NICK MEEK
FOR
PLAYSTATION
Nick Meek was commissioned by Adam&EveDDB to photograph Playstation’s global poster campaign. Based off their TV spot in which the world becomes a playground: buildings turn in to Jenga towers, escalators transform into slides and roundabouts evolve into merry-go-rounds.., Nick’s campaign flowed on from this by capturing the “Play has no limits” idea through a series of six individual visual concepts.
Created for a global audience Nick and the team focused on giving the campaign a large-scale cinematic feel that felt familiar and recognisable to the audience, regardless of their location. The location scouting played a key role in this, with a lot of complicated post production and CGI allowing the concepts to be pushed into the realm of realistic-fantasy and “play”. Having worked extensively in blending the worlds of photography and CGI, Nick worked with Recom Farmhouse to direct the CGI into a space of reality. For Nick, the CGI elements have to feel like they are able to exist in the real world, without anyone even questioning the reality of the situation. Believability is key.
The first hurdle meant the team finding a building that would work well as a game of checkers… the Maritime Hotel in New York City fit the brief perfectly and after some negotiations from the local producer, Dan Halprin, the location was set.
To capture the building from the right angle for the concept, Nick and the team scouted a few locations that would provide a series of interesting perspectives in the final image. The ninth floor of the Google NYC headquarters and a large crane parked on the street opposite both showed promise, but the rooftop of another nearby building proved best. With access to a series of ladders that lead to the very top of the building, the team set up for the shot in a location that took the team into the canopy of the city.
For the ‘Jenga’ concept, it was decided to make a building fully in CGI. Nick and the creatives wanted the building to be on a peninsula that was mostly surrounded by water with the substantial-looking city in the background. A rare, undeveloped piece of land adjacent the statue of liberty overlooking Manhattan fitted the brief.
With the building being constructed in CGI, it was imperative that the vista was photographed in a way that allowed maximum flexibility in the post-production. Nick needed to shoot it from a high camera angle, but not so high that it placed the viewer above the fifteen story Jenga building. Simple on paper, however in practice this height presented a challenge; larger than the biggest drivable crane, but a little too low for a helicopter…
Using a drone with a highly-accurate GPS, Nick and the drone operators could hover and lock-off the position in the air for sustained periods of time, while also repositioning the camera precisely if needed.
At about three meters wide, the drone was a technical piece of kit. To ensure they started shooting at the exact time the sun broke the horizon, it meant arriving at the location in the dark and flying in twilight, a complicated manoeuvre with zero room for error. To ensure everything stuck to the schedule, the team allocated a day to set up the machine and test the cameras, ahead of the shoot.
Following a successful shoot for the Jenga concept, the team travelled to Central Park to photograph the next image in the shortlist: noughts and crosses. The weather meant blue skies and fluffy clouds, ideal for the creative idea surrounding the concept, but Nick had already accumulated a library of sky photographs just in case. Ensuring no room for error across the entire campaign, they also collected some backplates along the way as the crew traveled up fifth avenue for the upcoming ‘Bus’ shot…
For ‘Hook a Duck’, Nick wanted to shoot a shipyard with the towering container-cranes used to load containers onto the Cargo ships. To achieve the oversize, imposing feel of the yellow rubber ducks, Nick needed to capture the image from a low camera angle which meant finding a boat that had a a large enough swim deck for the crew to set up the kit, but was still small enough to remain easily-manoeuvrable. This meant that the entire agency and crew wouldn’t all fit on the one boat, so a larger vessel for the agency was arranged to allow a live-feed and comms between each boat and get their feedback in real-time.
Creative director and CGI Artist, Christoph Bolten, was on-location for the entire shoot to allow the pre-rendered ducks to be placed into the images live for client and agency to see…
Following New York, the team travelled back to London for the final two concepts. A bus was rented to serve as the basis for the ‘Maze’ idea. Photographing the interior in a way that allowed for flexibility in post, the team at Recom farmhouse were able to entirely re-make the bus seat in CGI, allowing the team to design the pattern and maze from scratch.
Now at the final location for the ‘basketball’ concept, the model maker arrived with a perfectly aged (complete with PS5 logo ) basket-style dustbin to add to the sense of reality that was key throughout the campaign as a whole. Set up during the day, Nick and crew waited for twilight to capture that late summer-evening feeling in the shot – the balance that you get as the sun fades and the street lamps come alive.
With the basketball court pre-made in CGI and overlayed on set, the composition could be made and adjusted in real time.
PHOTOGRAPHER
@Nick Meek
PRODUCTION
@WREN Agency
@Team Halprin
@Vinita Dave, Producer
@Dan Halprin, Producer
@Sarah Verstraete, Associate Producer
@Sneha Fictner, Production Assistant
@Quan Robinson, Production Assistant
@Yasser Fouad, Production Assistant
@Brooklyn Adebowale, Production Assistant
ADVERTISING AGENCY
@ADAM&EVEDDB
CREATIVE DIRECTORS
@Paula Hochberg
@Mike Sutherland
@Ant Nelson
CREATIVES
@Gaby Grant
@Jane Barker
AGENCY
@Lily Henry, Account Director
@Amy Holden, Account Manager
@Hazel Corstens, Producer
PHOTO TEAM
@Roger Richards
@Tom Stewart
@Peter Hepplewhite
@Sam Jupp
@Laimonas Stasiulis
@Rita Ade
@David Jaffe
@Daveed Turek
LOCATION
@LOCATE PRODUCTIONS
@John Alflatt, Location Manager
@Darren Pratt, Location Manager
@Ernest Liberati, Location Manager
POST PRODUCTION + CGI
@RECOM FARMHOUSE
@Christoph Bolten