EXCEDRIN “EXTRA STRENGTH” - Double Exposure


︎    Every headache sufferer experiences their pain in an extremely personal way. Excedrin and agency Weber Shandwick sought to visualize this insight from consumers with a campaign themed around a double exposure technique that would display dynamic visual metaphors for what was occurring in each person’s head. After winning the initial pitch by presenting a solid variety of with a pitching on the project with Weber Shandwick teamed with creative studio Nice Shoes, who further developed the effect and handled all post production for the VFX-driven campaign.

Double exposure execution for “Birthday Party”:
“The personal aspect of this concept added a bit of beauty to the pain. So we tried to include that in our designs, which helped prevent the concept from straying into horror” said Berner. “Keeping the visuals in the natural realm helped to reflect the physical impact being felt, with the lightning strikes and waves crashing acting as a metaphor for what people felt going on inside their heads.

”Wedding”:

Each spot was only 15 seconds, so Nice Shoes presented an approach to the agency and client that would capture the actors’ heads in a way that would best feature the double exposure effects within the short time frame. Berner traveled with the agency and production team to South Africa, providing VFX supervision and ensuring that each actor would be captured with a minimal background, at 80 frames per second.

Styleframes “Storm”:
Additional design explorations 

  

Berner’s presence on-set paired with the immense amount of work achieved in pre-production, allowed the Nice Shoes team to focus on curating stock footage, crafting complementary VFX elements, and carefully compositing it all into the actors’ headspace. Finding the right footage and delicately marrying it to the effects and live action emphasized the strong individuality recognized by Excedrin in their consumers. Nice Shoes color graded and edited the campaign, with colorist Sal Malfitano ensuring that the brand’s colors were present throughout each spot, and editor Dana Bol making the story of pain and relief work within the tight time span. The integrated post team and workflow provided a strong continuity for the Weber Shandwick team throughout the process ensuring that the intimate insights shared by Excedrin consumers were given powerful visuals that accurately reflected their experiences.

Styleframes “Crashing Waves”:
Additional design explorations

  


Styleframes “Icecave”:
One of my personal favorites was the design exploration for “ICECAVE”, a spot that unfortunately did not make it into the final cut. Based on visual metaphors of piercing and shattering headache pains we built imagery that was evoking both beauty and haunting emotions of distress.

  

Client: GSK
Agency: WEBER SHANDWICK
Agency Production: HOGARTH
Director: Grady Hall
Production Shoot: Dancing Lights Prod. SA

Post Production: NICE SHOES
EP NS: Angela Bowen
ECD: Harry Dorrington
CD & VFX Sup: Andreas Berner
Senior VFX Prod NS: Russ Dubé
Editor: Dana Bol

Design: Theodore Daley
Design: Dino Qiu
Design: Yung Jae Suh

VFX Lead: Adrian Winter
CG Supervisor: Andy Zazzera
CG Lead: Alex Kline
Colorist: Sal Malfitano
Compositor: John Seppala
Compositor: Elias Saliba
Motion Test: Nick Christ

Asst. Editor: Eugen Belkafigo
Asst. Editor: Frank Barnes
Asst. Editor: Talia Mazzarella
Tracking: Bogdan Mihaljovic
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