Brief Explanation

The 5 Fund video aimed to portray the power of what the 'useless' Australian 5 cent coin can do in terms of helping children in need around the world as part of the UNICEF Change for Good program. We visually depict transformative scenarios which literally grow out of the Australian 5 cent coin. The film explores a world of scenarios that are transformed out of the 5 cent coin. Children carrying heavy items, turned into sitting at desks at a school. Starting with one single discarded 5 cent piece, our content unfolds one coin at a time to show the power locked within. In a singular shot, we add to our ever-growing world one coin at a time. What started as a water pump, quickly becomes life-saving treatments, a classroom and eventually an entire village. When Australia brings all of their useless 5 cent pieces together, they have the power to save the lives of children all over the world.

Creative Execution

We first looked at the overall requirements needed to create the visuals to tell the story and approached different sections with a number of techniques. We created the camera move and overall layout and structure of the project using Maya. Rigid body dynamics were used for the realistic coin role which opens the film. From there we generated multiple models of the children and the water-well forming and used blend-shape layers to animate their growth. A lot of attention to detail was needed to ensure the models had consistent topology and texture layouts throughout this section, with the detailed modelling and texturing being done in both Mudbox and Mari. Fluid simulations using Realflow were integrated and further highly detailed 3D modelling was completed. A small amount of rigging was required to create the subtle movement of the characters, and simple key frame animation was used to build on the walls and desks of the class room. The project was brought together for photo realistic lighting using Vray. Multiple passes were rendered from 3d and composited within Nuke, this stage also included creating the soft depth of field and light play over the lens as the camera moves around it's miniature world. The challenge was creating a technique that could bring us in close for emotional moments, but also allow us to move extremely wide whilst still maintaining the life-like detail.