What Popular Commercials Look Like Before Special Effects

Television

Everyone knows that the truth in advertising is often told in a little white lie. Whether filmmakers are using cutting-edge visual effects to make car ads sleeker or using basic boosts to make fast food look all the more tempting, chances are your favorite commercials are made with some serious movie magic.

Not to say those commercials are totally trying to pull the wool over your eyes. “The days of motor oil on turkeys are long since gone,” a food stylist using the pseudonym “Jake” told TheTakeout.com. He went on to describe that big-name clients want their big-name products shown on screen for real and don’t want to fall under scrutiny because they’re failing to accurately represent their product.

But even real products on camera undergo a little razzle-dazzle. Vegetables get spritzed with water to look fresher, chicken tenders get launched by pneumatic devices so they can fly in tantalizing slow-motion, and a variety of other practical and computer-generated VFX are used to make the stuff we want to buy all the more enticing. Before you hit “add to cart” on your next purchase, read on to see what popular commercials look like before special effects.

Apple’s Welcome Home HomePod Ad

Before Spike Jonze made “Her,” he directed Christopher Walken tapping and flying to Fatboy Slim in the “Weapon of Choice” music video. Sometimes Jonze turns his dance-directing eye towards creating clever commercials, like with his 2018 Apple HomePod ad, “Welcome Home.” The ad features FKA Twigs coming home to a dreary apartment after a long day. Twigs appears in for another glum evening until she asks her HomePod to play her something she’d like, and Siri picks a song by Anderson .Paak.

The music inspires Twigs to literally expand her space by dancing her blues away. Her dance moves stretch her apartment into a rainbow-colored, brightly lit wonderland. Twigs even dances with a double of herself. The ad looks like a wonder of CGI but was mostly created through practical effects. The set was built on hydraulics with special expanding props and walls. Twigs and Jonze worked with choreographers and engineers to create a dance that could interact with a set built to actually expand with Twigs’ moves.

When Twigs bumps a wall back, it’s a practical wall pulled away by other dancers. When she pulls a magazine, another dancer is pushing a lever to extend the magazine to dream-like proportions. Minimal CGI is used in the ad. “Our biggest effect is actually these mo-co shots where she’s actually dancing with herself, ” VFX Supervisor Janelle Croshaw said in a behind the scenes video for AdWeek. Both the ad and the creative process show that creativity and collaboration are truly the best special effects of all.

Taylor Swift’s Caticorn DirectTV Commercial

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour movie might dominate the box office, but the singer also knows how to bring magic to the small screen. Swift stars in a 2018 DirectTV NOW commercial alongside a version of her cat Olivia Benson. The commercial features a DirectTV spokesperson hyping the wonders of cable “tailored” to customers. Swift plays one of those customers, who rides out of the world of normal cable and into one full of magic, dreams, and giant flying cat-unicorn hybrids. Does she throw any glitter? You can bet your beaded concert friendship bracelets she does.

While the final “Caticorn” commercial is sparkly and rainbow-forward, actual making-of footage shows Swift riding a giant fur-covered mechanical bull-esque apparatus in front of hideous green screen with nary a DirectTV spokesperson in sight. Almost all of the commercial’s magic was done via CGI in post — unless you count Swift’s directorial choice for her dream steed.

In a behind-the-scenes video for the “Caticorm” spot, Swift recounted being told the filmmakers initially wanted her to ride a horse. “And I was like, ‘Can we create a creature called a caticorn?'” The filmmakers took her idea and ran with it. They even got some key details right of the “caticorn” version of Olivia Benson. “Her very specific colored fur is exactly correct … like snow slush on the street,” Swift said in the making-of video. This blend of practical fur and VFX animation combined to create a “caticorn” version of Olivia Benson right out of Swift’s wildest dreams.

Old Spice is on a horse

It’s a little hard to believe the Old Spice ad campaign “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” kicked off in 2010, especially since the ads still feel refreshingly silly so many years later. The ads are iconic, and star Isaiah Mustafa (“It: Chapter Two”) as a man too good to be true who smells even better.

The commercials feature Mustafa delivering a rapid comedic monologue while he does — or travels through — the impossible, all in one take with practical effects. For example, the first commercial in the campaign is really Mustafa moving through a half-boat set; a shirt rigged with wireframe drops on him while off-camera crew members puppet set pieces in and out of frame while he never breaks character or a sweat.

According to a deep-dive interview with commercial writers Craig Allen and Eric Kallman (via podcast TWiT), the first commercial’s shoot took three days. Even the diamonds in Mustafa’s hand were put there with practical effects. “We shot the diamonds as like, an element on black,” Allen told TWiT. “There’s actually a machine pumping diamonds through a fake hand that we then composite into his real hand.” These practical techniques were replicated in later commercials, including the amazing Old Spice “Scent Vacation” ad starring The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.

Flat Matthew

There’s something not alright, alright, alright with Matthew McConaughey’s 2021 Doritos 3D Super Bowl Commercial, “Flat Matthew.” The spot, directed by Damien Chazelle, seems like a play on the popular children’s book character “Flat Stanley” and takes snacking in the uncanny valley to an all-new dimension. Commercial co-star Mindy Kaling praised the star in a Doritos “making of” video, saying, “I think that Matthew McConaughey is exactly the kind of mysterious actor who can pull off … something strange like this.”

The ad features a literally paper-thin McConaughey going about his day, wishing something could make him feel like himself again. Honestly, it’s getting to be a safety issue: He almost blows away while driving his car, and his Roomba tries to eat him. But when McConaughey slips into a vending machine and pops a Doritos 3D puff, he puffs right back to life inside the vending machine. It is a funny — if deeply disturbing — transformation, achieved in large part thanks to the wizards at The Mill, a post-production house famous for its top-tier VFX work.

A fully 3D McConaughey filmed his movements in front of green screen, which were composited and animated to create the flat (and flat to full) versions of himself in the commercial. VFX Supervisor, Alex Candlish, said, “The most challenging shot was the vending machine … The hand was a specific focus for us, transforming the flat features to live-action, using texturing and lighting to bring it to life.” The animation team transformed those flat features by copying McConaughey’s facial expressions and other gestures, then mapped those over CG geometry to create an authentic, absolutely bizarre Flat Matthew.

Hershey’s S’mores

Sometimes special effects are practical; sometimes they’re digitally complicated and require teams of animators and program designers to be pulled off; and on rare, glorious occasion, special effects are achieved by robots. And not just any ol’ robots — super-powered s’mores-smashing machines.

If you hadn’t already noticed, advertisers will put a commercial anywhere they can. As such, filmmakers are constantly coming up with new ways to make brand stories appetizing, sometimes without any voiceover or actors at all. This is the case with this promo spot for 2021’s Hershey’s Chocolate World S’mores Times Square horizontal ad — you know, the kind that play on those giant street-facing screens.

The ad is directed by Steve Giralt of The Garage agency. It shows off sumptuous s’mores-centric displays, including a satisfying smash together of a gorgeously gooey, melty marshmallow sandwich. The perfect s’more is assembled using a motion-controlled robot. A behind-the-scenes video on The Garage’s website states that the team had to do a little retouching and many takes to get the shot that would make busy New Yorkers stop, stare, and remember to add Hershey’s bars to their next grocery order.

All the Jason Stathams innit

Sometimes special effects in commercials are fast, furious, and absolutely cranked full of action. How appropriate, then, that LG’s 2016 “World of Play” commercial advertises their phones helping people access a world full of play, and that world is full of action star Jason Statham. The spot is from Chicago ad agency Energy BBDO and post-production partner, The Mill Chicago.

It features Statham watching something on his new LG G5. The “Crank” star looks over, accidentally nudging another Statham and causing an epic fight, then a dance-off, then a heist-interruption with countless versions of Statham. Every face in the ad belongs to the man, the myth, the legend, the star of “The Meg” and “Meg 2: The Trench.” According to a Behind the Scenes video on Vimeo, the world of Statham was captured by filming Statham interacting with his double, then switching places with that double and filming the subsequent shots. Later, the shots were composited together. Many extras got to wear a mask of Statham’s face, all bearing different expressions.

“As the shot was quite fast, and was panning quite quickly, you never knew that they were masked,” Jay Bandlish, Creative Director for The Mill Chicago, said in the video, adding “They all looked like Jason.” Creating so many masks looks incredibly difficult, and so does recording the same epic fight sequences multiple times to match multiple lines of action. The end result is a commercial that is playful, magical, and just like any of Statham’s big franchises, due for a sequel.

Jason Momoa for Rocket Mortgage

In commercials, celebrities count as a special effect in and of themselves. The bigger the star, the more advertisers can use that star’s public persona to tell their stories and sell their products. Jason Momoa, star of “Aquaman” and “Fast X,” is a celebrity known for a few defining characteristics — one being his immensely muscular frame. A 2020 Rocket Mortgage Super Bowl ad plays Momoa’s bodybuilder-esque physique for body horror laughs. What better way to sell the world on a mortgage lender?

The ad features Momoa getting comfortable at home. Momoa rips his buff arms off to reveal spindly limbs. He pulls off his six-pack torso to reveal a zero-pack. He even pulls off his flowing mane to show a balding head. The Mill handled VFX for the commercial, which employed green screen windows and walls behind Momoa, who wore a green screen long-sleeve shirt. Momoa’s footage was then composited with shots of an actually skinny actor mimicking his movements and tearing away a prosthetic suit to reveal his own skinny limbs.

Animators then composited this footage together to create the hilarious nightmare that is the commercial. VFX Express did a breakdown of the commercial’s effects work, and the crew involved for such a short spot is massive. Casey Hurbis, Chief Marketing Officer of Rocket Mortgage, explains it best in the video: “It takes a village to bring a Super Bowl campaign to life. It’s just not one individual, it truly is a team effort all the way around.”

All of the cars

Legendary VFX post-production house The Mill has created a car that can be any car … at least when it comes to commercials. Viewers aren’t able to detect The Mill’s Blackbird with the naked eye. In a finished commercial — the one for the 2018 Chevrolet Equinox, for example — The Mill’s Blackbird looks like, well, the 2018 Chevrolet Equinox. That’s because The Mill’s Blackbird is a VFX car rig that can be animated to look like any car in post-production.

The vehicle — outfitted in equipment to help animators capture important digital information, and looking not unlike a beefy go-kart — is also outfitted with its own camera rig to capture the environments it drives through for later animation purposes. The images captured on the VFX car’s drives can even be used to create photorealistic reflections in photorealistic CGI cars. “Top Gear” even did a segment on the technology.

The Mill’s International EVP, Alistair Thompson, describes the technology as “motion capture for cars” in the “Top Gear” segment, and explains that making believable VFX comes from having the effects grounded in reality. Thompson says, “It is a car. It drives with a real driver, it interacts with the ground just the way a car would, but then you can reskin it with any car you want on top.” If The Mill can figure out how regular people can change their car to look like any luxury vehicle, well, they’ll have an all-new killer product to advertise.

Timothée Chalamet’s Edgar Scissorhands

Sometimes there’s a little extra movie magic in a commercial involving VFX, like this 2021 Super Bowl ad for the electric Cadillac LYRIQ’s “Super Cruise” hands-free driving feature. The ad stars Winona Ryder reprising her role as Kim Boggs from 1990’s “Edward Scissorhands” many years later. Kim is a mom now — to Timothée Chalamet’s Edgar Scissorhands. Let’s just say this kid takes after his father.

Kim witnesses young Edgar go through similar trials and tribulations his dad did back in the day. Magnets get stuck to his scissorhands; he accidentally snips the bus cable; and, for obvious reasons, scissorhanded kids always get picked last to play football. It’s a heartfelt ad that ultimately comes to a happy ending when Kim springs for Edgar’s new car, complete with hands-free driving options.

Legacy Effects handled the largely practical work done to bring Edgar to such bittersweet life. According to their behind-the-scenes video, the Legacy team custom sculpted Chalamet’s scissorhands in just eight days. Astoundingly, the founders of the company also were the people who built the scissorhands for the original film. Ryder told Vanity Fair that Chalamet was a natural with the scissorhands and that “It was a pretty special thing to be able to revisit again,” Ryder said. “Even if just for a little while.” Even in a world of computer-generated VFX, sometimes the most amazing ones are created by hand, using sculpture, make-up, and a whole bunch of beautiful goth energy.

The Paramount+ Mountain

Paramount Pictures’ iconic logo becomes very real in a 2021 Paramount+ ad that combines many celebrities and green screen special effects. Like many super-star-studded commercials, this one debuted during a Super Bowl. Unlike most super-star-studded commercials, this ad combines live-action stars, animated stars, and a logo that is a star unto itself. The spot features Paramount characters climbing their way to the top of Paramount Mountain to advertise yet another streaming service.

“Crank Yankers” puppets, James Corden, Dora the Explorer, Beavis and Butthead, Christine Baranski, Stephen Colbert, the girl from “The Ring,” even “Young Sheldon” himself, and others are shown making the climb. At the top, Patrick Stewart welcomes them all with a drink, a “SpongeBob” dance party, and celebrates a “mountain of entertainment.” Subtle, this ad is not — but it is pretty seamless. Which is impressive, considering it was shot in 12 separate shoots in three countries, according to a behind the scenes article on Paramount.com.

Sarah LaBrache, senior vice president of creative marketing for ViacomCBS Digital, stated in the article: “Due to COVID restrictions, we shot each individual separately. In most cases, they would show up to a big studio with a snowy ground and a green screen all around it.” Those separate shots were stitched together in post, by — let’s shock you — the team at The Mill. “We wanted the Paramount+ Super Bowl commercials to look like a 100-million-dollar movie,” LaBrache said. It’s safe to say the team got their wish.

Mayhem’s Brother

The Allstate “Mayhem” commercials are a feat of advertising and effects, but perhaps the most special effect of all is casting the real-life brother to the Allstate Mayhem commercial guy as the brother to the Allstate Mayhem character. It’s a simple trick that involves no green screen or special makeup but is incredibly funny and effective.

All of the Mayhem ads feature Mayhem, played by Dean Winters (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “John Wick”), getting up to mischief in an attempt to destroy something that should be insured. In the 2023 ad “Competitive Pickup,” Mayhem plays “your overly competitive brother.” He plays a game of driveway basketball with actor Winters’ actual brother — Scott Winters. The sibling rivalry totally destroys the garage siding the hoop hangs on, but who would worry? No one covered by Allstate.

We’re counting this as a special effect because though it doesn’t rely on CGI trickery or celebrity star power, casting a real-life brother as a character’s brother feels like a fun in-joke everyone compelled to watch ads is in on. It trades on just how close audiences can get to commercials — especially with a campaign that’s already lasted more than a decade. In a world that changes significantly every other day, that kind of relationship with a piece of media is truly special, indeed.