Jonathan Yeo has directed the new Sky ident campaign which unveils Sky’s largest rebrand since launch. Creative director Andi Granger worked closely with MPC to create the new numerical look, relating each of the channels to a distinctive element – ‘solids’ for Sky 1, ‘liquids’ for Sky 2, and ‘particles’ for Sky 3.Sky Creative’s design brief was to create an entertaining cross-media identity for Sky 1 with a premium feel relating the brand to its exclusive content as well as strengthening the family association of Sky 1, 2 and 3. Sky has received the Gold Award for Best Idents at Promax/BDA 2009 in Prague.

MPC’s challenge was to create something fantastical, magical and unlike any material we are familiar with. Sky’s project, which originally started mid 2006, was an interesting case as we were not just re-creating a real life object into a live action back plate, but conceiving new materials with their own physical properties and attributes. Physics was adapted at times with scenarios where there was no gravity or other unnatural simulations creating a visually entertaining ident that would captivate the viewer. “Each of the idents feature a single piece of action and each of the logos react in a different way depending on their behavioural elements. It was important that we captured a sense of scale and grace to the channel ‘elements’,” comments Yeo.

Sky’s rebranding encompassed three of the main disciplines within FX animation: rigid bodies, fluid dynamics and particle dynamics. Some off the shelf tools were used including Mental Ray, Real Flow, Maya and Pixar’s Renderman, along with custom plugins. Shattering was done using MPC’s in house rigid body dynamics system ‘PAPI’ which simulates the properties of solid objects and how they react to external stimuli. Extensive roto and prep had to be carried out by the 2D team, as well as compositing CG elements and painting out actors and crew. For Twister, live action dust elements were added and combined with 3d particle simulated dust and then retimed to match the slow motion. Matte paintings replace skies in some shots.

The project was shot on 35mm, graded and scanned at 2K data resolution. Flat plates were used for tracking, while lighting and rendering were done on graded plates. A digital DCP grade was done to drive a cinematic feel to some of the films.

The 18, 30’’ idents will go on air from August 31st, 2008 in the UK.