Reface on-air campaign

The Skinny

Star World introduced its Reface on-air campaign in November 2008 to instill a more modern and energetic look to the channel. The roll out was timed to correspond with the new and exclusive shows being launched. The campaign includes a new channel logo, new ID spots and new packaging for all promo spots, bumpers and tags.

The campaign features localisation elements in four different versions of the main ID spot. While maintaining the same look and feel, different versions symbolise the localisation of STAR WORLD’s four different feeds for India/Pakistan, Southeast Asia/Greater China, the Philippines, and the Middle East. Each version combines actual footage and graphics and features everyday life of the four regions being brightened by Star World’s new look.

The initial idea to localise using a specific concept housed in each region was generated at Star. Although an outside company was commissioned for the creative concept, design and shoot; the post production and special effects was executed by Star’s creative team of designers, animators and editors.

Ink Project in Australia was commissioned for the design concept and shoot which was done on location in Mumbai, Manila, Beirut and Hong Kong. The footage was then passed directly to the Star design and animation team in Hong Kong with the music scored by Imaginex in Malaysia.

The Production

While shooting in four locations (Hong Kong, Beirut, Mumbai and Manila) was a challenge, the weather and the need to shoot in daylight dictated the shoot progress and final spot delivery.

The team was lucky to experience clement weather in Hong Kong and Beirut but had to shoot in intermittent rain in Manila. The onset of the monsoon season in Mumbai caused the shoot to be delayed for three weeks.

The brief was for the footage to be shot on 35mm film because of its inherent quality, richness and potential of being used in HD. The team was able to improve a lot of the footage shot in Manila as the bad weather resulted in footage having lighting issues.

Logistics was a major challenge for the project. The team travelled extensively to shoot on four different locations and the weather, shoot permits and casting made the process difficult.

The one scene that was particularly memorable was the bus going through Hong Kong and Manila. Imagine navigating in two of the most traffic-logged cities in the world during rush hour with a host of cast and crew in tow.

The Post

It took eight designers and animators from Star’s in-house design team about four weeks to finish post production per region. The team worked on at least two of the four ID’s at any one time. Not forgetting that there were many more smaller duration ID’s than just the 60 second version.

The entire job was done on PC using Autodesk 3ds Max, After Effects and 2D3 Boujou. Edits were done from each telecine one light. Then the edited scenes were fine graded and individually handed to animators who tracked the scenes, designed, animated and executed scene movements. Having finished the first scene, the animators were then responsible for the same scenes for the three other regions. The final step was rotoscoping before master edit. Music and effects were added to the edits before the spots finally went to air.

One of the most memorable scenes was the scene of a girl walking along the street with shops or entire buildings transforming as she went by. It was an important scene as the team was trying to convey the message of localisation by casting local actresses in the four different versions of the spot.

Nearly all scenes involved heavy tracking as most of the footage was shot hand held. Also the sheer quantity of tracking, animating, rotoscoping, compositing and the volume of scenes the team had to work on. The shoot achieved much of the local look the team wanted to start their localisation process with. ASIAIMAGE