Imaginary vodka – used for self-promo by Transparent House

Can you use some imaginary product to self-promo? International creative studio Transparent House answered yes, with a TV spot for Blazing Dragonfly Vodka. Blazing Dragonfly is an imaginary brand, conceived by studio principal and co-founder Denis Krylov, principal/strategist Krista Mollion and their colleagues as a platform for colorfully presenting their company's creative and production capabilities.

Based in San Francisco and specializing in the creation of stunning 3D assets, TH also operates full-service studios in Moscow and Berlin, allowing them to offer both creative development and production services around the clock.

Widely recognized in the world of high-end architecture for their painstaking visualizations, including their work on the Van Zandt Hotel Penthouse project for San Franciso's Hornberger + Worstell that was named the Best Image in the 2008 international Architectural 3D Awards, TH also does extremely impressive branding/advertising visualization work for many of the world's top consumer brands, industrial design firms and agencies.

When it comes to telling our story to the world (…) we are often limited by non-disclosure agreements that forbid us from sharing many of our most prestigious and impressive projects.  So, we decided to come up with a concept for a fake brand to show our capabilities in creative solutions.  We wanted to make it short and entertaining, while trying to keep viewers' attentions on our very elaborate 3D animation work.

Krista Mollion

The project started with the idea of creating a series of commercials highlighting innovative brands that can use digital technology to their advantage (…) We decided on the dragonfly concept because it is a very sophisticated 3D object that requires advanced technical skill to build, which makes it perfect for demonstrating the CG capabilities of Transparent House.

Denis Krylov

TH's artists used Autodesk 3Ds Max to model and animate the dragonfly, beginning with a low-poly draft model and then adding more detail.  FumeFX was used for fire simulation, and the animation was rendered using Chaos Group's V-Ray.  That output was composited together in Adobe After Effects, CG particles were generated with Trapcode Particular, and final color was also handled in the TH studios using After Effects.

With offices in San Francisco, Moscow and Berlin, Transparent House is the next-generation creative studio that excels at the intersection of digital, art, and commerce. Specializing in the creation of stunning 3D assets, branded environments and high-end retail developments, it employs strategic digital innovation and 3D for high-profile, future-looking brands. With design and 3D in our DNA, TH is equally adept in creative development as well as production, all of which happens around the clock through the company's interconnected global network. Simply put, our goal is making 3D the spectacular core of your brand's marketing campaigns.