The 35,000 people that packed into the Mercedez-Benz Arena Stuttgart to watch the 2015 Mercedes Stars & Cars came to look at fancy cars and famous people. However, they had the pleasure of watching a film filled with outstanding graphics and captivating design that opened the show. They may not have appreciated the talent and commitment that went into making the film, but they definitely appreciated it as a whole.
Russian-born senior motion graphics designer Ilya Tselyutin is recognized worldwide as a talent in his field. His resume is extensive, having worked with some of the world’s largest brands, and receiving nominations and awards along the way.
One of these projects includes the Mercedes Planet Won, a one-minute long TV spot produced for Mercedes in order to celebrate victory of Mercedes Formula 1 team. The film starred the Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton. The spot was initially broadcasted as an opening sequence of Mercedes Stars & Cars at their 2015 show at the Mercedes-Benz Arena Stuttgart with 35,000 visitors. The spot was broadcasted on German TV channels on Sunday prime time and distributed via Mercedes Benz official social media.
“It was like a dream. This project involved the best professionals from all over Europe working both on-site and remotely,” described Tselyutin, who was the senior motion graphics designer at Parasol Island at the time.
Tselyutin worked alongside Philip Hansen. Hansen has co-founded and currently manages the award-winning agency Parasol Island, in Dusseldorf, Germany. He has 10 years of experience in film industry, and is a member and speaker of German Commercial Film Academy (Deutsche Werbefilmakademie). He has worked with Kylie Minogue, Giorgio Moroder, and the Formula One World Champion Louis Hamilton.
“Ilya is considered a top of the line motion graphics artist in our industry. He proved to be very competent throughout his employment at Parasol Island and particularly in the development of the Mercedes Planet Won project,” said Hansen. “It was a challenging large-scale task and we had to meet extremely tight deadline to produce animation for the show in time. As a lead artist of this production Ilya had a very good understanding of the task and designed an initial set of styleframes in the approved 70’ s cyber punk style. Ilya always seems to have great awareness of new creative strategies and technology, thus he developed a special rendering technique that allowed us to save time on the production. As a creative director on this project I worked closely with Ilya, seeking his professional advice whenever we received clients’ feedback. He worked tirelessly to achieve the best possible results and had a great sense of what the client wanted.”
For Tselyutin, it was an honor to work alongside Hansen, who he describes as one of the “best creative directors in Germany.”
“Working with him always means delivering high standard of animation. He was involved in all stages of production including filming and post-production guiding the team through the whole process. His attention to details never seized to amaze. He gave critical feedback throughout the project but at the same time he always took into consideration other suggestions,” said Tselyutin. “Philip succeeded in building the best team I could have asked for. These were very intense four weeks of production, we barely had any weekend off. Our film department was shooting the Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton in London, while we at the animation department were working on post-production in Germany. We knew from the very beginning that we were very short on time so everyone was doing their best.”
The project had the whole team at their best. Work began only a month before the deadline, which Tselyutin describes as an extremely tight timeline to produce a one-minute full CGI spot. The spot was to broadcast at the planned Mercedes Stars & Cars show and with 35,000 tickets sold so there was no way the deadline could be pushed.
“Our client had very high expectations and we were aiming to deliver the best we could in a very short period of time,” said Tselyutin.
Despite the success of the project and the recognition it brought him, Tselyutin believes one of the best parts about the experience was highly multicultural environment. The team consisted of members from Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, the USA, the United Kingdom, and Russia.
“We never had any problems communicating with each other yet there were some certain cultural differences I learned about some countries,” he said.
“I liked working in a team of highly skilled professionals that was put together for this project,” Tselyutin concluded. “This is the kind of project any designer would be happy to work on as it is the combination of a great concept, amazing client and high level of creativity.”