What would be your favourite car to model?

I love modelling cars I will never afford, it gives me a tiny sense of ownership :) Performance cars are really appealing to me, they usually have amazing designs. If I had the time, I would really like to model the new Jaguar XK 4.2 because that car is impossibly beautiful, no matter from which angle you look at it.

Did you model cars specifically for the tracker ad, or did you use ones you'd already made?

We made use of cars I had already made. Not all of my cars were approved by the client, for various reasons. The client really wanted nondescript vehicles, some cosmetic changes were made, we swapped tyres, removed logos, etc. but at the end of the day, an Audi TT will always look like an Audi TT.

Going back to previous work, did you use the full Sasquatch for the rabbit's fur in the Clover ad?

Yes we did. SasLite was just not capable of handling that job. We ran into some difficulties with Sasquatch though, especially when upgrading from version 1.5 to 1.7. Settings were just lost, for no reason. I really hope we get an upgraded fur solution for LightWave soon.

Was there a set built for the ad? How much of the rabbit's warren was CG?

The warren was a miniature set, not a CG one. We did build some proxy objects for the bunny to interact with, like the chair that rocks back and forth when he jumps into it. That was a proxy object with the static footage camera projected onto the geometry.

Was the set for the Clover ad built in-house?

No, a modelling company that specializes in miniatures was hired by the agency to construct the set. Brendon and myself visited them while they built the warren, it was great to see our real world counterparts in action.

The Hyundai ad with the cutaway sections seems to involve an awful lot of hand-placing items. Was that the case?

The CG car was relatively simple to track in, as it was a static object. The actor was another story altogether. All the objects had to be hand animated . The car was my main responsibility, but I did work on two of the actor's shots, so I know my colleagues' pain - we still need a group hug from time to time :)

The agency went as far as asking us to cutaway the actor's watch, which was a blur most of the time. That also had to be tracked by hand.

What are you working on now?

We are doing R&D on an upcoming commercial that Brendon will be directing. We can't say too much about it, there will be action, adventure, DANGER ..... and an Easter Bunny, all set in an "Incredibles"-inspired jungle.