Elle Men

VR with Wallace Huo

A big step for the mens magazine and in fact for Hearst Media.

Director / VFX Supervisor

the Premise

To create a unique futuristic issue featuring the famous personality Wallace Huo. He would be on the cover, inside in a spread, and we would attach google VR glasses to each copy (the actual film would be online). And just so it wouldn’t be too easy, we would have the Photo Shoot at the same time as shooting the VR! He was to represent the “Man of Today”, businessman, creative (architect) and suave actor. Coolness was important.

Production

We started weeks in advance to create a story, quickly arriving on one in which Wallace plays several parts himself. There was a bad guy that he got the better of, a couple of pretty girls that were into him, etc. We would follow him from his hotel room all the way to a studio.

Then reality set in, Huo would not be there the 3 days intended, but rather just 1 (and he would leave around dinner time).  It seemed his agent didn’t want him stressing about learning too many lines so that was likely part of it.  The magazine decided to let him do it all in voice over, which was probably a blessing as it turned out.

Ellemen publisher (left) with Evan working out blocking

Instead of a lot of movement between several rooms as originally envisioned, with this very short schedule I decided to place our Red camera at the center and have him act around it in 3 zones.  This would be first recorded and timed out so he could have at least some relationship with his other selves.  Everything went very well and we got him out by 5pm.

nodal mount for the single Red camera

Post was tricky of course, this kind of thing always is. We had to seem the 3 parts plus ceiling and floor together. Many hours to get it seamless.

The resulting video above (in a small version) is meant to be played in a VR headset or at least on a vr app. The distortion disappears when viewed correctly. Be sure and watch after the credits…

behind the scenes
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