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Ryan was keen to make a really challenging advert for the new National Theatre of Wales and the whole project came together very quickly. The only hiccup for me was that it had to be completed over the weekend I was making one of my short films! Thankfully, the idea was simple enough that I could get it done reasonably quickly and leave it to render while I was doing the film.

We filmed Iwan Rheon on a greenscreen at Elywood Studios using a noirish lighting to create a tense atmosphere. I was a little apprehensive about using my Canon 5D for a greenscreen shoot but my concerns proved unfounded when I managed to produce better keys than I had with the EX3 footage on Beasthunters.

I made the simple environment in 3D in After Effects and precomposed a couple of smoke layers when render times made 3D smoke too difficult. What I wouldn't have done for a render farm on this project! Iwan was keyed with Keylight and give a little edge light in the wide shots to aid the spotlight I added. I used simple grid wards to stretch him for the split personality shots and blended with lots of blurs and shadows. Keep it simple!

Lastly, I added a heavy crush to the composition and made it monochrome to match Lynchian atmosphere Ryan wanted to achieve. A little retiming was done to make sure all the takes fitted together but only to massage the transitions. I then got Ryan to put grain over the final edit so that any minor imperfections could be glossed over. Since this was such a quick project, I knew the shots probably wouldn't stand up to extended scrutiny.

The advert was shown in front of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in Chapter Arts centre and a number of other venues throughout South Wales.