Having taken delivery of their Milo this summer, Syndicate Technologies based in Sweden immediately got their Milo into action filming the most quintessentially of Swedish exports…IKEA
This was Ikea’s first web only commercial. The campaign is called “Dreamkitchens for everyone” and shows six kitchens in a time slice format which turn a complete 360º. The viewer sees a view of the different lifestyles that each kitchen can inspire. You see an older man in his classic kitchen reaching for his bottle of wine accompanied by opera music and a younger couple in a funky circular minimalist kitchen accompanied by jazz music. As a viewer you can click on the items for further information, see http://www.ikea.com/ms/sv_SE/kampanj/fy06_dromkok/dromkok.html
Syndicates quest was to spin the Milo in a perfect arc around the six ‘frozen moment” kitchens, This is not an easy task, normally a regular timeslice rig gets into the problem of shooting itself. This the Milo handled perfectly but the main obstacle they encountered was the programmed move together with an 18mm lens almost revealed the whole perimeter of the set. Lighting rigs had to be hidden and walls had to move. We’ve been told that the Milo handled the task perfectly .
Stockholm’s leading effects house sto.pp created the kitchen sets and produced the commercial. Firstly they tracked the motion of the camera in order to build their own CGI set extensions. This was done as they needed to replace the walls and the floors that were taken out of the set for the Milo to fit in. They also had to rebuild the ceiling in almost all the scenes as the spotlights couldn’t penetrate the wood and concrete. Objects were added into the air to make the time freeze effect more believable including, toast, eggs, wine bottle, lamps, confetti, champagne, foam and food. The film was shot in several passes with the Milo. Shooting the exact same sequence twice enabled clean back plates to be used to paint out actors and the wires that helped the actors to stay in place .
The end result is now posted on the IKEA webpage as an interactive web/flash production. http://www.ikea.com/ms/sv_SE/kampanj/fy06_dromkok/dromkok.html
