Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix
McAfee Secure sites help keep you safe from identity theft, credit card fraud, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams
Chris Higgins
McDonald’s Food Created Using CGI
by Chris Higgins - July 22, 2009 - 4:54 PM

So let’s say you’re making a commercial for McDonald’s. Want to make the burger look its very best, even after a few hours of filming? Worried about the lettuce wilting under hot lights, or ice melting before you can get a beautiful shot of the meal? Well, here’s an idea…why not reconstruct the food digitally? By modeling the entire meal in 3D, animators can recreate a simulacrum of food that looks just as appealing, and there’s no pesky reality to interfere. The only problem comes when you realize that the tantalizing real/fake/real food is just a computer’s invention, and a sort of gustatory uncanny valley sets in.

Have a look at this TV spot using 3D modeled McDonald’s food. As creator Bruce Banit writes:

This is a recent spot we completed in June for Bernstein Rein Advertising.

As you will see, this is an entirely CGI spot. We used photo modeling techniques for the fries and the Big Mac. The fry box, Dr. Pepper, ice, bubbles, smoke, straw, environment, etc are all entirely CGI.

McDonald’s Versus from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

(Via Kottke.org.)

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Comments (10)

  1. Probably tastes much better than the real stuff.

    posted by PartiallyDeflected on 7-22-2009 at 11:18 pm

  2. I don’t see how it could be much different, seeing as how there is as much synthetic stuff in the real thing as there is in that CGI.

    posted by Izaak on 7-23-2009 at 12:28 am

  3. [insert not-so-clever joke about the quality of McDonald's food]

    posted by Craig on 7-23-2009 at 9:28 am

  4. The worst thing about this commercial has nothing to do with the food – it’s the words! “…go perfect together”? Should be perfectly, idiots! Learn the English language!

    posted by English Teacher on 7-23-2009 at 10:14 am

  5. They couldn’t just have a couple of stunt-double Big Mac’s, fries, and Dr. Pepper laying around the set to shoot a commercial? Does it really take that long shoot a commercial where you have to worry about wilting lettuce? (Did they use heat lamps to light up the set?). I kind of understand melting ice. By the way, it’s nice to see Dr. Pepper in the spotlight in a McDonald’s commercial. No Coke or Pepsi.

    posted by Bihner on 7-23-2009 at 10:39 am

  6. Isn’t this illegal? I seem to remember reading not so long ago about food stylists whose job it was to take the exact food being served/sold and making sure it looked positively mouth-watering for advertising purposes. All this done because of some regulation requiring actual product be used in advertising. (i.e. they use elmer’s glue for milk on cereal boxes, because they are not selling milk, but they must use the actual cereal (even if it means sifting through thousands of individual flakes to find the most appealing ones))

    Or does that only apply to photos on product packaging?

    posted by EMStoveken on 7-23-2009 at 10:56 am

  7. The fries don’t look real, especially at the begining. The rest looks real.

    posted by k on 7-23-2009 at 12:57 pm

  8. Coming from someone who works with commercial CG on a daily basis, understand that the method these guys are working in is closer to a “photographic” technique than a CG technique. The only thing “rendered” using lights in scene appears to be the doctor pepper…and as far as “real or fake” just know that most product shots you’ll ever see don’t represent anything CLOSE to the reality of what you’re purchasing…it’s been that way since well before I was born anyway.

    posted by Eric on 7-23-2009 at 2:04 pm

  9. I wish I could make 3D that looked that good. :D

    posted by eBac on 7-23-2009 at 2:14 pm

  10. I think the Dr. Pepper looks especially amazing…I like how the drop slides down the side of the glass…totally makes me crave a DP!

    posted by Kelsey on 7-23-2009 at 2:45 pm

Comment

commenting policy