset Lead @ MPC Bangalore)

2D Team: Kamen Markov, Jack Stone, Kalle Kohlstrom, Daniel Benjamin, Bevis Jones, Anthony Bloor

VFX Executive Producer: Dafydd Upsdell

VFX Producer: Philip Whalley

CG Supervisor: Anthony Bloor

CG: AnthBloor, Jessie Amadio, Andy Steele, Kubisi Younis, Silvia Bartoli, Maximilian Mallmann, Tom Carrick, Charles Downman, David Bryan, Chris Welsby, Eleonora Donofrio, Jason Ivimey

Artist: Elton John

Song: Your Song

Sound Designer: Anthony Moore @ The Factory

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