Setting the scenes for the final season of “Nashville,” CMT has given its fan-favorite series the red carpet treatment in the form of a dramatic launch promo. The network’s concept: fame is somewhat of an illusion, and behind the beauty, glitz and glamour of Nashville’s biggest stars are real human beings with emotions and challenges just like everybody else. The goal was to visually express these conflicting perspectives in a suspenseful, cinema-scale Season 6 teaser.
CMT turned to 2C Creative to execute its vision and further develop the creative around the idea of this internal persona, a ghostly visual representing the characters’ hidden emotions and their real human challenges often masked by the veneer of fame. To make such effects possible, the agency shot with a motion control unit to create an A-side, the glamorous, red-carpet look, and a B-side that revealed this internal conflict or challenge. 2C also brought in a high-speed motion control unit called the Bolt to handle motion control while allowing them to shoot frame rates of 120-200 frames per second. The quick arm movements and precise moves of the Bolt gave 2C the necessary parallax to make separation of the two performances seamless in post.
In order to heighten the FX, 2C wanted two distinct lighting styles for each character’s A and B sides. Because the agency had limited time with talent, the plan had to allow for the quick change of lighting set-ups, so 2C used the latest Arri Sky Panels, which effectively allowed for the flip of the switch to change color temperatures.
Each scene then required a cityscape backdrop that was that was created in 3D. Again, the Bolt aided this effort by supplying metadata files of the camera moves that could be imported directly into Cinema 4D. Then, the composites featuring the “internal personas” needed special treatment to make sure the story was clear and the viewer’s attention shifted to the B-side. Countless hours of key-framed shifts in lighting and color grading were required to achieve the final look.
