"Invasion" shows a lottery winner pranking his friend with an elaborate alien takeover just to snap an embarrassing photo of his reaction. Light of Day provided the visual effects and post production work on the ad.

In the New York Lottery "Invasion" spot we opted to shoot a large scale model for our alien lander. The model was shot in landing position and pulled up and away by a pulley rig. The frame rate was 60fps and then the film was reversed to give the illusion of it landing. The practical model was actually used in two key shots of the ships landing and crushing a car, and in the final shot when the lander is being lowered onto the truck. Background plates were shot and elements such as soldier aliens emerging were shot on a prebuilt scaffolding with a door scaled to match the dimensions of our model space craft. The interior of the ship was enhanced in post using various military aircraft interiors as reference. For the shots of the craft flying, and the large saucers, we modeled, lit and animated them in Maya. Engine exhaust and flying debris and blowing trees, as well as the car being crushed, were also created in Maya and composited in FLAME. The atmosphere emerging from the ships was shot in camera and augmented using smoke generators and particles in FLAME. The smoke particles were also used to add smoke to one of the principle actors to achieve continuity from shot to shot. There was a great deal of crowd replication for the aliens. There were 20 aliens including 5 of them being principles in makeup. The designs for the aliens, the costuming and weaponry were conceived and developed by in house artists at Light of Day two weeks prior to shooting. The nature of the shoot and location, precluded the use of green screen so there was a great deal of rotoscoping that had to be dealt with. Plates of soldiers were shot in various positions and roto’d and joined in FLAME. The shot of the car explosion was deemed too anemic in terms of the explosion so Light of Day enhanced it with CG elements such as fire and debris and with lighting effects. We also added the barrels to the alien weaponry in post to give them a feel of energy and menace.