Fast food franchise comercials all start out the same way. Glorious videos of burgers, fries, and soda, are illustrated in pristine condition. But the rub occurs when your order arrives on your tray, and you are faced with a sloppy burger, soggy fries and well, it’s pretty hard to screw up a cola. Before the computer, fast food franchises would hire specialists to touch up their products, and ensure that they were perfectly displayed. Nowadays, the rules have changed.
McDonalds’ latest commercial for Big Macs, fries and Dr. Pepper, is a masterful work of tight angled, swooping product shots. But things are not as they seem. Bruce Branit, of Branit|vfx, wrote: “our company used photo modeling techniques from a real photograph of a Big Mac and the the fries. The fry box, Dr. Pepper, ice, bubbles, smoke, straw, environment, etc are all entirely CGI. The real reason to do this spot as CGI was to be able to choreograph the camera move in limited time and budget.” That’s right, fast food just got even more fake.
