LIGHT UP WISCONSIN
Wisconsin Lottery
We brought the neon nightlife vibes and turned up the voltage on a campaign to light up Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Lottery had some stellar deals in the works and it was only fitting to start throwing the party a little early. Our vast display of neon signs celebrates the top games from the Wisconsin Lottery while delivering a colorful blast of light to every future ticket holder.
Look at all the Pretty Lights
Our process began with a few questions — What makes a great-looking neon sign? How do we elevate the details to make the neon signs blaze through the darkness? How do you make each sign festive, yet observed and grounded in reality? Our answers emerged with the addition of details beyond the colored light. We considered the textured glass, the supporting structures and the atmospheric space around the light to turn up nightlife and excitement.
Practical Neon LIght
We wanted to make our neon signs industrial and hot. This meant we had to dig deep into the details and imperfections of neon lighting to make them feel more real. The glass refracting the light might be slightly dusty as it warps the hue or saturation of color. This helps give rise to slight variations in the quality of light from bulb to bulb. The light itself might flicker or have gaps in the intensity as neon power surges through each part of the scene.
Industrial Structures
Light doesn’t do much on its own unless it has something to hit and illuminate. So we constructed an atmospheric, industrial environment. Our floor became black concrete which breaks up the reflections, giving them some grit. Metal structures with plates, power chords and beams were bolted to our neon lights to give them weight, anchoring them in the space. Then we pumped our digital air with some light fog to give each glowing bulb that nightlife ambience.
From Scribbles to Woah!
We used styleboards to visualize a drone camera flying through our industrial neon set. Our style boards captured the essential information while providing a spirit of this camera motion. We quickly sketched out variations on light structures that best supported the message and identity of the Wisconsin Lottery. With the larger details out of the way, our 3d team could spend more time refining the rough ideas to make it look awesome.
Piecing it together
We built out one continuous digital set for our camera to fly through. Each neon structure had to build on the one that came before it. This massive industrial room became our stage as we filled it with neon lights that animated in festive patterns and gestures. Production was all about stitching together these scenes and making the light an active character throughout each sign.
We loved working with Wisconsin Lottery to make a rich, dark and colorful party come to life with their best lottery games. It was the rich flourishes and atmosphere that brought each frame to life. Our process on this project started well before this collaboration when we made our Make Original, Procedural Light. This is a work where we honed our digital tools and experimented with light and how it behaves with different materials. Procedural Light became the research and development that directly contributed to the unique look we were able to achieve with our Light Up Wisconsin Campaign. Check it out here.
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