The Brits 2012

Client - ITV Creative
Director Phil Bolger
Post - TheStudio@smoke-mirrors.com
My involvement was concept design development and creative lead in post production / VFX.
Smoke and Mirrors have once again collaborated with ITV Creative and its creative team Director Phil Bolger, Head of Creative Oscar Cariss and Creative Director Chaka Sobhani to bring to life an epic, cutting edge promo for the Brits 2012 .

Working closely with the ITV Creative team from the beginning, The Studio at Smoke and Mirrors pitched a treatment led by The Studio creative head Dan Andrew. Building on the ITV Creative idea, The Studio came up with concept designs of the Union Jack. The flag provided a spring board to build the design into a spectacular installation piece, taking influences from Peter Blake, such as his grid system and his use of bold colours. They have also included his iconic images used on the Brit Award this year as the centre cross section of the flag.


The Studio created the animatic of the initial model and then progressed to the finished textured rendered model in C4d, whilst S&M's 3d department created the warehouse environment for the Union Jack to exist in. The final composites and grade were all created in The Studio by the compositing team. The 3D structure took weeks to create, where every object was carefully selected and offset each other creating the voids for the frame work of screens, speakers, posters, records, instruments to emulate a free standing structure beaming with lights corresponding to the union jack set against a dark warehouse.


The feel of the installation gradually lights up throughout the spot until the camera pulls out to the final reveal, where dominant focus of the red vertical and diagonal lines of the flag become apparent. The lighting was carefully crafted, consisting of stage lights you might find at a gig to form the white sections, red LED's and rows of neon tubes which would form the red sections leaving the blue to be formed from the actual elements creating the installation for the Brits such as speakers, instruments, album covers and LCD screens.