A man sits in an empty, half-renovated house, tormented by a voice that confronts him with the realities of his failed attempt at property-flipping.

As he listens to the voice, the anxiety he feels about the debt he has gotten himself into manifests as a rising flood of black oil that smothers him.

The moment he is about to drown, the voice offers him help.

In the end frame, we reveal the voice to be renegade real estate developer and philanthropist Sidney Torres, host of CNBC’s new “harsh reality-TV” show The Deed.

The main challenge for the visual-effects team was matching the viscosity of the two liquids used to represent the oil/blackness that swallows the man.

Because of the need to shoot the entire spot in one day, with numerous resets on the set, we needed to use a substance in the wides that would not leave residue on the production design. Consequently, in the wides, the “oil” was colored water, whereas in the tights, it was dyed pancake syrup.

These two substances behave differently. They have completely different levels of surface tension, and they ripple and break in very different ways.

Matching the two substances seamlessly, in terms of look and behavior, to give consistency across the spot was a mammoth undertaking.