Daydreamer VFX Teams up with Hotspring for Dynamic Cupra Ad

Decentralised VFX model comes of age for the latest campaign

Daydreamer VFX, led by VFX supervisor Pete Rypstra, has pulled together a world class team of collaborators including Hotspring to deliver the highly accomplished Cupra ‘Formentor’ commercial from agency &Rosas, Directed by Nicolás Méndez aka CANADA. It is an example of just how much can be achieved by pulling together the best talent – wherever they are located.

As a small, newly formed but powerful VFX team, Daydreamer had to commit to a new model for delivering a job of this scale. Working across previs, concept, matte painting, roto, tracking, clean up, CG, comp and grade all under the usual time pressure is a big ask for any studio, but by assembling bespoke teams working remotely, they surpassed expectations and delivered an uncompromised piece of work. 

With the director based in Barcelona, drop in Zoom calls enabled daily updates and briefs with the core team and even the grade was completed remotely, with The Mill’s Tom Mangham working via TVIPs while the Director was in session from Metropolitana in Barcelona. With very low central overheads, no commuting costs and no studio space to pay for, Daydreamer were able to put that value back into the project, leveraging technology to link the teams together and manage the workflow.

Watch Dynamic Cupra Ad

The project had significant amounts of roto, paint and tracking and for this, Daydreamer worked with Hotspring, the US based talent platform that is transforming the way VFX work is outsourced. By using Hotspring to get competitive bids and bringing all the communication and data movement into one place it simplified the whole process. Pete Rypstra says: “Hotspring was invaluable to working this way. It simplified correspondence and gave us competitive prices while working with great vfx teams remotely.”

Jon Mason, CEO at Hotspring adds “This is what we built Hotspring to do – allowing studios of any size to scale quickly and efficiently by tapping into the best talent around the world with just a few clicks. The team at Daydreamer did a great job and we were delighted to be involved”

This new business model for VFX studios, characterised by a core team of experienced VFX artists driving creative, connected through effective technology like AWS, Slack, Zoom, TVIP’s and Hotspring is delivering eye catching results. With massively reduced overheads, scaleable teams and easy communication, companies like Daydreamer are blazing a trail into the future of VFX execution. The decentralisation process is here to stay and the proof is here to see.