Working with Marshmallow Laser Feast, Mr Moco Rentals provided two moco rigs to shoot this teaser for the McLaren P12, McLaren vs Aerodynamics.
Light painting has been around for decades – but it has never been put into full motion like you will see here.
The technique behind this started with processing wind tunnel airflow data using custom-designed software to produce a 1,000-frame 3D animation. Each frame was then sliced into 650 individual frames to produce a 3D space, a bit like a medical CAT scan. It was then filmed using the Animoko rig and Modula Base from Mr Moco Rentals.
The Modula base had a plasma screen mounted on it, while the Animoko was fitted with a digital stills camera. The plasma screen was then used as a moving 3D light printer while the camera shot the resulting footage using long exposure photography. We did this 1,000 times for each frame, moving the camera a tiny amount each time to show movement.
Mark Roberts Flair software was used to control the rigs and trigger a further two stills cameras for different angles. The images were then rendered. Twice. Rendering 1.3 million frames takes up a lot of storage space and time: 1.3 Terabytes and 3,600 hours, to be exact.
mrmocorentals.com/equipment/animoko/
mrmocorentals.com/equipment/modula/
Credits:
Concept, Design, Art direction and Technical Direction: MarshmallowLaserFeast (Co-Directed by James Medcraft)
Software design and development: Raffael Ziegler
Sound design: Tom Halstead
Visual Effects - Moving Picture Company:
VFX Producer: Michael Stanish
Lead 3D: Duncan McWilliams
3D: Thomas Rowell
Producer: Holly Restieaux
Executive Producer: Peter Bowker
Client Liaison: Ben Risk
Motion Control: Ian Menzies and Nigel Permane at MrMoco Rentals
Gaffer: James Smith-Pryor
Rigger: Jon Last
Runners: Spike Laurie, Rudy Vermorel, Charlie Barclay, Runyararo Mapfumo
Behind the Scenes Filming: Sandra Ciampone, Steve Glashier
Behind the Scenes Photography: Sandra Ciampone