Andy Glass on Solving Scale, Shadows, and Surreal Sets Through Meticulous Pre-Viz

Photographer and CGI Director Andy Glass finds that the most crucial part of a project often happens long before shoot day. After receiving the brief for a campaign with Zoetis, Andy knew it would require the right partnerships to ensure that the creative was executed as the brand and agency intended. He brought in POP Creative Studio to handle the CGI and post-production needs. 

With the complexity of the visuals needed, Andy and POP used a hybrid approach that delivered both realism and control, ensuring that every lighting angle, shadow, and scale felt convincing. The meticulous work done during pre-viz made it possible for the shoot to run on schedule and budget. There was 3D planning that locked in camera position, lighting, scale, and composition to make the integration of the photography and CG seamless. The final images are a fusion of tactile realism and technical accuracy.

The final images are a convincing blend of real and CG elements. How did you decide which parts would be photographed and which would be created in CGI?

Andy Glass: The egg, scaffolding, and environment were all CGI, while the chick and the workers were photographed. We didn’t have the budget to create a CG chick, that is incredibly complicated because of the detail in the feathers. A real chick just looks more convincing. The same goes for people: their clothing creases, gestures, and small performances are hard to replicate convincingly in CGI. The egg, however, was deeply integrated with the scaffolding, so it made more sense to create that digitally and light everything together in one render. That’s how you get the shadows and the integration to feel seamless.

POP Creative Studio: One of the main challenges was balancing scale and realism, particularly the relationship between the people and the hero subjects. Too small, and the individuals, their roles, and the equipment would get lost. Too big, and the charm and storytelling would fall flat. We also had the added complexity of building the chick from stock imagery, with baked-in lensing and lighting that needed to be carefully adjusted to match to the rest of the scene. Finding that sweet spot was key to creating a seamless integration across all the elements, and conveying the range of skills, tools, and tasks involved, while still communicating the scientific process Zoetis wanted to highlight within the hatchery environment.

You’ve said the real magic of this shoot happened before the shoot day. Can you explain the role pre-viz played?

Andy Glass: Pre-viz is everything on a job like this. It’s where we answer the big questions: Where is the camera? What’s the lens? What’s the lighting direction? We built a 3D pre-viz model to map out composition and scale, even down to the average height of the people. That allowed us to plan the scaffolding layout logically, so it looked like something you could actually climb, and make sure the proportions between the giant egg and the tiny workers felt right. It also helped us nail details like shadow contact points and ambient occlusion, which are crucial for integrating photographed people into a CG environment.

POP Creative Studio: Pre-viz is essential in multi-element compositions like this, especially when combining photography with CGI. With the physical studio space smaller than the intended scene, we used pre-viz to lock in lensing, camera height, scaffold design, and key placement of the people. It’s both a creative and technical process, where we effectively reverse-engineer the camera angles and distances to ensure the setup can be physically achieved in Andy’s studio. It also gives agency creatives and clients a chance to visualise the entire scene upfront, while serving as a technical blueprint on shoot day. That level of planning allowed Andy to focus on directing performance and lighting, knowing the perspective and interactions were already aligned with the pre-approved CGI.

Once you had the pre-viz, how did that affect the shoot itself?

Andy Glass: The goal is to solve as much as possible in pre-viz so that shoot day is focused on performance. In this case, the photography was pretty straightforward; we shot the people in my London studio against scaffolding we built there. Because we already knew the angles, lighting quality, and composition, I could concentrate on capturing natural performances and making sure we had variation. It also helped with scale. We used bipeds in the pre-viz that matched average male and female heights, and then fine-tuned by eye when compositing. That’s much easier than trying to calculate everything on set.

What stands out to you about this project in terms of creative problem-solving, especially given the hybrid real/CG approach?

POP Creative Studio: Every talent pose, tool, and prop had to make sense, not just visually, but in relation to real hatchery workflows. We weren’t just designing a conceptual image; it had to represent an actual technical process, told within a stylised world. That meant layering in storytelling and giving each character a clear purpose, whether they were walking into frame, climbing scaffolding, or inspecting the egg. Each action was carefully chosen to reflect a specific scientific task, and to keep the poses varied and interesting across both visuals. The creative challenge was making it all feel intentional, accurate, and full of life.

What was the most challenging part of the project?

Andy Glass: Getting the scale and integration just right. We essentially built an 80-foot egg and surrounded it with tiny people. It’s very easy to get scale wrong when you’re working across real and CG elements, and if it’s off even slightly, the viewer will question the image. The pre-viz helped immensely with that. 

POP Creative Studio: With final delivery requiring assets that would hold up to 12K resolution, surface realism and accuracy were critical. Every CGI element, whether it was the Dewar tank, trolley, thaw bath, or subcutaneous vaccinator, they were all modelled by eye using photographic references. That meant a lot of careful analysis to extract measurements, materials, and subtle form details so we could replicate each piece as closely as possible to Zoetis’s real scientific equipment. The hero egg surface was created using a scanned photographic texture of a real egg, to give it a believable shell pattern at scale, with enough micro detail to withstand close-up crops and large format usage. 

How was the collaboration with POP on this project?

Andy Glass: They were fantastic. POP built the CG egg and scaffolding based on our sketches and iterated with us on composition and structure. They trusted me on the photography side, and we didn’t even have the client or agency on set which allowed us to focus and try things. That trust and positivity from them made the whole process a pleasure.