Face to Face with... Luc Schurgers

Luc Schurgers and his team at Minivegas recently completed a nice job for new PlayStation 4 title The Last of Us. With a focus and theme in the resulting spot centred on decisions and emotion as the world becomes taken over by zombies, we thought it’d be great to catch up with the founder of the directing collective and creative production company to touch on a deeper level with the director to hear about the job and his company. 

With a full-time staff of 25 people, Minivegas covers various disciplines, from online compositing to 3D and VFX, but also employ developers and designers to deliver fully integrated campaigns. Here Schurgers – represented with Minivegas in the United States by Green Dot Films – explains what went into the PlayStation job, how his collective operates and gambling on success.

Tell us about your new work for PlayStation and what was the brief?

We were approached by 180 Amsterdam for this project and we really liked their ideas. Since the game is a psychological game, it’s much different than many of the other games out there. It really requires you to become the character and it has quite a strong effect. In essence, it changes who you are as you come to think and act like the main character Joel. We tried to visualise this in the commercial. This, and the incredible realism of the game environment, make this spot an absolute winner.

Tell us about the production for the commercial and what you learnt from the experience?

We shot as much as we could in camera, and had five different stages of make-up and deterioration of the set. We blended this together in a subtle way in post. We created a full CG version of the main characters, Ellie and Joel, and pushed the CG through in the final couple of shots. 

What was the biggest challenge, would you say?

There was a short deadline but, fortunately, we had the gaming assets prior to the shoot. That meant we could start post production while we were prepping the shoot. With a company like Naughty Dog and a brand like the Last Of Us, one of our biggest challenges was working with those assets and getting them to a point that matched perfectly with the game footage. As our hero character transitioned into Joel, we wanted the execution to be flawless and keep viewers guessing what was game footage and what was the commercial. We tried quite a few versions of different intensity, and ultimately found out that a very gradual transformation worked the best.

As you say, the work hits on an emotional level. How important was the acting and how did you cast the spot?

We wanted to get an actor with great “micro expressions.” Even though it doesn’t look like he’s doing a lot of acting, it’s very challenging for an actor to convey those precise emotions. We did the production in Amsterdam, but did our casting in London.

You’re obviously big fans of gaming and technology, so this must’ve been the ideal job, right?

We are big fans, indeed. In that respect, yes, this was a dream job. Naughty Dog is one of our favourite developers, and it was great to get to work with their assets and put them into our own environment. We’re doing more and more cool stuff with gaming technology these days. We have two jobs in production where we’re using gaming engines to create real-time and interactive graphics. We can’t really say too much about that just yet, but they are going to be awesome when they come out.

How do you decide who takes on a job and whether it’s suited to that particular talent within the group?

Every job is a team effort at Minivegas, and we’re pleased to have all the disciplines required to do this type of work in-house, but usually the producers look at the boards and they put the appropriate team together. The nice thing about working with a team is that you get to know each other’s strengths. That way, you can make the smartest decisions during the production.

And you’re doing a bit of music installation, too. Tell us about that…

Yes. We’re currently finishing a Kinect-driven and interactive music installation for Sonos. We’ve always had a love for music and really like to create responsive graphics. You’ll see it in the next few weeks…

Where do you find inspiration away from the advertising industry?

Personally, I like to be out in nature. I’ve spent too many years in front of the computer. I tend to get better ideas when running along the beach than trolling through blogs. I also like visiting galleries and obscure art shows, which is much better than watching ads on TV.

Where did the name Minivegas come from and how long have you been working together?

The name is borrowed from an abandoned gambling shack in the south of England; a place where many people lost their well earned pennies to penny pushers and the like. I really like the contradiction, since there is nothing “mini” about the real Vegas. The name seemed relevant at the time, as it’s always a bit of a gamble to work with new companies. Fortunately, many agencies liked the way we gamble, and we’ve been busy ever since we opened.

In Europe we’ve been working together for over seven years, but we just opened this year here in the US. The Old Spice Mr. Wolfdog campaign that we did in January was our first production done over here.

And can you tell us about any upcoming projects? 

Yes! We just finished another project for Sony VITA for 180, we’re doing a rebranding for Kanal 5, a big interactive project for Toyota, an integrated TV and web campaign for Shelter Pet Project, and a bunch of TV spots for Rafaello. We also just delivered a pretty absurd commercial for Kisscool, a French breath mint that features a two-headed, 4 meter long dog.