Late Late Toy Show - Opening 2022

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Final product with the transition into the live broadcast.

Late Late Toy Show Opening Sequence 2022

(Wizard of Oz theme)

This project entailed the recreation of the 'Tornado' sequence from the film, The Wizard Of Of Oz, with a bit of fun thrown in of course! It would act as a sedgeway into the live broadcast of the Late Late Toy Show. The brief for Design was to create the stormy vortex outside as the house crashes to land. We composited various characters outside the window. A full set was built as well as a miniature model of the house. The 'Low-Tech' aspect of the production was key to giving a feel of the mood and atmosphere of the original production.

Shadow Creations and Production Design do some finishing touches to the set. The green markers or 'trackers' allowed us to pin the graphics to the camera moves captured on set. Colourizing the makers a dark green facilitated keying them too for clean up rather than the usual manual rotoscope cleanup. This is Studio 5 in RTE.

Rather than run footage on the LED screens, we decided to use it as green screen with trackers to give maximum flexibility with animations outside the windows. TV production can be extremely quick in execution with most of the work done before and after the actual 'Shoot'.

"The 2 houses were designed by Marcella Power; 1 with a 12 inch base & 1 full size with a removeable wall. They were built by Shadow Creations. The Low-Tech aspect of the shoot included 2 Shadow Creations people hidden under the bed, shaking it, 3 Toy Show researchers outside shaking the pictures through holes in the walls, one designer with fishing line to pull the chair over & another on a ladder to drop leaves when the house landed. The main camera was suspended from the gantry on 2 bungee chords to give a fluid motion. It was a great example of nothing being too much trouble; everyone was completely invested & ready to do whatever it took".

Alan Byrne, Director