In the newest version of the popular “Rock Band” game, The Beatles come back to life to recreate some of their biggest hits. Promoting the game was a 30-second and 60-second commercial featuring video footage of the Beatles recreating their famous Abbey Road photograph, and highlight the work of Smoke & Mirrors New York. There’s no video of that famous shot, so the entire scene was recreated both physically and digitally using almost every tool Autodesk offers.
For example, there was no archive footage available of Harrison and Lennon sporting the same shoulder-length hair, heavy beards, and mustaches as on the cover. There was also no archive footage available of McCartney with the same clean-shaven, short hairstyle from the cover.
“This meant using heavy camera tracking, distortion, rotoscoping, and virtually every Flame tool we had to do the head reps, and take mustaches, beards, and extra hair and graft them onto the Beatles' heads. We also had to consider subtle facial muscle movements before we added the hair,” Seresin says. “The illusion had to be totally credible because viewers would know if it rang true or not.”
via How Smoke & Mirrors New York brought The Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover to life.
McCartneys short hair style? I think you need your eyes checked! How about Lennon’s neato Black suit?