When director Sam Siske approached the Meptik team with the vision for Thomas Rhett’s commercial for his new “Where We Started” radio show, he provided a clear vision for the creative concept.
Apple Music
The Commercial for Thomas Rhett’s Radio Show “Where we started” on Apple Music - filmed and wrapped in under 4 hours.
“Thomas will take a cinematic journey through an abstract rooftop environment populated with scenes from his life as an artist…All these elements will meld to create a grand, cinematic tone that will ultimately feel like a movie trailer” - Sam Siske
Based on this underlying concept, our design team created a virtual city skyline scene at dawn in Unreal Engine, which was inspired by large cities like New York and Chicago. The team added cinematic frames from movies to create a dramatic composition and overall tone.
To capture the perfect golden hour, a timeless sunset was added to the scene with low haze and twinkling city lights.
With only 4 hours to utilize with talent Thomas Rhett on shoot day and the requirement to shoot in multiple locations within this time restraint, the virtual production studio Arc Studios provided the ideal solution.
For the most efficient production possible, our trusted production partners at Gear Seven brought in physical set designers to build two physical sets within the studio in addition to the virtual set displayed on the LED Volume. This allowed the production to ‘flip’ between the ‘Recording Studio’ set-build and the ‘Roof-top’ virtual set with minimal downtime.
Because of the endless golden hour that virtual production enables, the perfect shots could be captured within the given timeframe without worries of lighting changes or changing weather conditions. The perfect sunset stayed consistent.
The entire production was wound up in 3 hours and 50 minutes, providing the teams with an extra 10 to sit back and hang out.
