David Boudia makes over 25,000 practice dives a year; which is like diving off the tallest building in the world over 180 times. All of the practice is in anticipation of the one perfect dive when the lights are shining brightest at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

For such a visual-effects-intensive commercial, many techniques were employed, starting with a well-planned shoot. To help plan the shoot, we created a temporary 3-D scene, a model of the Burj Khalifa building, and a digital-double diver to help us previsualize key shots in the film. This allowed for a better understanding of the challenges to come and created a proper workflow for this great spot.

The hero action of the diver was filmed in California against a blue screen. From this footage, post-visualization was created using composites of the diver into 3-D scenes to generate a list of plates and references that needed to be collected in Dubai. In addition to the primary footage, the VFX company shot thousands of still images, notably key HDRI panoramic images from many locations, including the very top antenna of the Burj Khalifa.

These HDRI panoramic images were collated into vast spherical latitude and longitude texture maps that provided backgrounds with immense detail. As these maps covered a full 360-degree field of view, they allowed total freedom for our match-moved cameras that where tracked to the hero diver footage. This method was effective for all the shots of the diver standing on the top of the tower and as backgrounds for several of the falling shots, notably the tumbling POV, which exploited the immersive nature of this technique.

A CG asset of the Burj Khalifa was built with incredible detail to allow both wide shots and close-up angles like the reflection of the diver rippling across the glass, which is one of several fully digital frames utilizing our digital-double diver. The digital-double diver was employed to generate accurate reflection passes and in complex situations such as mid-shot takeovers from real diver footage, thus helping to extend his fall beyond what was captured on film.

In shot 6, where the diver tumbles away from the camera after takeoff, we used Keynote to employ all these techniques. The digital Burj Khalifa sat upon our full 360-degree cyclorama background. The footage of the diver blends seamlessly into our digital double as he tucks into a pike, complete with wet hair and flexing muscles. Further details added to this and other shots were a shimmer in the water of the pool he is diving into, clearly defining it as water after the final golden grade. Matte painting was used to tie elements together, clean up backgrounds and bring the edge of the pool closer to the building, making the trajectory of the diver believable.

The final 2-D composite of shots was done prior to applying the golden grade to the commercial. Despite the extra work this entailed, it allowed a better quality of compositing, more accurately judging how the elements sat together. This was particularly important for the underwater shots, as seeing the original footage was the only way to accurately blend and clean up so many plates. The 2-D team brought the commercial together with final details, such as tiny moving cars on the roads, finely adjusted depth haze and subtle shifts in camera focus.