Zoetrope - noun.  An optical toy, in which figures made to revolve on the inside of a cylinder, and viewed through slits in its circumference, appear like a single figure passing through a series of natural motions as if animated or mechanically moved.

Directed by Vernie Yeung, ‘BraviaDrome’ follows Sony’s ‘Colour like no other’ campaign this time focusing on motion.  Produced by Tracey Stokes at Fallon, Matthew Fone at Eponymous and Emma Cairns at RSA, the Bravia-drome is the biggest zoetrope ever built; 10 metres across, weighing 10 tonnes and spinning at 44 km/h.  

To promote Sony’s new MotionFlow TV range, the creative team decided to build a zoetrope big enough to showcase the smooth movement of a life-size person.  Brazilian and AC Milan football star Kaka was chosen to show off his skills in the giant zoetrope.

But it wasn’t yet clear how this would work…  After initial visual ideas from Fallon, art director Ben Scott and MPC’s 3D VFX Supervisor Robin Carlisle and the 3D team worked out how the optical illusion would work.  It was soon clear that the maths were complicated and that it wasn't just a case of spinning it and hoping for the best.  Every variable had to be taken into account to get the desired animation within the practical physical constraints.  Numerous detailed pre-visualisations were carried out by MPC to find the optimum result.  "When you take on such complicated jobs and schedules such as The Sony Braviadrome, I always feel that it is reassuring to be in the hands of such experienced people as Ben, Rob and the guys at MPC" says Matt Fone.  With this information, the crew at Artem built a scale model to test what we were seeing on a computer screen.  Eventually it became clear exactly how the full size device would work.

The next stage was to film the animation of Kaka to place inside the zoetrope.  The main challenge was to film at the right resolution so the images could be printed life-size without compromising the image quality for the panels that make each frame within the zoetrope.  To maximise the resolution of him the camera was turned on its side to make use of the horizontal resolution of a film negative frame.  Once the loopable edits were chosen, the film was scanned at 4K and taken into Flame and Shake by 2D VFX Supervisor Ludo Fealy, where the process of finessing the seamless loops began ready for the printing process.  

The final 64 frames of each edit were then printed onto polycarbonate sheets ready to be inserted into the Zoetrope.  The full size zoetrope was then tested in London; it worked and it looked amazing! Time to send it across Europe to a beautiful square in Turin.  

The shoot took place over three very cold nights in Turin.  The zoetrope never failed to amaze its captive audience; a crowd was constantly gathered around it and were joined by Kaka himself.  

On return to London the MPC VFX crew went to work on the images.  Minor clean up was needed on the zoetrope itself as Fallon wanted the reality of the event to shine through.  An interior shot of the moving zoetrope was created in CG as it was impossible to film in such a tight space.  As the spot was shot on the Sony F35 HD camera Ludo worked with the raw log HD files, a grade was set for reference and the entire spot was finally graded after the visual effects were completed.  “The whole process was very satisfying as it is rare to get the opportunity to be involved in the design process of such a beautiful object” says Post Producer Jonathan Davis.

MPC added the final grade using a Spirit Telecine.