The IKEA Dream Kitchen’s Around the World web page.

Going around six different IKEA kitchens hosting different “frozen moment scenarios”.

Client: IKEA
Production Company: Camp David
Agency: Forsman & Bodenfors
Director: Anders Hallberg

VISIT THE WEB PAGE

The Dream kitchen web production has been very successful. Not only has it given Forsman & Bodenfors various advertising awards for their great creativity in the field. It has also increased the average duration of time that a visitor stays in the IKEA domain with an amazingly high multiple.

For this 3rd production the idea was a bit altered, the camera travels forward instead of side ways and the viewer can decide when to make a 180 degree turn and travel the other way around, all through a time frozen scenery. So nothing new in comparison with the previous Dream kitchen spots, except that the camera moves forward.

The complexity of the uptake for this kind of production is hard to even explain. In one way it’s like shooting in all directions simultaneously, due to the 180 turns, and even if there is ways to cheat the time factor on film there is a lot that can be altered so it fools the eye so easily, this becomes even more true when exteriors are integrated.

The interiors where shot at Independent Studios in Stockholm with the Syndicate Milo and the exteriors where shot in South Africa with a regular 9 meter crane.

To make it all come together the exteriors had to be 3D warped to fit into the constantly changing perspective of the interiors. Syndicate solved the seam / stitch between the interiors and exteriors by mapping the shot material onto 3D models and by doing so have the possible to warp their perspective so they matched to the travelling perspective of the Milo shot material.

Syndicate made all the post for the shot material except for the interior for one kitchen that needed to be handed out to Nordic Film Post Production due to the tight time schedule for the project.

Kokoka, the Forsman & Bodenfors web company, made the material with the kaleidoscopically spinning sets of kitchen supplies. They also where responsible for the assembly of the different elements and developed the flash playback engine and the interactive navigation.

Even if this production is lacking a lot in regards of looks, assembly and interactive feel. It really shows where the future lies for the flash industry. Syndicate believes that their future will be revolving around programmed camera moves that give web material motion media intersections. The solution makes it possible to let the user choose between different paths in a film sequence without any visible cut points.

As an example it is possible to let the Milo run its camera all possible ways trough a labyrinth and then have the matching intersections as edit points in a flash file. The result would be like running around in a computer game except the scenery would be real footage, not computer generated. This 3rd IKEA dream kitchen production used this technique. But sadly, decisions where made in the preproduction stage, so was used very subtitle, most people would not think of it as anything else than a normal quick time film file with people standing still.
Syndicate has hopes that somebody will get down and order the real deal. As the Syndicate staff look at things, the real deal would be something they call a “360 degree panoramic Shockwave web labyrinth”. The description in short would be “a Quake arena with 100% photographically looking scenery”. While this is being written Syndicate Technologies are developing the necessary optics and software to start delivering this kind of productions all ready before the end of the year 2007.

The whole production was made around some pre designed sets so a huge part of the job was to make it possible to reach and fit the Milo into the set without having to break to many walls and without shooting the Milo or unwanted parts of the studio. Syndicate made previsuals / Animatics of all the interiors so the camera moves could be planed and approved long before the sets where built. Syndicate technologies also has developed a 3DS Max Milo plug-in that not only lets them program the path for the camera they can also control and steer the different parts of the motion control rig while making a move. This makes it possible to force the rig to adapt to it’s surrounding so it can hold the camera in a wanted position and the rest of the rig can be pushed around in software. This is the only motion control software with this function and this production could not have been made with out it due to the tight sets.

Syndicate

Syndicate Entertainment is a small visual effects studio in Stockholm, Sweden specializing in digital imagery for motion media.

While the company has only been established for seven years, end clients such as Kylie Minogue, Depeche Mode, Beyonce, IKEA, Honda, Audi, Peugeot, Toyota, Renault, SAAB, Volvo, Coca Cola, Hoover, Nike and many more have put their trust in the work that Syndicate have done in collaboration with production companies and advertising agencies from all over the world.

via Syndicate , IKEA