“I first met Surachai, owner of the famed Illusion CGI Studio, at the Spikes Asia judging session in 2009. I was very impressed by his professionalism – beyond the skills of art and craft, he was looking at how these elements helped to make the idea better. I knew I had to work with Surachai, and Illusion someday.

Two years later, the right opportunity came along. The agency came up with a wonderful print idea that best demonstrate the torture test for Samsonite suitcases - where passengers receiving ‘heavenly’ treatments during the flight, we see their suitcases undergoing ‘hellish’ torture throughout the journey.

We love this thought a lot, and put together our most senior Art Directors to bring out the best in this idea. he team explored various executional options - from Renaissance oil painting to classical stained glass effect, but all turned out rather flat, we finally decided on creating a Greco-Roman Hellenistic sculptural style, where the characters are more vivid, and the narrative relief scenes allows better storytelling.

We shared it with Illusion and Surachai fell in love with it instantly. That was the beginning of a beautiful and meaningful partnership.

What I respect about Illusion is that they didn’t just take our layout and references wholesale, they went on to do a lot more and deeper research on the Roman styles, studying their portraiture, architecture and understanding their construct to develop the perfect frieze for this project.

We would discuss regularly over the phone, email
and even faxes. To develop a richer and better storyline, every detailing and how best to showcase the product in a rather busy environment. They would consider different angles so viewers will see all sides of the product that would feature twelve times from left to right of the layout.

How can one not like working with them for their passion and professionalism. After spending a few weeks on the initial studies and alignment with the agency, they started working on the relief, lighting, figure and character design.

The positioning of the elements in the layering, each and every character’s facial expression and body movements, the lighting from above for the ‘heaven’ layer against the ‘evil’ lighting casted from the underworld were all considered as they start building them in 3D. They shot a muscular guy to use as reference for the best result possible to get the most natural muscle structure and body movement to work with during rendering.

By the end of the five weeks CGI production, Illusion and JWT were one team, the open conversations and trust allows no room for any ego, but only respect for each others’ passion, commitment to perfection and the love for creativity. It was pure and sweet. Winning the Press Grand Prix at Cannes in 2011 was a great way to close this project but more importantly, the respect and friendship we’ve earned will be cherished for a lot longer.”