Ad 3: DVS Shoes 'Echo' Commercials

Next up, an advert by DVS skate shoes. Love these ads, there are a few in the series, but this one is my favourite for a couple of reasons. The effect of having the same person carrying out the same movements repeatedly, on screen multiple times in the same shot is created using rotoscoping in After Effects, creating a mask around the skater and then layering him several times over the background with staggered starting points. The first trick in this advert is particularly impressive, as having things moving in the background, in this case the cars, makes it a lot harder to do the masking. The second trick on the handrail is actually three different tricks, making it even more impressive visually. The shot crabs left to right on this, and to have the three different tricks while having the camera moving would've involved using motion control to precisely control the camera movements, which I don't think was the case here, i think they simply moved the finished footage slowly left to right in post production to create the effect of the camera moving. It's an effective advert, although there's no emphasis placed on the products sold by DVS (skate shoes), this is usually the case with video adverts in skateboarding, the print adverts generally being the place specific products are featured more strongly. Video adverts tend to try to portray a high standard of skateboarding but in a different and more interesting visual format than it is presented in a standard skateboard film. As someone who'd be in the target audience for this advert I can say it's effective. Most people interested in skateboarding are usually into watching/filming skating, so anything new and different will create discussion, and more than likely will have people starting to try to emulate the effects themselves in their own work.